THE HUNGRY CITY
The trireme conveying the Roman legates had been on her voyage more than fifteen days.
She had sailed up the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea; she had then crossed the Sea of Liguria, bound by abrupt coasts, and had passed before Massilia, the prosperous Grecian colony, also allied to Rome. Then, audaciously crossing the broad gulf, she had turned her prow toward Emporion, and had skirted the coasts of Iberia.
The ambassadors from Rome were the patricians Valerius Flaccus, one of those who desired to maintain the peace with prudent words, and Bæbius Tamphilus who enjoyed the love of the Roman plebs because of his sympathy for their sufferings.
Actæon displayed impatience to reach Saguntum. He wished to confer with his friends and avoid the useless sacrifice of the city, explaining to them the mood of Rome so that they should not persist in a useless defense. For seven months Saguntum had held out in strenuous resistance. Autumn had not yet commenced when Hannibal's army had appeared before the city, and it was now near the end of winter.
The Greek reflected sadly upon the fond illusions he had cherished while making his adventurous and perilous way to Rome. He had hoped that his presence in the great city, and his story of the sufferings of the faithful ally, would arouse the Romans, and that the legions would shout for vengeance——but he was returning without soldiers, in a ship with ambassadors feigning interest in Saguntum but not deeply moved by her misfortunes——returning without other support than high-sounding, impotent words, and a bronze wolf on the end of a staff proclaiming the dignity of the embassy.
What of the enthusiastic and credulous multitude fighting on the walls, filling the yawning breach with their unflinching breasts, and who to gather fresh courage only needed to imagine the coming of the Romans!——What would they say? Then, with a sudden turn of thought, what of Sónnica, she so brave, sending him that he might save the city! How could she, accustomed to a life of luxury and ease, live in the misery and horror of that siege, which had endured until the stores of the city must be consumed, and the energy of its defenders exhausted!
The ship left the mouth of the Ebro, and struggling against contrary winds, at length, one morning, sighted the Acropolis of Saguntum. From the tall tower of Hercules shot up a cloud of smoke in greeting! They had recognized the vessel by the square rigging of the Roman men-of-war.
The sun was in the zenith when the ship, with reefed sails, and driven by the triple bank of oars, stood into the channel which gave entrance to the port of Saguntum. Within the harbor, above the reeds waving in the marshes, rose the masts of Carthaginian vessels anchored in the triple port.
The crew of the Roman ship beheld great troops of horsemen galloping along the beach. They were squadrons of Numidians and Mauritanians, waving their lances and uttering war cries as when charging in battle.
One horseman, with bronze armor and uncovered head, had called to them to heave to. Advancing alone, he urged his horse into the channel, approaching the ship until the waters rose to the animal's belly.
Actæon recognized him.
"That is Hannibal," he said to the two legates standing beside him on the poop, who were watching with astonishment the bellicose character of their reception before they had even cast anchor in the port of Saguntum.
Fresh squadrons continued to arrive, as if the news of the coming ship had spread alarm through the camp, attracting all the troops to the port. Behind the cavalry came the fierce Celtiberians at full speed, the Balearic slingers, all the foot-soldiers, of diverse races who figured in the besieging army.
Hannibal, even at the risk of drowning, pressed his horse forward into the waters of the channel to make himself heard on the ship, and ordering them to stop he held up his hand so imperiously that in an instant the oars dropped motionless along the hull.
"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked in Greek.
Actæon interpreted between the Romans and the Carthaginian chief.
"They are legates from Rome, coming to see you in the name of the Republic."
"Who are you, speaking to me in a voice that I seem to know?"
He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked keenly until he recognized the Greek.
"Is it you, Actæon? Always you, restless Athenian! I thought you were within the city, yet you have managed to slip away to bring these men to me. Well and good! Tell them it is too late. Why waste words? A chieftain who lays siege to a city only receives ambassadors after he is inside the walls."
The Greek repeated Hannibal's words to the Romans, translating their replies.
"Listen, African!" said Actæon to Hannibal. "The envoys from Rome remind you of the friendship which they have contracted with Saguntum. In the name of the Senate and the Roman people they call upon you to raise the siege and to respect the city."
