ed fish and hard cheese; the Romans and Gauls devoured great
chunks of lamb dripping blood, and eels from the basins of the port
decorated with hard-boiled eggs. All these dishes and many others were
loaded with salt, pepper, and herbs of acrid odor, to which the
strangest qualities were attributed. Everybody was eager to spend his
money, to satisfy his hunger and thirst, and to roll on the floor drunk,
consoling himself thus for the hard life of privation which awaited him
on shipboard. The Romans who were to sail the next day had collected
their back pay and were determined to leave their sestertii in the port
of Saguntum; the Carthaginians boasted of their Republic, the richest in
the world, and other mariners praised their masters, ever generous when
they touched that port where business was excellent. The innkeeper was
continually throwing into an empty amphora coins of all kinds, those
from Zacynthus, bearing the prow of a ship, with Victory flying above
it; those from Carthage with the legendary horse and the frightful
Cabiric deities; and Alexandrian coins with their elegant Ptolemaic
profile.

The meanest of the rowers felt the caprices of a potentate, the itch to
imitate the opulent for a night that they might console themselves with
its memory in future days of hunger; and they asked for oysters from
Lucrinus, which an occasional ship brought packed in amphorae with sea
water as a delicacy for the great merchants of Saguntum, or the
_oxygarum_, salted fishmilt, prepared with vinegar and spices as an
appetizer for which the patricians of Rome paid a great price. Black
wine from Laurona and the pink wine from the Saguntine vineyards were
scorned by those who had money. The wine from Massilia they despised
also, sneering at the rosin and gypsum employed in its preparation, and
they called for wines from the Campagna, Falerno, Monte Massico, or
Caecubum, which, in spite of the price, they drank in capacious
cymbas--boat-shaped drinking vessels of Saguntine clay. Hungry for the
fresh products of the field after their long sojourn on the sea, these
men devoured immense quantities of vegetables and fruits, in addition to
the hot dishes and a great variety of drinks ranging from Celtiberian
beers to foreign wines. They fell greedily upon the plates of mushrooms;
they ate handfuls of radishes dressed with vinegar; leeks, beets,
garlic, and heaps of fresh lettuce from the gardens of the Saguntine
domain disappeared dow