nry by the arch is
supposed to be the 'Umbilicus,' the centre of the Roman world. There is
no excuse for not knowing these things any more than there is any very
strong reason for knowing them, unless one be a student. There is a plan
of the Forum in every guide book, with a description that changes with
each new edition.

And yet, without much definite knowledge,--with 'little Latin and less
Greek,' perhaps,--many men and women, forgetting for one moment the
guide book in their hands, have leaned upon a block of marble with
half-closed, musing eyes, and breath drawn so slow that it is almost
quite held in day-dream wonder, and they have seen a vision rise of past
things and beings, even in the broad afternoon sunshine, out of stones
that remember Caesar's footsteps, and from walls that have echoed
Antony's speech. There they troop up the Sacred Way, the shock-headed,
wool-draped, beak-nosed Romans; there they stand together in groups at
the corner of Saturn's temple; there the half-naked plebeian children
clamber upon the pedestals of the columns to see the sights, and double
the men's deep tones with a treble of childish chatter; there the noble
boy with his bordered toga, his keen young face, and longing backward
look, is hurried home out of the throng by the tall household slave, who
carries his school tablets and is answerable with his skin for the boy's
safety. The Consul Major goes by, twelve lictors marching in single file
before him--black-browed, square-jawed, relentless men, with their rods
and axes. Then two closed litters are carried past by big, black, oily
fellows, beside whom walk freedmen and Greek slaves, and three or four
curled and scented parasites, the shadows of the great men. Under their
very feet the little street boys play their games of pitching at tiny
pyramids of dried lupins, unless they have filberts, and lupins are
almost as good; and as the dandified hanger-on of Maecenas, straining his
ear for the sound of his patron's voice from within the litter,
heedlessly crushes the little yellow beans under his sandal, the
particular small boy whose stake is smashed clenches his fist, and with
flashing eyes curses the dandy's dead to the fourth generation of
ascendants, and he and his companions turn and scatter like mice as one
of the biggest slaves threateningly raises his hand.

[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF THE FORUM]

Absurd details rise in the dream. An old crone is selling roasted
chest