sail fluttered in
the breeze without filling, but the triple banks of oars, with rhythmic
movement along its flanks caused the vessel to spring over the white
foam lashing the entrance of the canal.

Night was falling. On the hill near the port the temple of Venus
Aphrodite reflected from the polished surface of its pediment the fire
of the setting sun. A golden atmosphere wrapped the columns and the blue
marble walls, as if the father of day, before sinking to rest, were
greeting the goddess of the waters with a kiss of light. The chain of
dark mountains, covered with pines and shrubbery, swung around the sea
in a gigantic semicircle, embracing the fertile valley in which lay the
Saguntine gardens, the white villas, the rustic towers and the hamlets
rising among the clustering green trees of the fields. At the other
extreme of this mountain barrier, dimmed by the distance and the haze of
the landscape, could be seen the city, the ancient Zacynthus, with its
dwellings compressed within walls and citadels upon the fold of the
hill. Far above was the Acropolis, with cyclopean ramparts above which
rose the high-roofed temples and public buildings.

The port was enlivened by the stir of labor. Two ships from Massilia
were loading with wine in the big basin. One from Liburnia was taking on
a cargo consisting of Saguntine pottery and dried figs, to be sold in
Rome, while a galley from Carthage contained in its hold great bars of
silver brought from the mines of Celtiberia. Other ships, with sails
furled and their banks of oars fallen against their sides, swung at
anchor near the wharf, like great sleeping birds gently nodding their
prows with figureheads of crocodiles or of horses, used by the navy of
Alexandria, or displaying on the stern a hideous red dwarf resembling
that which decorated the vessel of the Phoenician Cadmus in his
astounding voyages over many seas.

The slaves bending under the weight of amphorae and silver ingots,
wearing no other clothing than a loin-cloth and a white hood, their
fretted and sweating bodies bare, passed like an endless rosary along
the boards leading from the mole to the ships, as they carried the
merchandise from where it lay piled on the wharf into the concave holds
of the vessels.

In the centre of the great middle basin rose a tower guarding the
entrance to the port; a solid structure with its stone foundations laid
in the deepest water. Moored to the rings which adorned its wall