Perhaps Hannibal's words were only the arrogant boasts of youth. Hated by the rich of his country, and with no better followers than those he himself could procure, he was surely not going to attempt the audacious enterprise of attacking a city allied to Rome, thus violating the treaties with Carthage.
Besides, the Greek was living in a period of sweet intoxications; ever in Sónnica's arms in the shade of the peristyle; listening to the lyres of the slaves and the flutes of the flute players, and watching the dancers from Gades, while his beloved crowned him with flowers, or sprinkled costly perfumes upon him.
Sometimes the restless spirit of the wanderer and man of war, trained to action and strife, manifested itself in the midst of this effeminacy. Then he would flee to the city. There he conversed with Mopsus, the archer, and listened to the grumblers in the Forum, who, not suspecting that Hannibal had passed through Saguntum, jested at the possibility of the African chief attempting anything against them, and gloated in their power, trusting in the strength of their walls, and still more in the protection of Rome, which would repeat on the coasts of Iberia their triumphs over the Carthaginians in Sicily.
Actæon contracted a great friendship with Alorcus the Celtiberian. He admired the fiery pride of the barbarian, his nobility of sentiment, and the almost religious respect he displayed for the cultured Grecian woman. His father, now old and sick, was a petty king reigning over some tribes which pastured great flocks of horses and cattle in the mountains of Celtiberia. He was the sole heir, and some day would be obliged to rule that rude people with their ferocious customs, who, in perpetual brigandage, made war for the sake of stealing horses, and in years of famine came down from the mountains to despoil the farmers on the plains. His father had brought him to Saguntum when a child, and the Grecian customs produced such an effect in him that, when he had grown to manhood it became his most earnest desire to return to the city on the coast, and there he lived with a few servants of his tribe and his magnificent horses, deaf to the affectionate calls of the old chieftain drawing near to death, and being esteemed by the Saguntines as almost a fellow citizen.
He was eager to figure in the festival of the Panathenæa that the Greeks of the city should admire him galloping in the races to conquer the crown of olives. He was grateful to Actæon for using his influence with Sónnica to secure the consent of the magistrates that the Celtiberian might enter among the horsemen in the great procession that would climb to the Acropolis carrying the first sheaves of wheat to the temple of Minerva.
In those days when the Athenian languished amidst songs and perfumes, overwhelmed by the caresses of the Greek woman, who seemed to blaze with the fire of the last passion of her life, he sprang from his couch at dawn, slung his bow across his back, and followed by two handsome dogs tramped through the Saguntine domain, giving chase to the wildcats which came down from the surrounding mountains.
On one of these excursions he had an adventure. It was noon; the sun's warm light fell upon the land, and the panting dogs halted, barking at a grove of ancient fig trees with branches sweeping the ground, forming shady canopies of dense foliage. 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. The shepherdess, completely nude, with the assurance of healthy and innocent beauty, happy in being admired, was smiling at Erotion, her cheeks flushing lightly every time the artist raised his eyes from the clay to the model.
Actæon drank in with his eyes the form of her vernal body. He felt the enthusiasm of the Greeks in the presence of beauty, intensified by the ardor of manhood. He admired her bosom, tender and small as buds, barely perceptible; her lightly curving hips; the line from her throat to her feet soft and undulating, which served to give more elegance to her chaste appearance; the grace of strong and beautiful girlhood, in addition to the attraction of sex. With the taste of a Greek of refinement he rejoiced in the freshness of her form, comparing it mentally with Sónnica's opulent but somewhat over-ripe charms.
Rhanto, as she saw the Greek's head appear between the leaves, uttered a piercing scream and scurried behind a fig tree in search of her clothes. Bells tinkled among the foliage and the goats thrust forward their glossy muzzles, their moist eyes, and curving horns.