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Updated: June 1, 2025
I love you, Rhanto! You are my last love; the flower which blooms in the winter of my life! I love you, Rhanto! I have loved you since that day when I saw you revealed like a goddess. Live and let me be your Erotion!" The girl, her face clouded by the shadow of death, smiled, murmuring: "Actæon, good Greek, thank you, thank you!"
Actæon smiled at the strong, handsome young folks who ever sought each other's company and frolicked as if they were in the heart of the desert, giving no heed to the danger threatening the city. "But what about your art?" he asked. Erotion and Rhanto laughed at the recollection. "I smashed the figure to pieces," said the boy.
Actæon envied the felicity of these care-free youths, who loved each other frankly, living beneath the trees, strong and beautiful as wild creatures who had no thoughts beyond their companionship. "Saguntum is about to be attacked. War is at our gates. Did you not know it?" "We have not heard of it," said Erotion, with a scornful gesture. "I am interested in nothing but Rhanto."
Rhanto, content with this new situation, so blinded by joy that she could not see the anguish and misery which the town endured, pulled her lover away in moments of combat, snatched the bow from his hands, and dragging him from the battlements, they hid beneath the hollow of a stairway at the foot of the rampart, and made love with fresh ardor, their pleasure seeming the more intense because threatened by the singing arrows and the cries and exclamations of pain and fury overhead.
Rhanto spoke of the terrible situation of the slaves with the naturalness of a creature accustomed from birth to witnessing such severities. "In winter," she continued, "I go to the mountain with my father, and I await with impatience the coming of the season when my mistress will return to the villa, and I can come down to the plain where there are flowers.
Travel without haste; youth is on time whenever it arrives. We shall meet again in the city." "May the gods protect you, stranger," replied Rhanto. "If you need anything you will find me in the Forum where I have to sell these cheeses and some others which were brought in the farmer's cart at dawn." "Farewell, Athenian! Speak to my father, but do not tell him with whom you saw me."
"Rhanto is a slave, but perhaps some day she will not be. I am free; my father is Mopsus, a Greek from Rhodes, and the chief archer of Saguntum. He came from there with no other fortune than his bow and arrows, and now he is rich, since his recent expedition against the Turdetani, and he figures as the first in the militia of the city. I work in the pottery for Sónnica, who is very fond of me.
Actæon, quieting the animals, approached cautiously with bow ready to draw, and as he parted the curtain of leaves he saw in the centre of an open space enclosed by the trees his two friends Rhanto and Erotion. The boy was seated on the ground before a pile of red clay which he was carefully modeling, wrinkling his brow, and whistling intently.
She went everywhere escorted by Erotion and Rhanto. Life in the narrow limits, and a community of danger, had drawn her to the two children, and they followed in her wake listening to her words with enthusiastic smiles, and applauding the rich woman's warlike suggestions. Rhanto was no longer a shepherdess.
Then she grew faint, and fixing her enormous, frightened eyes on the Greek, she exclaimed: "You! Is it you?" "Do you recognize me?" "Yes, you are the Athenian; you are my master; the lover of Sónnica the rich. Tell me, where is Erotion?" The Greek did not know how to answer, but Rhanto continued speaking without awaiting his reply.
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