festival.

In advance marched venerable old men with long beards, dressed in white,
with voluminous mantles, their snowy hair crowned with green leaves, and
carrying olive branches in their hands. Then came the more arrogant
citizens, armed with lance and shield, the visor of the Grecian helmet
drawn down over their eyes, proudly displaying the strong muscles of
their arms and limbs. Next followed the most beautiful youths of the
city, crowned with flowers, singing hymns in praise of the goddess;
choruses of nude children, dancing with unaffected grace, clasping
hands, forming a chain of complicated combinations. Now appeared the
maidens, daughters of the rich, clad only in a tunic of finest linen,
which displayed their youthful charms. They carried in their hands as
offerings dainty willow baskets covered by veils which hid the
instruments for the sacrifice to the goddess, and with these the loaves
made of new wheat and the handfuls of golden ears which were to be
deposited on her altar. To clearly mark the dignity of the rich virgins,
slave women marched behind them bearing their sedan chairs inlaid with
ivory, and the striped silk sunshades with gay colored tassels at the
ends of the staves.

A group of slave women chosen for their beauty, with Rhanto in the
premier rank, carried on their heads great amphorae 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 Sonnica'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 th