Frequently impatience caused the whole city to be cruelly deceived. Some mornings the lookouts posted in the tower of Hercules on the Acropolis raised a furious clangor of cymbals on spying sails upon the horizon. The people rushed to the crest of the hill, following with anxious eyes the course of the white or red sails over the blue surface of the Sucronian gulf. It was they! The Romans! The advance ships of the succoring fleet bound for the port! But after hours of anguishing expectancy, their hopes were crushed on seeing that they were passing merchant ships from Massilia or Emporion, or hostile triremes which Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was sending from New Carthage with provisions for the army. Each disappointment increased the melancholy of the Saguntines. The enemy's ranks were ever swelling, and the allies failed to come! The city would be lost! The enthusiasm of the defenders was revived only when they found old Mopsus on the walls, who because of his sure aim at Hannibal was the hero of the city, and the valorous Actæon, who with the light spirits of an Athenian, jesting and merry in the presence of danger, knew how to inspire fresh courage. Sónnica also appeared among them at the points of combat. She ran along the walls amidst the hissing arrows, and the poor citizens marveled at the bravery of the opulent Greek woman who scorned the missiles of the enemy. Love for Actæon and hatred of the besiegers made her bold. She was enraged at the Carthaginians. From the height of the Acropolis one afternoon she had seen the flames pouring from the roof of her villa. She saw the red tower of the dovecote topple, the beautiful groves which surrounded her house cut down, leaving nothing but a mound of rubbish and charred trunks; and she longed to be avenged, not for her lost riches, but for the destruction of the secluded retreat sacred to her love, and of the sumptuous dwelling crowded with memories. Moreover, she was nervous from the insufferable deprivation of this new life within the beleaguered city, where she was obliged to eat coarse food and to sleep in a room in her warehouse among the valuables piled together in the disorder of flight, almost mingling with her slaves, and deprived of her bath. There was no water in the city, except that in the cisterns which the magistrates distributed with great parsimony, foreseeing an approaching scarcity.