the soil. The city was relatively small. In it dwelt only the rich
agriculturists, the magistrates, and foreigners. When some danger
threatened, when the Turdetani attempted an incursion into the Saguntine
territory, all the people streamed to the city, seeking the shelter of
its walls, and the rustics, driving their flocks before them, mingled
with the artisans of Saguntum, and took refuge within these precincts
which they only visited when they came to town to sell their wares.

Actaeon guessed, by the great number of people met along the way, that
this must be market day in the Forum. The country folk strode along in
single file, carrying on their heads baskets covered with leaves, clad
only in a dark tunic which hung far down their bodies, outlining their
forms at every step. The peasants, sun-browned, sinewy, their single
garment a skirt of skins or of coarse cloth, guided oxen drawing carts,
or asses laden with bundles, and up and down the road sounded the
incessant jingling of bells from flocks of goats, and the gentle lowing
of cattle, as they trotted along in clouds of red dust raised by their
sharp hoofs.

Some families were already returning from market, displaying with pride
the articles for which they had bartered their fruits at the booths in
the Forum, and their friends stopped them to admire the new fabrics, the
red terra cotta cups, fresh and brilliant, the rudely wrought feminine
ornaments of solid silver, and their inspection was followed by a
"salve!" of congratulation, which made their possessors flush with
childish pride.

Brown girls with firm, spare limbs and high foreheads, their hair
hanging loose in Celtiberian fashion, marched in pairs carrying from
their shoulders long poles on which hung branches of flowers for the
ladies of the city. Others carried enormous bunches of red cherries,
wrapped in leaves to preserve them from the dust, and at intervals they
sprang and shouted between outbursts of noisy laughter, mimicking the
voices and gestures of the rich youths of Saguntum, who, to the great
scandal of the city, gathered in Sonnica's garden to imitate before the
statue of Dionysus the picturesque follies of Greece.

Actaeon admired the beauty of the landscape; the groves of fig trees,
which lent fame to Saguntum, just beginning to put forth new leaves,
forming upon their ancient branches canopies of verdure which swept the
ground; the vines, like waves of emerald, spreading over the plain