What is that sound? The marble city shivers to the treading of feet. Cæsar's legions marching, foot—foot—hundreds, thousands of feet. They beat the ground, rounding each step double. Coming—coming—cohort after cohort, with brazen trumpets marking the time. One—two—one—two—laurel-crowned each one of you, cactus-fibred, harsh as sand grinding the rocks of a treeless land, rough and salt as a Dead Sea wind, only the fallen are left behind. Blood-red plumes, jarring to the footfalls; they have passed through the gate, they are in the walls of the mother city, of marble Rome. Their tunics are purple embroidered with gold, their armour clanks as they walk, the cold steel of their swords is chill in the sun, each is a hero, one by one, endless companies, the soldiers come. Back to Rome with a victor's spoils, with a victor's wreath on every head, and Judah broken is dead, dead! "Io triumphe!" The shout knocks and breaks upon the spears of the legionaries.
The God of the Jews is overborne, he has failed his people. See the stuffs from the Syrian looms, and the vestments of many-colours, they were taken from the great Temple at Jerusalem. And the watching crowds split their voices acclaiming the divine triumph. Mars, and Juno, and Minerva, and the rest, those gods are the best who bring victory! And the beasts they have over there! Is that a crocodile? And that bird with a tail as long as a banner, what do you call that? Look at the elephants, and the dromedaries! They are harnessed in jewels. Oh! Oh! The beautiful sight! Here come the prisoners, dirty creatures. "That's a good-looking girl there. I have rather a fancy for a Jewess. I'll get her, by Bacchus, if I have to mortgage my farm. A man too, of course, to keep the breed going; it will be a good investment, although, to be sure, I want the girl myself. Castor and Pollux, did you see that picture! Ten men disembowelled on the steps of the altar. That is better than a gladiator show any day. I wish I had been there. Simon, oh, Simon! Spit at him, Lucullus. Thumbs down for Simon! Fancy getting him alive, I wonder he didn't kill himself first like Cleopatra. This is a glorious day, I haven't had such fun in years."
The bronze horses tread quietly above the triumphing multitudes. They too have been spoils of war, yet they stand here on the Arch of Nero dominating Rome. Time passes—passes—but the horses, calm and contained, move forward, dividing one minute from another and leaving each behind.
You should be still now, Roman populace. These are the decorations of the Penetralia, the holy Sanctuary which your soldiers have profaned. But the people jeer and scoff, and comment on the queer articles carried on the heads of the soldiers. Tragedy indeed! They see no tragedy, only an immense spectacle, unique and satisfying. The crowd clears its throat and spits and shouts "Io triumphe! Io triumphe!" against the cracking blare of brazen trumpets.
Slowly they come, the symbols of a beaten religion: the Golden Table for the Shew-Bread, the Silver Trumpets that sounded the Jubilee, the Seven-Branched Candlestick, the very Tables of the Law which Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. Can Jupiter conquer these? Slowly they pass, glinting in the sunlight, staring in the light of day, mocked and exhibited. Lord God of Hosts, fall upon these people, send your thunders upon them, hurl the lightnings of your wrath against this multitude, raze their marble city so that not one stone remain standing. But the sun shines unclouded, and the holy vessels pass onward through the Campus Martius, through the Circus Flaminius, up the Via Sacra to the Capitol, and then... The bronze horses look into the brilliant sky, they trot slowly without moving, they advance slowly, one foot raised. There is always another step—one, and another. How many does not matter, so that each is taken.
The spolia opima have passed. The crowd holds its breath and quivers. Everyone is tiptoed up to see above his neighbour; they sway and brace themselves in their serried ranks. Away, over the heads, silver eagles glitter, each one marking the passage of a legion. The "Victorious Legion" goes by, the "Indomitable Legion," the "Spanish Legion," and those with a crested lark on their helmets, and that other whose centurions are almost smothered under the shining reflections of the medallions fastened to their armour. Cohort after cohort, legion on the heels of legion, the glistening greaves rise and flash and drop and pale, scaling from sparkle to dullness in a series of rhythmic angles, constantly repeated. They swing to the tones of straight brass trumpets, they jut out and fall at the call of spiral bugles. Above them, the pointed shields move evenly, right to left—right to left. The horses curvet and prance, and shiver back, checked, on their haunches; the javelins of the horsemen are so many broad-ended sticks of flame.
Those are the eagles of the Imperial Guard, and behind are two golden chariots. "Io triumphe!" The roar drowns the trumpets and bugles, the clatter of the horses' hoofs is a mere rattle of sand ricocheting against the voice of welcoming Rome. The Emperor Vespasian rides in one chariot, in the other stands Titus. Titus, who has subdued Judea, who has humbled Jehovah, and brought the sacred vessels of the Lord God of Hosts back with him as a worthy offering to the people of Rome. Cheer, therefore, good people, you have the Throne of Heaven to recline upon; you are possessed of the awful majesty of the God of the Jews; beneath your feet are spread the emblems of the Most High; and your hands are made free of the sacred instruments of Salvation.
What god is that who falls before pikes and spears! Here is another god, his face and hands stained with vermilion, after the manner of the Capitoline Jupiter. His car is of ivory and gold, green plumes nod over the heads of his horses, the military bracelets on his arms seem like circling serpents of bitter flame. The milk-white horses draw him slowly to the Capitol, step by step, along the Via Triumphalis, and step by step the old golden horses on the Arch of Nero tread down the hours of the lapsing day.
That night, forty elephants bearing candelabra light up the ranges of pillars supporting the triple portico of the Capitol. Forty illuminated elephants—and the light of their candles is reflected in the polished sides of the great horses, above, on the Arch of Nero, slowly trotting forward, stationary yet moving, in the soft night which hangs over Rome.
PAVANNE TO A BRASS ORCHESTRA