Alorcus explained the customs of his people to the Athenian. They gathered acorns, their chief food, exposing them to the sun until well dried. They husked and ground them, and stored the supply of flour for six months. This bread, with game, and the milk of their animals, constituted their principal food. At intervals pestilence robbed them of their flocks, the crops failed, and hunger decimated the tribes; then the strong devoured the weak. Alorcus remembered hearing this from the elders of his tribe as having occurred in remote times when Neton, Autubel, Nabi, and other divinities of the land, irritated against their people, had sent upon them these fearful punishments.
The young Celtiberian continued telling of the customs. Some of the women who worked in the fields with so much vigor had perhaps given birth to a child the day before. As soon as born they immersed it in the nearest river, so that by this act, which in many cases caused death, it would grow vigorous and insensible to cold; and while the mother resolutely arose and continued her work, the husband took her place in the bed, lying down with the newly born child. The woman, still barely convalescent, took care of the two, surrounding the hale and hearty husband with comforts, as if in gratitude for the fruit he had given her.
Several times the caravan on its march passed men lying rigid and groaning on couches of herbs gathered by the wayside. Flies buzzed about their heads in clouds; an amphora of water stood within their reach. A child squatted near the couch brushing away the insects with a branch. They were sick people whom their relatives exposed by the roadside according to ancient custom, partly to implore the clemency of the divinities by exhibiting their misery, and also in order that passing travelers might advise a remedy, thus transmitting prescriptions from distant countries.
The strong men bathed in horse urine to harden their muscles. Their only luxury consisted in weapons. They admired as priceless jewels the bronze swords brought from the north of the Peninsula, and those of steel made by the people of Bilbilis and tempered in the sands of their famous river. The flexible cuirasses, formed by several thicknesses of superposed linen, or those of leather, decorated with nails, were defensive arms which the Celtiberian never laid aside, not even when in bed. They slept dressed in the sagum, the metal greaves on their legs, and their weapons within reach of the hand, ready to fight the instant the slightest alarm might disturb their sleep.
After three days of travel the caravan entered the territory belonging to the tribes of Alorcus. The mountains separated on both sides of the Jalón, forming smiling valleys covered by tall grasses, through which ran herds of wild horses with curling manes and waving tails. The women came out of the villages to greet Alorcus, and the men, grasping lances, mounted their horses and joined the caravan. In the first village where they stopped an old man told Alorcus that his father, the powerful Endovellicus, was dying, and in the next through which they passed in a few hours, he heard that the great chieftain had died at daybreak.
All the warriors of the tribe, herders and farmers, followed them on horseback. When they reached the village where the kinglet had lived, the escort had grown to a small army.
In the doorway of the paternal house, a low structure of red stones roofed with logs, Alorcus saw his sisters in dresses made of flowers and wearing around their necks and over their heads cage-like collars from the bars of which hung mourning veils.
The sisters of Alorcus, as well as the women who accompanied them, the wives of the chief warriors of the tribe, hid their grief at the death of the chieftain, and smiled as if it were the eve of a festival. Old age was a disgrace among the Celtiberians, who held life in contempt, and fought for diversion when not engaged in war. To die in bed was deemed dishonorable, and the only thing which somewhat disturbed the serenity of the family of Endovellicus was that so famous a warrior, the terror of neighboring clans, should have died with white hair, his life flickering out like a wasted torch, after having galloped his steed through so many combats, hurling his sword like a thunderbolt upon the enemy.
Actæon's dress and his countenance attracted the curious gaze of all the tribe. Many of the Celtiberians had never seen a Greek, and they looked upon this one with hostile eyes, recalling the clever tricks and sharp dealings of the Hellenic merchants experienced by their brethren when they went down to Saguntum to sell silver from the mines.
Alorcus reassured his people.