Suddenly a new sun seemed to rise behind the army, illuminating its footsteps. A lurid light filled the horizon, and upon this ruddy background the serrated outlines of an immense mass were traced. A village was in flames. Hannibal's troops, composed of mercenaries from all countries, and from barbarian tribes in the interior, intended to terrify the hostile city, hence immediately upon entering Saguntine territory they laid waste the fields and set fire to the dwellings. Actæon feared to become surrounded by the Numidians and the Amazons, and riding down from the height he started toward Saguntum at a desperate gallop. It was after dark when he reached the city, and he had to call his friend Mopsus and make himself known before the gate would open to him. "Have you seen them?" asked the archer. "Before the cock crows they will be before our walls." The city presented an extraordinary aspect. The streets were illuminated with bonfires. Pine torches burned in doorways and windows, and the multitude of fugitives huddled in the public squares, filling the porticos, and lying on the thresholds. All the Saguntines had streamed into the city. The Forum was a camp. The flocks and herds were crowded between the four colonnades without space to move, stamping and bellowing; sheep sprang about on the steps of the temples; families of rustics boiled pots on the Attic bases of the marble columns, and the glow of so many fires, flickering on the façades of the houses, seemed to communicate a thrill of alarm to the entire city. The magistrates ordered the fugitives lying in the streets obstructing traffic to get up, and lodged them in the slaves' quarters of the dwellings of the rich, or had them conducted to the Acropolis to camp in its innumerable buildings. The herds also were driven thither by the light of torches, between a double row of almost naked men who beat the oxen when they tried to escape down the sides of the sacred mountain. Rising above the murmur of the multitude sounded blasts from trumpets and conch shells calling the citizens to form ready for defending the walls. Merchants, dressed in bronze loricas, their faces covered by the Grecian helmet crested with an enormous brush of horsehair, issued from their houses, tearing themselves from the arms of wives and children, and strode majestically through the crowds of rustics, bow in hand, their spears over their shoulders, and their swords clanking against their nude thighs, their limbs covered to the knees with the copper greaves. The young men dragged to the walls enormous stones to hurl down upon the besiegers, and they laughed on being assisted by the women who were eager to take part in the combat. Old men with venerable beards, rich members of the Senate, opened passage, followed by slaves with great bundles of spears and swords, distributing the arms among the strongest country people, first making sure if they were freemen.