me in their
carts, drawn by oxen, riding among baskets of vegetables and sacks of
grain, and with their toil-calloused hands they arrayed themselves in
the toga before entering the Forum, transfigured by the majesty lent by
their flowing vestments.

The Greek arrived at the Forum by sunrise, encountering the customary
crowd--venerable Romans wrapped in their togas discoursing before the
young men and their clients on the art of prudently placing money upon
good security, the chief attainment of every citizen; and hungry Greek
pedagogues scheming ever, in search of a situation among that sombre
people more apt in war than in culture; old legionaries, their gray
military cloaks covered with patches, their thoughts yearning back to
the by-gone wars against Pyrrhus and Carthage, persecuted by debts and
threatened with slavery by their creditors, in spite of the cicatrices
all over their bodies; and the plebe, with no other clothing than the
_lacerna_--a short cape of coarse cloth finished with the _cucullus_ or
pointed hood--the multitudinous Roman plebe, exploited and oppressed by
the patricians, ever dreaming, as a remedy for their ills, of new
divisions of the public lands which, by means of usury, gradually fell
into the hands of the rich.

On the steps of the Comitium the members of a tribe were gathered to
probate the will of one of their people who had just died. Near the
military tribune veteran centurions wearing greaves and helmets of
bronze stood leaning on staves of vine-wood, the badge of their
military rank, discussing the siege of Saguntum and the audacity of
Hannibal, eager to march immediately against the Carthaginian.

On the huge blocks of blue stone which paved the Forum the vendors of
hot drinks established their great craters, beating on them with ladles
to attract the people, and at the foot of the steps of the temple of
Concord some Etruscan buffoons, wearing hideous masks, began their
grotesque pantomime, attracting the children and the idle from all sides
of the quadrangle.

It was cold; a damp and icy wind was blowing off the Pontine marshes;
the sky was gray; and from the crowd stirring about the Forum rose a
continuous and melancholy buzzing. Actaeon compared this square with the
bright Agora of Athens, and even with the Forum of Saguntum in its days
of peace. The Grecian joyousness was lacking in Rome, the sweet and
gladsome lightness of an artistic people, careless of riches, and if
engag