"Tell them that Saguntum has offended me, and that she was first in declaring war by sacrificing my friends and by refusing to respect my allies, the Turdetani."
"That is not true, Hannibal."
"Greek, repeat what I say to the Romans."
"The legates wish to land. They must speak to you in the name of Rome."
"It is useless. They cannot make me desist from my enterprise. Moreover, the siege has lasted long, the troops are excited and a camp like mine, composed of ferocious peoples from many countries, who are only restrained when in my presence, is no safe place for ambassadors from Rome. We had a battle only a few hours ago, and they are still fuming with wrath."
As he said this he turned toward his troops, and, as if taking the movement for an order, or perhaps divining in the eyes of their chieftain his hidden purpose, they advanced into the water as if to attack by swimming against the ship. Horsemen threatened with lances still dyed in the blood of recent battle; they raised their shields, on which the more savage Africans had hung as trophies the scalps of Saguntines killed in the last sally. The Balearians showed their white teeth in stupid grins, and taking clay balls from their pouches, they directed sling-shots against the Roman vessel.
"Do you see?" shouted Hannibal with satisfaction. "It is impossible to receive the legates in my camp. It is too late to talk. There is nothing left but for Saguntum to give herself up to me in punishment for her crimes."
The legates, scorning the projectiles from the slings, leaned over the side of the ship, thrusting forward their bodies covered by their togas, with an arrogance which seemed to defy the savage warriors.
Indignation at being received with such scorn blanched their cheeks.
"African!" shouted one of the legates in Latin, heedless that Hannibal could not understand, "since you will not receive the envoys from Rome we shall go on to Carthage to demand that they turn your person over to us for breaking the treaties of Hasdrubal. Rome will punish you when you become our prisoner!"
"What does he say? What does he say?" growled Hannibal enraged at the incomprehensible words in which he surmised a threat.
When Actæon explained, the chieftain burst into a loud laugh of derision.
"Go, Romans!" he shouted. "Go thither! The rich hate me and they would be glad to grant your demands and turn me over to the enemy; but the people love me, and there is no man in Carthage who dares to come into the bosom of my army to make me prisoner."
Arrows rained around the ship; clay balls rebounded from her sides, and the Roman pilot gave the order to recede. The oars moved and the vessel slowly began to put about, and dropped down the channel.
"But are we going to Carthage?" asked the Greek.
"Yes, in Carthage they will hear us better," replied one of the legates. "After what has taken place, either the Senate there will turn Hannibal over to us, or Rome will declare war on Carthage."
"You may go, Romans, but my duty lies here."
Before the two senators and the legates from Saguntum, who had witnessed the former scene with astonishment, could interfere, the Athenian flung one leg over the rail and sprang head first into the channel. He swam under water for some time, then came up, floating near the bank, to which the cavalry and foot-soldiers had rushed to take him prisoner.
Before his feet touched ground Actæon was surrounded by a horde of slingers who rushed into the water up to their middles to take possession of his clothing without having to divide it among their comrades. In an instant they tore off his Celtiberian sword, the pouch hanging from his belt, and a gold chain which he wore on his breast in memory of Sónnica. They were about to strip him of his traveling tunic, leaving him naked, and he had begun to receive blows from the barbarous and cruel crowd, when Hannibal rode up and recognized him.
"You have preferred to stay! I am glad of that. After having wrought me so much damage from the walls of Saguntum you have repented and you have come to join with me. I ought to leave you in the hands of these barbarians who would rend you to pieces; I ought to crucify you outside my camp so that that Greek woman whom you love could shudder at you; but I remember the promise I made you, and I shall keep it, and welcome you as a friend."
He ordered one of his officials to cover the Greek's wet garments with an endromis, a military cloak of long hair with a hood, worn by soldiers over their armor in winter. Then he bade him mount a Numidian's horse.
