d oil, seemed to
glow more faintly in the dense atmosphere charged with vapor from the
steaming viands. The garlands of roses hanging in festoons from the
lamps wilted in the heavy atmosphere. Through the open door the guests
caught glimpses of the columns of the peristyle, and of a strip of dark
blue sky in which twinkled many stars.

The pacific Alcon rising up in his couch, smiled with the amiability of
mild intoxication, gazing at the splendor of the firmament.

"I drink to the beauty of our city!" he said, raising the horn filled
with wine.

"To the Grecian Zacynthus!" shouted Lachares.

"Yes, let Saguntum be Greek!" answered his friends.

The conversation turned upon the great festival which, at Sonnica's
initiative, the Greeks of Saguntum would celebrate in honor of Minerva
on gathering the harvest. The Panathenaic festivals should end with a
procession like that which took place in Athens, and which Phidias had
immortalized in marble in his famous friezes. The young men spoke with
enthusiasm of the horses they would ride, and of the contests for which
they were training by persistent exercise. Sonnica patronized the
festivals with her immense wealth, and she wished to make these as
famous as that one which Athens celebrated on the dedication of the
Parthenon.

The Saguntine youths would race outside the walls in the morning to
demonstrate that they were as clever as the Celtiberian horsemen; the
more pacific would contest in the Forum, lyre in hand, to win the crown
offered to the one who should hymn the poems of Homer most creditably;
afterward the procession would reveal all its magnificence through the
streets of the city, climbing up to the Acropolis; and in the afternoon
the race of the flaming torch would take place to divert the people, who
would hiss at him who let his torch go out, and would whip up him who
traveled slowly to protect the flame.

"But do you really believe in Minerva?" Euphobias asked of Sonnica.

"I believe in what I see," she replied. "I believe in spring, in the
resurrection of the verdant fields, in the grain which springs from the
ground to nourish man from its golden bearded heads; the flowers, which
are the incense-bearers of the earth; and, above all the goddesses, I
love Athene for the wisdom with which she endows man and makes him
divine, and I love Minerva for her bounty which maintains them."

The slaves laid the third course on the table, and the guests,
half-ineb