villas built
and furnished in a lordly manner, it was possible to find everything
demanded by comfort, and even the most exquisite luxury of the period.
Caesar had the habit, however, of taking with him on a journey every
object in which he found delight, beginning with musical instruments
and domestic furniture, and ending with statues and mosaics, which were
taken even when he wished to remain on the road merely a short time for
rest or recreation. He was accompanied, therefore, on every expedition
by whole legions of servants, without reckoning divisions of pretorian
guards, and Augustians; of the latter each had a personal retinue of
slaves.

Early on the morning of that day herdsmen from the Campania, with
sunburnt faces, wearing goat-skins on their legs, drove forth five
hundred she-asses through the gates, so that Poppaea on the morrow of her
arrival at Antium might have her bath in their milk. The rabble gazed
with delight and ridicule at the long ears swaying amid clouds of dust,
and listened with pleasure to the whistling of whips and the wild shouts
of the herdsmen. After the asses had gone by, crowds of youth rushed
forth, swept the road carefully, and covered it with flowers and needles
from pine-trees. In the crowds people whispered to each other, with a
certain feeling of pride, that the whole road to Antium would be strewn
in that way with flowers taken from private gardens round about, or
bought at high prices from dealers at the Porta Mugionis. As the morning
hours passed, the throng increased every moment. Some had brought their
whole families, and, lest the time might seem tedious, they spread
provisions on stones intended for the new temple of Ceres, and ate their
prandium beneath the open sky. Here and there were groups, in which
the lead was taken by persons who had travelled; they talked of Caesar's
present trip, of his future journeys, and journeys in general. Sailors
and old soldiers narrated wonders which during distant campaigns
they had heard about countries which a Roman foot had never touched.
Home-stayers, who had never gone beyond the Appian Way, listened with
amazement to marvellous tales of India, of Arabia, of archipelagos
surrounding Britain in which, on a small island inhabited by spirits,
Briareus had imprisoned the sleeping Saturn. They heard of hyperborean
regions of stiffened seas, of the hisses and roars which the ocean gives
forth when the sun plunges into his bath. Stories of