They took up their march toward the camp. The troops who had rushed to the entrance of the port slowly returned, while the ship fast dropped the land, spreading her glowing sails. On the Acropolis the smoke had dissipated, leaving only a few light clouds floating in the breeze. From afar one could guess the disappointment felt in the city by the unexpected flight of the Roman ship. With her seemed to vanish the last hope of the besieged. Hannibal's troops, as they retired, commented on the scene at the entrance to the port between their chief and the envoys from Rome. They did not understand the words which had been exchanged; but the energetic accent of the Roman as he spoke to Hannibal seemed to them a threat. Some, pretending that they had understood the ambassador, repeated an imaginary discourse in which the threat was made in the name of Rome to cut the throats of the whole army and to stretch Hannibal on a cross. They repeated these threats, each swelling them with inventions of his own, and when the troops met other detachments on the Road of the Serpent or in different parts of the valley, all declared they had seen the chains which the Roman legates displayed from the ship, and in which they expected to take their chieftain prisoner, and a howl of rage arose from the hosts of Hannibal.
The African was flattered at the flood-tide of indignation surging around him. The soldiers, barring his way, acclaimed him with greater enthusiasm; he heard voices in every tongue crying death to Rome, calling upon the chieftain to make the final assault upon the city, to take possession of it before the ambassadors should reach Carthage and plot the downfall of the youthful hero.
"Take care of yourself, Hannibal!" said an old Celtiberian planting himself before his horse. "Your enemies in Carthage, Hanno's faction, will unite with Rome to work your ruin."
"The people love me," said the chieftain, arrogantly. "Before the Carthaginian Senate hears the Romans, Saguntum will be ours, and the Carthaginians will acclaim our triumph."
With saddened heart Actæon beheld the desolation of the fields which used to be so joyous and so fertile. There were no other ships in the port but men-of-war from New Carthage. The seamen slept in the fane of Aphrodite after having rifled the temple of its valuables. The warehouses had been pillaged and destroyed; the wharves covered with filth; in the fields not a vestige of the ancient villas remained. The ferocity of the barbarian tribes from the interior, their hatred for the Greeks of the coast, had incited them to even tear up the multicolor pavements and to scatter the fragments. The whole valley was an immense, desolated plain. Not a tree was standing. To combat the cold of winter they had felled the groves of fig trees, the broad plantations of olives, the stocks of the grapevines of the vineyards, destroying even the houses to warm themselves with the rafters from the roofs. Nothing remained standing but ruined walls and low shrubbery. A fungoid vegetation which grew rapidly, fertilized by bodies of men and animals, extended over the valley, obliterating the ancient roads, creeping up the ruins, and choking the beds of the streams which, their irrigating ditches broken, scattered their waters until the low fields were converted into ponds.
It was the devastating work of a continually swelling army composed of a hundred and eighty thousand men and of many thousands of horses. In a short time they had devoured the Saguntine domain. The soldiers after destroying all that was not of immediate use, extended their rapacity to surrounding zones, constantly broadening their radius of destruction as the siege was prolonged.
Supplies now came from a distance of many days' journey; sent by remote tribes in the hope of a reward of booty which Hannibal knew how to instill into their minds, telling them of the riches of Saguntum. The elephants had been sent to New Carthage some months before, as they were useless in the siege and difficult to maintain in this devastated region.
Over the domain flew crows in undulating black clouds. From the thicket rose the stench of rotting horses and mules. By the roadsides, their members pinned to the ground by rocks, lay the bodies of barbarians put to death because of hopeless wounds, and whose bodies their compatriots, according to the customs of their race, left abandoned to the birds of prey. The immense agglomeration had vitiated the atmosphere of the valley. They lived in the open, and yet, the filth of the multitude, and the vapors of death, seemed disseminated between the mountains and the sea as a heavy atmosphere replete with sickness and death.
Actæon, coming from a distance, was the more sensitive to this stench of the camp, and he thought of the beleaguered people with sadness. Looking toward the city he guessed the horrors hidden behind those reddish walls after a resistance of seven months.
They approached the camp. The Greek saw that this concentration of military forces had assumed the aspect of a permanent city. Few tents of canvas or of skins were left. The winter, which now was drawing to a close, had compelled the besiegers to construct stone huts with thatched roofs, and wooden houses which looked like towers and served as supports to the earthworks thrown up roundabout the camp.
Hannibal, as if reading Actæon's thought, smiled savagely while his eyes swept the work of destruction wrought by his army outside the city.
