A group of slave women chosen for their beauty, with Rhanto in the premier rank, carried on their heads great amphoræ filled with honey and water for the libations in honor of the goddess. Behind them marched the musicians and singers of the city, crowned with roses, clad in flowing white vestments. They swept the lyre, and played the flutes, and some Greeks from Sónnica's pottery, who had been wandering rhapsodists, sang fragments from the epic of the Trojan war before the barbarian throngs, who scarcely understood them, but admired the harmonious cadence of Homer's verses. The people pressed forward, craning their necks to get a better view of the salii, the dancing devotees of Mars, who advanced nude, armed with sword and shield. Slung from the stick laid across their shoulders, two slaves were carrying a row of bronze shields, on which another slave was beating with a mallet, and keeping time to these harsh sounds the salii danced, making feigned attacks, and raining blows with their swords on the shield of the pretended adversary, uttering ferocious shouts, and also performing pantomimes to recall the main episodes in the life of the goddess Minerva. Behind the clamor, which set the streets in a commotion, causing the populace to roar with enthusiasm excited by the warlike display, came a group of girls holding a peplus of finest texture on which the principal Grecian women of the city had embroidered the combat of Minerva with the Titans. It was the offering which was to remain in the new temple of the goddess as a perpetual token of the festival. Closing the procession, the sacred squadron advanced, the richest citizens, mounted on fiery horses, which, with their evolutions compelled the crowd to fall back against the walls. They presented a brave display, making their steeds rear on their hind feet, guided only by the bridle, riding bareback, pressing their knees into the horses' ribs. The eldest of the horsemen wore huge hats in the Athenian fashion. The young men wore the winged helmet of Mercury or went bareheaded, their short curls bound by a fire-colored ribbon. Alorcus wore the crown he had won, and Actæon, riding beside him on one of the Celtiberian's horses, smiled at the crowd, which regarded him with a certain respect as if he were Sónnica's husband and in possession of her enormous riches. The horsemen gazed with pride at the swords which hung at their sides and clanked against the flanks of their horses, and they took in with a glance the high Acropolis and the city lying at its feet, as if expressing confidence in their strength, and faith in the tranquility in which Saguntum might dwell, sure of protection.