"This is Erotion," said Rhanto, who smiled sweetly as she saw her friend. "Although born in Saguntum, he is a Greek like yourself, stranger."
The youth did not glance at the girl; he stood looking at the stranger respectfully.
"Are you from Athens, really?" he said with admiration. "You cannot deny it. You look like Ulysses when he was wandering about the world, passing through the adventures related by Father Homer. I have seen just such as you on vases and in reliefs, resembling in figure and dress the husband of Penelope. Greeting, son of Pallas!"
"And you—are you also one of Sónnica's slaves?"
"No," the boy hastily answered with pride. "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. She it was who gave me the name of Erotion, because when I was little I looked like a cupid. I am not one of those who mould clay, nor turn the wheel to shape the vases. They call me the artist; I make decorations of foliage, I model animals, I can make the head of Diana from memory, and no one can engrave in clay the great seal of Saguntum as I can. Do you know what it is like? A ship without sails, with three banks of oars; above it flies Victory in long draperies, depositing a crown on the prow. I could, if you wish, model your figure——"
But he stopped, as if ashamed at these last words, and added sadly:
"How you must be laughing at me, stranger! You come from there, from that marvelous country of which my father so often talks. You must have seen the Parthenon and Athene Promachos which navigators distinguish far out at sea long before they can descry Athens; the wonderful procession of horses in the metopes; the prodigious works of Phidias. How I long to see all that! When a ship comes into port from Greece I run away from the pottery and spend whole days in the taverns with the mariners. I drink with them, I give them presents of figurines in lewd attitudes, which make them laugh, just for the sake of getting them to tell me what they have seen—the temples, the statues, the paintings; and their stories, instead of calming me, excite my longing.... Ah, if Sónnica would allow it!... If only she would let me go in one of her ships when they set sail for Greece!"
Afterward, he added earnestly:
"This girl you see here, my sweet Rhanto, is all that sustains me. If she did not exist I should long ago have sought the gubernator of a ship, should have sold myself to him as a slave, if necessary, to travel over the world, to see Greece, and to become an artist like those to whom you render there the same honors as to the gods."
The three walked on in silence for some time behind the cloud of dust raised by the goats. The boy gradually recovered his serenity at the side of Rhanto, who had taken one of his hands in hers.