"You find all this greatly changed, eh, Actæon?"
"I see that your troops have not been idle while you were off punishing the rebels in Celtiberia."
"Maherbal, my chief of cavalry, is an excellent aide. When I returned he showed me two of the walls of Saguntum destroyed, and a part of the city in our power. Do you see that citadel near the Acropolis, inside the walled district? Well, that is ours. The catapults, which you can see from here, shoot into Saguntum, which has become reduced to half its former size—and they still dream of defending themselves! They still hope for auxiliaries from Rome! Stubborn brutes! They have constructed a line of walls for the third time, and thus they have gone on losing ground and persisting in the defense until nothing is left to them but the Forum, where I shall knife every man, woman, and child whom I find alive—O, proud and indomitable city! I will make you my slave!"
The African turned to his old-time companion and changed the conversation.
"Your eyes are opened at last, and you have come to me. Are you going to follow me with enthusiasm? Will you join me in that series of enterprises of which I spoke to you one day at sunrise here on this very road? Perhaps you will become a king because of having followed Hannibal, as did Ptolemy following Alexander. Are you resolved?"
Actæon hesitated a moment before replying, and Hannibal read indecision in his eyes—the desire to deceive.
"Do not lie, Greek; lies are for enemies, or for preserving life. I am your friend, and I have promised to respect your safety. Can it be that you do not mean to follow me?"
"Well, of a truth, I do not," said the Greek with resolution. "I wish to return to the city, and if you truly have affection for the companion of your youth, let me go."
"But you will perish inside that city! Do not expect mercy if we force our entrance through the breach!"
"I shall die," said the Athenian simply, "but there, inside those walls, are men who received me as a compatriot when I was wandering hungry over the world; there is a woman who took me in when I was poor, and gave me love and riches. They sent me to Rome that I might bring them a word of hope, and I must return, even though it be only to give them sorrow and pain. What does it matter if you set me free? To-morrow perhaps you can kill me. I shall be one more mouth to feed, and surely hunger must reign in Saguntum. Perhaps when I tell them the truth, when they see me return without assistance, their courage may weaken and they may give up the town to you. Let me pass through the lines, Hannibal; with this, it may be that without desiring to do so, I shall forward your plans."
Hannibal looked at him in surprise.
"Madman! I never believed an Athenian capable of such a sacrifice. You are such a light-hearted people, so given to perfidy, so false when you wish to satisfy your egoism! You are the first Greek I ever found faithful to the city which adopted him. Carthage had worse luck with the mercenaries from your country! It is impossible to make anything of you; you are only half a man! Love overmasters you; you are not satisfied as I am with the woman who wanders around the camp, or whom one takes when a city is assaulted and afterwards turns over to the soldiers. You bind yourself to a woman, you become her slave, and you seek an inglorious death in a dark corner of the world, like a mercenary in the service of a handful of merchants, merely for the sake of seeing her again. Go, madman, go! I give you your liberty—I wish to hear no more about you. I was ready to make you a hero and you answer me like a slave. Go in to Saguntum, but know that the protection of Hannibal abandons you from this moment. If you fall into my hands inside the city you will be my prisoner, never my friend!"
Digging his heels into his horse's ribs, Hannibal dashed into his camp, contemptuously turning his back upon the Greek. In a moment a young Carthaginian approached, who, without a word, nor even a glance at him, grasped his bridle-reins and proceeded toward Saguntum.
As they gained the outposts of the besieging army the Carthaginian pronounced a word and Actæon passed on amid the hostile gaze of the soldiers who had heard of the scene at the port, and were clamoring with rage, thinking of the chains which the legates from Rome had the insolence to show to their chief. That Greek who was about to enter the besieged city must have been a companion of the legates, and many placed an arrow in the bow to shoot at him, but were restrained by a cold and haughty glance from the young Carthaginian who spoke in the name of Hannibal.
They arrived at the ruins of the first walled quarter. The van of the besieging army was within the shelter of the walls. The Greek dismounted, and breaking a thorny branch from a bush he walked on, holding it aloft as a signal of peace.
