ds; from
the summits winged golden quadrigae seemed ready to fly away through
space into the blue dome, fixed serenely above that crowded place of
temples. Through the middle of the market and along the edges of it
flowed a river of people; crowds passed under the arches of the basilica
of Julius Caesar; crowds were sitting on the steps of Castor and Pollux,
or walking around the temple of Vesta, resembling on that great marble
background many-colored swarms of butterflies or beetles. Down immense
steps, from the side of the temple on the Capitol dedicated to Jupiter
Optimus Maximus, came new waves; at the rostra people listened to chance
orators; in one place and another rose the shouts of hawkers selling
fruit, wine, or water mixed with fig-juice; of tricksters; of venders
of marvellous medicines; of soothsayers; of discoverers of hidden
treasures; of interpreters of dreams. Here and there, in the tumult of
conversations and cries, were mingled sounds of the Egyptian sistra, of
the sambuke, or of Grecian flutes. Here and there the sick, the pious,
or the afflicted were bearing offerings to the temples. In the midst of
the people, on the stone flags, gathered flocks of doves, eager for
the grain given them, and like movable many-colored and dark spots, now
rising for a moment with a loud sound of wings, now dropping down again
to places left vacant by people. From time to time the crowds opened
before litters in which were visible the affected faces of women, or
the heads of senators and knights, with features, as it were, rigid and
exhausted from living. The many-tongued population repeated aloud their
names, with the addition of some term of praise or ridicule. Among
the unordered groups pushed from time to time, advancing with measured
tread, parties of soldiers, or watchers, preserving order on the
streets. Around about, the Greek language was heard as often as Latin.

Vinicius, who had not been in the city for a long time, looked with a
certain curiosity on that swarm of people and on that Forum Romanum,
which both dominated the sea of the world and was flooded by it, so that
Petronius, who divined the thoughts of his companion, called it "the
nest of the Quirites--without the Quirites." In truth, the local element
was well-nigh lost in that crowd, composed of all races and nations.
There appeared Ethiopians, gigantic light-haired people from the distant
north, Britons, Gauls, Germans, sloping-eyed dwellers of Leri