"He well knows the lay of the land. His visit to the city has stood him in good stead. Even in the dark he has chosen the only point from which Saguntum can be attacked."
The whole side of the mountain was free of besiegers. His army had encamped between the river and the lower part of the city, occupying the orchards, the gardens of the villas, the beautiful section of which the rich of Saguntum were so proud.
Soldiers came and went through the luxurious villas, preparing their morning meal; they made kindling of sumptuous furniture to light their camp fires; they wrapped themselves in garments they had found, and they cut down trees to make room for setting up their tents. Across the river, over the immense domain, groups of horsemen scattered out to take possession of villages, of villas, of the innumerable buildings which rose above the verdure of the plain, abandoned to the mercy of the enemy.
The first things to attract the attention of the Saguntines, exciting a childish curiosity, were the elephants. They stood in a row on the opposite side of the river, enormous, ashen-hued, like tumescences uprisen from the earth within the night, their green-painted ears drooping like fans, from time to time waving their trunks which seemed like gigantic leeches, trying to suck in the blue of the sky. Their drivers, assisted by the soldiers, unbound the square towers resting on their backs, and rolled up the heavy trappings which covered their flanks when engaged in battle. They set them free, as if the fertile plain were to them an immense stable, their drivers being convinced that the siege would be a lengthy undertaking, and that while it lasted they would not need the assistance of the terrible beasts, so appreciated in battle.
Near the elephants, along the river bank, stood the engines of war, the catapults, the battering-rams, the movable towers, complicated structures of wood and bronze, drawn by rosaries of double yokes of oxen having enormous backward curving horns.
As if suffering from an eruption the fields were covered with pustules of diverse colors, tents of cloth, of straw, or of skins, some conical, others square, the majority mound-shaped like ant hills, around which swarmed the armed multitude.
The Saguntines, from the top of the walls, examined the besieging army that seemed to fill the whole plain, and which was being joined by a ceaseless stream of new crowds on foot and on horseback, flowing in from every road, and seeming to roll down from the crests of the surrounding mountains. It was an agglomeration of diverse races, of different peoples; a bizarre collection of costumes, colors, and types, and those Saguntines who had been taught by travel recognized the different nations, and were pointing them out to their absorbed fellow citizens.
Some horsemen who seemed to fly, lying stretched along the backs of their swift barbs, were Numidians, Africans of feminine aspect, covered with white veils, wearing women's earrings and slippers, perfumed, with eyes painted black, but who were impetuous in combat and fought in full career using their lances with great skill. Around the camp fires in the gardens stalked athletic negroes from Libya, with kinky hair and glistening teeth, smiling in stupid satisfaction as they wrapped their naked limbs in garments of rich weave which they had just stolen, shivering with cold as soon as they drew away from the fire, as if suffering martyrdom in the cool morning air. These dark, shiny-skinned men, so seldom seen in Saguntum, excited the curiosity of the citizens almost as much as the Amazons who audaciously passed on a gallop close to the walls to obtain a better view of the city. They were young women, slender, their skins bronzed by exposure. Their hair floated behind their helmets like a barbaric decoration, and they wore no other clothing than a broad tunic open on the left side, displaying sinewy limbs clinging to their horses' ribs. Over the breast some wore corselets of bronze-scales, also open on the left side to give greater freedom in fighting, displaying the roundness of their small breasts made firm and hard by fatiguing exercise. They rode their wild nervous horses bareback, guiding them with a delicate bridle, and as they galloped in groups the ferocious animals bit and kicked each other, thus enlivening the desperate race. The Amazons approached close to the walls, laughing and hurling insults which the Saguntines did not understand; they waved their lances and shields; and when a cloud of arrows and stones was flung after them, they dashed away, with wind-swept drapery, turning their heads to repeat their mocking gestures.
The besieged distinguished in the dark crowd of soldiers the cuirasses of certain horsemen which shone like plates of gold. They were the Carthaginian captains, some rich men of Carthage who followed Hannibal, sons of opulent merchants who marched with the army more like shepherds than like chiefs, covered with metal from head to foot for protection against blows, and, with the genius of their race, more devoted to administering the conquests and in sharing the booty than in seeking glory in combat.
In addition to these people, those on the walls who were familiar with them pointed out the other troops of the besieging army. Some with skin the color of milk, with faded mustaches, and red horsehair tied to the crowns of their heads, who laid aside their military cloaks and tall boots of untanned leather to bathe in the river, were Gauls. The others, bronzed and so thin that their skeletons were outlined as if they would push through the skin, were Africans from the oases of the great desert, mysterious people, who with the beating of their small drums caused the moon to descend, and by playing the flute forced venomous serpents to dance. Mingling with them were the bulky Lusitanians, with limbs as strong as columns, and broad rock-like chests; those from Bætica, united to their horses day and night by a love which lasted all their lives; the hostile Celtiberians, bushy-haired and dirty, wearing their rags with arrogance; tribes from the North, who worshipped solitary menhirs as gods, and in the moonlight sought mysterious herbs for charms and philters; men of ferocious customs, in perpetual battle with hunger; barbarian people of whom horrifying tales were told, believed to devour the bodies of the conquered after a victory.