He stood before the wall which had been built under his direction one night to hold back the invader. Upon it he saw the helmets of only a few defenders. The besieger was directing his attacks against the upper part. That side of the city where the early battles had taken place was almost abandoned. The guardians on the wall greeted Actæon with loud shouts of surprise and joy, and they lowered a rope of esparto to help him climb up by means of the rough places on the wall, until he could enter through a crenel near the top. All surrounded the Greek eagerly. It seemed as if he were in the presence of spectres. Their bodies appeared ready to slip out of their ample armor; their faces, sad, yellow, parchment-like, were hidden beneath the visors of their helmets; their fleshless, wrinkled hands could barely sustain their weapons, and a strange, golden effulgence glowed in their eyes.
Actæon parried their flood of questions with kind words of encouragement. He would speak opportunely; he must first render an account of his mission to the Elders of the Senate. They must be calm; before night they should know all. Filled with commiseration in the presence of these heroes, he lied mercifully, declaring that Rome would not forget Saguntum, and that he had come in advance of the legions sent by the allies.
From the houses nearby, from the streets close to the wall, issued men and women drawn by news of the arrival of the Greek. They surrounded him, they questioned him; all wished to be first to receive the news to scatter it through the city. Defending himself from them, Actæon gazed with horror at their lean, yellow faces, their earthy skin outlining the prominent sutures of their skulls; their sunken eyes in their black orbits shining with an unearthly light, like fading stars reflected in the depths of a well, and their emaciated arms, which creaked like canes as they moved them with nervous emotion.
He started onward, escorted by the multitude, preceded by boys absolutely nude, horrible to look at, with skins ready to break from the pressure of their ribs outlined one above the other, with enormously large heads above their fleshless necks. They staggered painfully, as if their tottering, thread-like limbs could not bear the weight of their bodies; some, to lessen their suffering, dragged themselves along the ground, lacking the strength to stand.
Actæon beheld a deserted corpse lying in a corner, the face covered with strange flies which glinted in the sunshine with metallic reflections. Farther on at a cross street, some women were trying to raise to his feet a naked youth beside whom lay his abandoned bow. The Greek noted with horror his sunken, inward-curving abdomen, a palpitating whirlpool of skin between the protruding hip bones which threatened to burst from the body. It was a mummy still showing a flickering spark of life in the eyes, opening and shutting its parched and blackened lips as if feeding on the unnourishing air.
He continued on his way down the lengthy streets, but no more people joined the group. The doors of many houses remained closed, despite the clamor of the crowd, and Actæon contrasted this solitude with the great multitude of people during the early days of the siege. Dead dogs lying in the gullies, as emaciated as the people themselves, polluted the atmosphere. At street crossings lay skeletons of horses and mules, clean and white, holding not even a scrap of flesh to satisfy the repugnant insects buzzing in the atmosphere of the doomed city.
With his gift of keen observation, the Greek's attention was fixed by the warriors' weapons. He saw only cuirasses of metal; those made of leather had disappeared. The shields displayed their texture of osier or bull-tendon, destitute of their coverings of hide. In one corner he saw two old men fighting over a black and stringy morsel; it was a bit of crow boiled in water. Many two-storied houses had been demolished to obtain stones for use in the new wall which barred the advance of the enemy.
Desolating hunger had swept everything with cruel touch. Even the most fetid and repugnant matter had been turned to account. It was as if the besiegers had already broken into the city and had carried off everything of worth, leaving nothing but the buildings behind as silent witnesses to their rapine. Hunger and death stalked hand in hand beside the desperate Saguntines.
On approaching the Forum a woman pushed her way through the people toward the Greek and flung her arms around his neck.
"Actæon, my love!" cried Sónnica.
The privations of the siege had left deep marks upon her. She did not present the appearance of extreme emaciation as did most, but she was thin and pale, her nose sharpened, her cheeks transmitting an interior light, the arms which clung to him thin and hot with fever. A blue circle surrounded her eyes, and her rich tunic hung loose in empty folds; her body, in growing thinner, seemed to have gained in height.
"Actæon——my love!" she cried again, "I had lost hope of ever seeing you! Bless you, bless you for coming back!"
