The two riders set off at a gallop, becoming lost to view among the hovels grouped around the base of the temple of Aphrodite.
Meanwhile one of the ship's passengers landed, making his way through the crowd. He was a Greek. All knew his origin by the pilos which covered his head, a conical leather helmet, after the fashion of that worn by Ulysses in Greek paintings. He was clad in a short, dark tunic, adjusted around his waist by a leather belt, from which hung a pouch. His chlamys, which did not reach his knees, was fastened at the right shoulder by a copper brooch; worn and dusty laced shoes covered his stockingless feet, and his sinewy arms, carefully freed from hair, rested on a great dart which was almost a lance. His hair, short and arranged in thick curls, hung beneath the pilos, forming a hollow crown around his head. It was black, but silvery threads shone in it and also in his broad short beard. His upper lip was carefully shaved in the Athenian style.
He was a strong and agile man, in the prime of life, healthy and vigorous. His eyes had an ironic glance, and in them sparkled something of that fire which reveals men born for warfare and for contact with the world. He walked at ease about the unfamiliar port, like a traveler accustomed to all manner of contrasts and surprises.
The sun began to sink, and work at the port had ceased. The crowd which had swarmed on the wharf was gradually scattering. Bands of slaves stretching their aching limbs and wiping off the sweat, passed near the stranger. Controlled by the clubs of their guards, they were about to be locked up until the next morning in caves in the nearby hill, or in the oil mills situated beyond the mariners' taverns, the inns, and the brothels, with their mud walls and broad roofs, which as a complement to the port were grouped at the foot of the hill of Aphrodite.
The merchants also left in search of their horses and chariots to ride to the city. They passed in groups, looking over the records on their tablets, and discussing the operations of the day. Their diverse types, dress, and bearing, showed a great mixture of races in Zacynthus, a commercial city to which in ancient times flocked the vessels of the Mediterranean, and whose traffic was in rivalry with that of Emporion and Massilia. The Asiatic or African merchants who imported ivory, ostrich feathers, spices, and perfumes for the rich of the city, were distinguished by their majestic step, their tunics with flowers and birds embroidered in gold, their green buskins, their tall embroidered tiaras, and their beards falling over their breasts, curled so as to lie in horizontal waves. The Greeks laughed and talked incessantly, jesting over their business affairs, and overwhelming with volubility the grave, bearded, diffident Iberian exporters dressed in coarse wool, who, with their silence seemed to protest against the stream of useless words.
The wharves were deserted one after another, the life of the place flowing along the road toward the city. Horses galloped, raising clouds of dust, chariots rolled along, and little African donkeys passed with a short trot, bearing on their backs some corpulent citizen or other, seated like a woman.
The Greek walked slowly along the mole behind two men clad in short tunics, wearing buskins and little conical hats with drooping brims, like those of the Hellenic shepherds. They were two artisans from the city. They had spent the day fishing, and were returning to their houses, gazing with ill dissimulated pride at their baskets in which writhed and wriggled barbels and eels. They were talking in Iberian, frequently mixing Greek and Latin words in their conversation. It was a not unusual dialect in that ancient colony, which was in continual contact through commerce with the principal peoples of the earth. The Greek, as he followed them down the wharf listened to their conversation with the curiosity of a stranger.
"You will come in my cart," said one of them. "My donkey awaits me at Abiliana's inn. The beast as you know is the envy of all my neighbors. We shall yet reach the city before the gates are closed."
"I thank you, neighbor. It is not prudent to travel alone when the country is swarming with adventurers whom we take as hirelings for the wars with the Turdetani, and all the people who fled from the city after the last revolt. Day before yesterday, as you know, the dead body of Acteio, the barber of the Forum, was found in the road. He was assassinated and robbed as he was returning from his little country-house at night-fall."
"They say that we shall live more tranquilly now since the Roman intervention. The legates from Rome have ordered a few heads cut off; and they affirm that after this we shall have peace."