Then, they arrived at a certain point on the path, where the road was completely blocked by villages made up of shacks and tents, inhabited by people with ashen faces and vacant stares.
Before long, they were stepping over the bodies of those still sleeping, squeezing a path through the massed tents.
"I've never seen so many people packed behind the city walls before," Cassandra murmured.
"These are the so-called 'country folk'," Herodotus said softly.
"They suffer the most because of Pericles' policy. Exiled from their homes, they have been displaced from their native valleys and wild regions, and now they huddle together here like beggars — it's clearly a form of torment."
Then, Cassandra noticed that the guards standing behind the exquisite city walls, atop those towering parapets, were Athenian hoplites.
Their appearances closely resembled those of the enemies she had faced and defeated in Megaliss.