She walked beside him, one of her arms around his neck. The multitude looked upon Sónnica with veneration; she had sacrificed herself for the poor, sharing with them each day the shrinking supplies of her store-houses.
Actæon recognized Euphobias the philosopher in the crowd, his garments more ragged than ever, almost naked, but with an appearance of relative vigor which contrasted strangely with the starving appearance of the majority. Lachares and the elegant young friends of Sónnica bowed to him from a distance with a distraught expression. They had the look of starving men, but they concealed their pallor beneath rouge and other cosmetics, and they wore their richest vestments as if to console themselves for their privations with the pomp of useless luxury. The young slave boys who accompanied them moved their emaciated limbs, covered by gold-embroidered garments, and gazing at their pendants of pearls, they yawned painfully. The crowd halted in the Forum. The Elders had gathered in the temple near the quadrangle. Above, on the Acropolis, the Carthaginians who occupied a part of the hill, kept up a continual bombardment, and great stones from the catapults fell constantly. Some of these reached the Forum, and the roofs of many houses and walls were pierced and shattered by the enormous projectiles.
Actæon entered the temple alone. The number of Ancients had diminished. Some had died, victims of hunger and pestilence; others, with juvenile ardor, had rushed forth to defend the walls, and there encountered death. The prudent Alcon seemed to enjoy great ascendancy, and he figured at the head of the assembly. Events had justified the prudence which had caused him in other days to declare against the warlike enterprises of the city and their fondness for alliances.
"Speak, Actæon," said Alcon. "Tell us the truth, the whole truth! After the misfortunes the gods have already sent us, we can bear even greater."
The Greek looked at the men, wrapped in their flowing mantles, holding their tall staves of authority, awaiting his words with an anxiety which they made an effort to conceal behind majestic calmness.
He related his audience by the Roman Senate; he told of the caution which had impelled it to favor conciliatory measures; of the arrival of the legates off Saguntum; of their extraordinary reception by Hannibal, and of the departure of the ambassadors for Carthage to demand the punishment of the chieftain and desistance from the siege of Saguntum.
As the sad tale proceeded the calmness of the Elders gradually dissipated. Some, more violent, arose to their feet and rent their garments, crying aloud with grief; others, in their excitement, beat their foreheads with clenched fists, raging with fury on hearing that Rome had not sent her legions; and the eldest among them, without sacrificing their dignity, wept unashamed, allowing their tears to stream down their fleshless cheeks into their snowy beards.
"They have forsaken us!"
"It will be too late when help arrives!"
"Saguntum will perish before the Romans can reach Carthage!"
The assemblage remained long in a state of desperation. Some, motionless in their seats from weakness, implored the gods to let them die ere they should behold the downfall of their people.
It seemed as if the hordes of Hannibal were already clamoring at the temple doors.
"Restrain yourselves, Elders!" admonished Alcon. "Remember that the citizens of Saguntum stand waiting outside these walls. If they suspect your despair, discouragement will spread abroad, and this very night we will become the slaves of Hannibal!"
Slowly the Elders recovered their composure, and silence reigned. All awaited the counsel of Alcon the Prudent. He spoke.
"You do not entertain the thought of immediate surrender of the city, do you?"
A roar of indignation from the Senate answered him.
"Never, never!"
"Then, in order to keep hearts beating with hope, to prolong the defense a few more days, you must lie; you must inspire in the Saguntines a deceptive confidence. Provisions are exhausted; those who man the walls, weapons in hand, have eaten the flesh of the last horses that remained in the city. The plebs are perishing of hunger. Every night hundreds of corpses are gathered and burned on the Acropolis for fear of their being devoured by wandering dogs pressed by hunger, which have turned into veritable wild beasts that attack even the living. There is a complaint that some of the foreigners sheltered in the city, in company with slaves and mercenaries, lie in wait by night near the walls to eat whatever bodies they find. The cisterns of the city are almost dry; there is but little water left, and that is thick with mud; and yet no one in Saguntum talks of surrender, and the defense must be continued. We all know what awaits us if we fall into the hands of Hannibal."
"I have talked with him," said Actæon, "and he is inexorable. If he enters Saguntum every man of us will become his slave!"
The assembly stirred again with indignation.
