The market place itself, where the many bazaars displayed wonderful
merchandise from many cities and many lands, was an especially lively
place. It was gay with life and color. Gilded chariots and ivory-bedecked
litters passed to and fro. Heralds announced particularly important
personages and escorts and cleared a way for them with whip or spear.
Military men and merchant princes, with many followers, often
scattered the smaller merchants and petty traders in their path
through the market. Many were caught under the wheels of the vehicles
of the rich when they did not get out of the way quickly enough.
Others were purposely thrust aside by the wealthy aristocrats simply
to show their disdain.


It was a typical Samarian market day--crowds and noise; buying and
selling; idle rich and drudging poor; haughty military grandees, in
their resplendent attires, and cowed, miserable beggars in their rags;
color and laughter at the bazaars, and tears and sorrow at the auction
block just across the way--always crowds and always noise.

The auctioneer was shouting above the general din the good points of a
man who had just been placed on the block.

"To be sold till the Jubilee Year," he cried. "How much am I bid?"

A clerk read the court's decree that this man was to be sold for debt.
It was signed by the judges, who sat in the East Gate of Samaria. The
document was a cold, formal statement. It did not take into account
the reason why this man, in the full vigor of manhood, had fallen into
debt. His creditors had pushed the poor fellow hard for their money.