ly together and
prevented the maintenance of any regular order. Around them, the
spectators closely pressing, with morbid curiosity, discussing with loud
approval the value of whatever of strength or beauty met their eyes, and
occasionally greeting some undersized and misshapen victim with jeers of
derision. And closing up the straggling line, more soldiers, marching in
well-formed ranks, poising aloft myrtle-decked lances, and, while
interchanging salutations with the eddying crowd, singing in measured
cadence their songs of victory.

And at last, as the sun sank yet lower toward the horizon, a yet
brighter brilliancy investing the scene, as far down the line new shouts
arose, and the struggling throng caught up the loud acclaim and carried
it onward like a great wave, betokening the speedy approach of the most
distinguished feature of the procession--the conqueror himself--hailed
Imperator by his troops--with his most noble friends clustered about
him, the myrtle wreath encircling his brow, and his earnest gaze fixed
upon the Capitol, the honorable termination of his route.

In every respect, indeed--except in the display of those few distinctive
formalities required to mark, as with a legal stamp, the actual and
comparative value of the honor--the same old familiar story, so often
hitherto rehearsed upon that line of Sacra Via and of Forum: incense
burning upon the altars, which had blazed for other heroes; garlands
hanging from the arches which had graced past festivities; and surging
crowds, heedful only of the present glory, and, with the customary
popular fickleness, ready to forget it all as soon as the fleeting
pageant should be over, now with indiscriminating zeal cheering the
march of Sergius Vanno as frantically as in other days they had greeted
the triumphal cars of Caesar and of Vespasian.

CHAPTER II.

Gradually the sun approached and dipped below the blue line of extended
plain which lay between the city and the sea; the long shadows of
afternoon began to blend into the one deeper shade of evening; the
groups of distant buildings became more and more indistinct; the arches
of the Colosseum softly faded away, leaving but a broad mass of unbroken
wall; upon the Palatine Hill the great house of the Caesars shone less
and less gloriously as the sky darkened behind the pile of decorated
roofs; here and there a light gleamed from some distant quarter; here
and there stars began to glisten in the sky.