"We will die first!" shouted the Elders.
Hastily they agreed upon what must be said to the people. They swore by the gods to conceal the truth. They would prolong the sacrifice in the hope that aid from Rome might come in time. Composing their countenances so that none should divine their despair, the Elders walked out of the temple. Swiftly the news flashed through the city. The legates had proceeded to Carthage to waste no time in the camp; there they would demand the punishment of Hannibal. The legions which Rome was sending to the support of the Saguntines would arrive at any moment.
The crowd received this specious fabrication with cold insensibility. The sufferings of the siege had deadened their feelings. Besides, they had been fired so many times with hope of the coming of the Romans that they doubted and would not believe until they saw the fleet itself.
Actæon mingled with the starving crowd searching for Sónnica. He found her surrounded by Lachares and the young gallants. Near them stood Euphobias, smiling at Sónnica, but not venturing to approach.
"The gods have protected you on your journey, Actæon," said the parasite. "You look better than we who have remained in the city. One can plainly see that you have fed."
"But you, philosopher," said the Greek, "are not so lean and emaciated as the others. Who maintains you?"
"My poverty. I was so accustomed to hunger in times of plenty that now I scarcely notice the famine. Observe the advantages of being a philosopher and a beggar!"
"Trust not the words of that monster," said Lachares with repugnance. "He is as beastly as a Celtiberian. He eats daily; but he should be crucified in the middle of the Forum as a warning. He has been seen at night wandering near the walls with a band of slaves in search of dying men."
The Greek turned from the parasite with disgust.
"Do not believe it, Actæon," said Euphobias. "Now they envy me my beggar's parsimony, as in other times they jeered at it. Hunger is my ancient companion, and she respects me."
All drew away from the parasite, and Actæon followed Sónnica to her house. The beautiful Greek woman was living almost alone. Many of her servants had been killed on the walls; others had perished in the streets, victims of pestilence. Some slaves, unable to resist the torments of hunger, had run away to the besieging camp. Two aged slave-women lay groaning in a corner, amidst stacks of luxurious furniture and chests filled with riches. The great warehouses in the lower story were empty. A gang of boys had taken possession, and passed the time watching cat-like in hopes of some stray rat issuing from a corner, that they might fall upon it as an animal of inestimable value.
"Tell me of Rhanto!" the Greek said to his beloved.
"Poor child! I see her only occasionally. She will not stay here; I have her brought to me so that I can watch over her, but at the first opportunity she slips away. Grief over Erotion's death has caused her to lose her reason. Day and night she wanders along the walls. She goes where the battle rages fiercest, and she passes among flying missiles as if she does not see them. By night I hear from afar the strange dirges which she chants to her Erotion; sometimes she appears crowned with a wreath of those flowers which grow on the walls, and she asks for the son of Mopsus, as if he were hidden among the defenders. The people believe that she is in communication with the gods, and they look upon her with awe and ask her what will be the fate of Saguntum."
The two spent the night amidst the piled up riches in the warehouse wrapped in costly tapestries, insensible to their surroundings, as if they were still in the rich villa on the domain, at the end of one of those banquets which had so scandalized many of the Saguntines.
Days passed. The city was growing weaker, but the people, still firm in their resolution, continued the defense, with stomachs faint from starvation. The besiegers made no violent assaults. Hannibal guessed the condition of the city, and, desirous of avoiding further shedding of the blood of his troops, he allowed time to pass, maintaining only a rigid blockade, waiting for hunger and pestilence to complete his triumph.
The mortality in the streets increased. There was no longer any one left to gather up the dead; the crematory fire on the Acropolis had gone out. Corpses, abandoned in the doorways of their homes, were covered with loathsome insects, and birds of rapine audaciously came down by night into the heart of the city disputing the prey of vagabond dogs which prowled the streets with lolling tongues and flaming eyes.
Vile smelling people of savage aspect, possessed by the delirium of starvation, dragged themselves cautiously through the streets armed with clubs, stones, and missiles. They went foraging as soon as night fell. Euphobias guided them, giving counsel with majestic emphasis, as if he were a great captain commanding his army. When they managed to kill a crow or a savage dog they carried it to the Forum and roasted it over a bonfire, quarreling violently over the noisome morsels, while the rich citizens stood aloof, faint with hunger but nauseated by such horrors.
