With his gift of keen observation, the Greek's attention was fixed by the warriors' weapons. He saw only cuirasses of metal; those made of leather had disappeared. The shields displayed their texture of osier or bull-tendon, destitute of their coverings of hide. In one corner he saw two old men fighting over a black and stringy morsel; it was a bit of crow boiled in water. Many two-storied houses had been demolished to obtain stones for use in the new wall which barred the advance of the enemy.
Desolating hunger had swept everything with cruel touch. Even the most fetid and repugnant matter had been turned to account. It was as if the besiegers had already broken into the city and had carried off everything of worth, leaving nothing but the buildings behind as silent witnesses to their rapine. Hunger and death stalked hand in hand beside the desperate Saguntines.
On approaching the Forum a woman pushed her way through the people toward the Greek and flung her arms around his neck.
The privations of the siege had left deep marks upon her. She did not present the appearance of extreme emaciation as did most, but she was thin and pale, her nose sharpened, her cheeks transmitting an interior light, the arms which clung to him thin and hot with fever. A blue circle surrounded her eyes, and her rich tunic hung loose in empty folds; her body, in growing thinner, seemed to have gained in height.
"Actæon----my love!" she cried again, "I had lost hope of ever seeing you! Bless you, bless you for coming back!"
She walked beside him, one of her arms around his neck. The multitude looked upon Sónnica with veneration; she had sacrificed herself for the poor, sharing with them each day the shrinking supplies of her store-houses.
Actæon recognized Euphobias the philosopher in the crowd, his garments more ragged than ever, almost naked, but with an appearance of relative vigor which contrasted strangely with the starving appearance of the majority. Lachares and the elegant young friends of Sónnica bowed to him from a distance with a distraught expression. They had the look of starving men, but they concealed their pallor beneath rouge and other cosmetics, and they wore their richest vestments as if to console themselves for their privations with the pomp of useless luxury. The young slave boys who accompanied them moved their emaciated limbs, covered by gold-embroidered garments, and gazing at their pendants of pearls, they yawned painfully. The crowd halted in the Forum. The Elders had gathered in the temple near the quadrangle. Above, on the Acropolis, the Carthaginians who occupied a part of the hill, kept up a continual bombardment, and great stones from the catapults fell constantly. Some of these reached the Forum, and the roofs of many houses and walls were pierced and shattered by the enormous projectiles.