Spring had set in. It was a gloomy springtime, revealed to the besiegers by little flowers growing up among the weeds in the crevices of the towers and on the roofs of the houses. Winter was over, and yet it was cold in Saguntum, with a tomb-like chill which the besieged felt in the very marrow of their bones. The sun shone, but the city seemed obscured by a fetid mist which imparted to people and to houses a leaden color.
One morning, on his way to the upper part of the mount where the defense continued, Actæon met the prudent Alcon in the Forum. This loyal citizen revealed discouragement in his dejected appearance.
"Athenian," he said, with a mysterious expression, "I am resolved that this must end. The city can resist no further. She has waited long enough for aid from Rome. Let Saguntum fall, and let Rome be filled with shame because of her infidelity to her allies. This day I shall go to Hannibal's camp and sue for peace."
"Have you considered it carefully?" exclaimed the Greek. "Do you not fear the indignation of your people when they see you treating with the enemy?"
"I love my city well, and I cannot remain impassive and witness its sacrifice, its interminable agony. Few are aware of the actual conditions, but I can tell you, Actæon, because you are discreet. We are much worse off than the people realize. There is not a scrap of meat left for those who are defending our walls. This morning there was nothing but mud in the bottom of the cisterns. We have no water. A few days more of resistance and we shall be forced to eat dead bodies like those soulless creatures who feed by night. We shall have to kill the children to placate our thirst with their blood."
Alcon was silent for a moment; he passed his hand over his forehead with a gesture of pain as if to obliterate terrible recollections.
"No one knows better than we Elders what occurs in the city," he continued. "The gods must shudder with horror when they see the deeds done in Saguntum since they abandoned her. Listen and forget, Actæon," he said in a low voice and with an accent of fear. "Yesterday two women, maddened by hunger, drew lots to choose which one of their children they should devour. We Elders have closed our eyes and our ears; we have not desired to see nor to hear, understanding that punishment would only serve to increase the horrors. The men who are fighting on the walls are chewing the leather from their weapons to deceive hunger. Their flesh is loosened from their bones, they weaken and fall as if wounded by an invisible stroke from the gods. We have resisted for nearly eight months; two-thirds of the city no longer exists. We have done enough to demonstrate before heaven and before man how Saguntum fulfills her oaths."
The Greek bowed his head, convinced by Alcon's arguments.
"Moreover the valor of the city is breaking down," continued the Elder. "Faith is dying. The omens are all against us. There are people who, during the night, have seen globes of fire rise from the Acropolis and fly toward the sea, plunging into the waters like shooting stars which cut through the blue of heaven with a stream of light. The people believe that they are the penates of the city, who, divining the coming destruction of Saguntum, are abandoning it to go and establish themselves on the other side of the sea whence they came. Last night, those who were watching up there in the temple of Hercules saw a serpent glide from beneath the tomb of Zacynthus, hissing as if it were wounded. It was blue, with golden stars—the serpent which bit Zacynthus and was the cause of the foundation of the city around the tomb of the hero. He crawled between the feet of the astonished watchers; he fled down the mount, and crept off across the plain in the direction of the sea. He also has abandoned us; the sacred reptile which was like the tutelary god of Saguntum."
"It may not be true," said the Greek. "It may be the hallucinations of a people tormented by hunger."
"That may be; but observe the women and you will find them weeping; in addition to their misery they are lamenting the flight of the serpent of Zacynthus. They believe the city defenseless, and many men on the walls will feel weaker to-day when they hear of the strange disappearance. Faith is the staff on which the people lean."
The two men remained silent for a while.
"Go," said the Greek, at last: "Speak to Hannibal, and may the gods incline his heart toward clemency!"
"Why do you not come with me—you who have traveled so much, and who possess the eloquence of conviction? You can help me."
"Hannibal knows me. I have refused his friendship, and he hates me. Go and save the city. My fate is sealed. The African will never abate his anger. He will pardon anyone but me. I will die rather than become his slave, or suffer myself to be put to death on a cross."