“Laugh away, by all means! I assert my right and liberty to admire all that is noble. If I were better looking, I should very likely exert myself to achieve a conquest, for I frankly confess that I regard the future wife of Afranius as a woman to be envied.”
“You are frank indeed.”
“I always am. And I find it all the easier, since I do not allow my consciousness of my defects to destroy my peace of mind. The Gods are unjust? For aught I care! You have a mouth like a rose-bud, I have a muzzle like a Cantabrian bear![308] Fate we call that, or Ananke![309]—Well, it is a lovely day for us both alike! Just see what a crowd and bustle there are out here; I think we had better walk. There is the portico with its hundred columns.”
Claudia stopped the bearers, and the two girls walked on to the magnificent hall of Agrippa, followed at a short distance by the Numidian slaves. Arm in arm they walked along the arcades, by the famous mural paintings,[310] representing in the highest style of art, scenes from the stories of the Greek divinities—the rape of Europa, Cheiron the Centaur, and the voyage of the Argonauts. To the right they saw the marble enclosures—Septa[311] they were called—in the midst of which the Roman people assembled when the centuria[312] were called upon to vote. Lucilia hoped she might one day be present at some stormy debate here. Claudia found it more interesting, to linger over the gay booths[313] and bazaar for luxurious trifles at the northern end of the portico, where the precious produce of the remotest provinces of the empire was displayed.
Thus, chatting and laughing, they reached the shady avenues of plane and laurel, which extended almost to the shores of the river and, with their temples, columns, terraces and works of art, were the scene of enjoyment for a numerous throng of citizens. Here hundreds of handsome chariots—most of them with two wheels—rushed to and fro on a broad causeway; graceful horsemen dashed along the gravelled way, while the motley crowd of pedestrians slowly loitered along the side alleys. Here a following of young men pressed round the litter of some woman of rank; there a grave and morose-looking pedagogue led his flock to a grass-plot, where boys were exercising themselves in wrestling or throwing the discus.[314] Pairs of lovers strolled away hand in hand to remoter bowers; slaves—male and female—with their owners’ children, crowded round a juggler’s booth, applauding the skill with which Masthlion[315] balanced a heavy pole on his bare forehead, or the strength Ninus[316] displayed in supporting half a dozen boys upon his shoulders. Among the mob a legion of fruit and cake sellers wriggled and squeezed themselves; fortune-tellers twitched at the robe of the passer-by, urgently pressing their services on them; shipwrecked sailors sat begging by the wayside, with tablets on their knees[317] relating the history of their woes; flute-players piped their latest tunes from Gades; dark Egyptians exhibited tame snakes, which twined round the body, neck and arms of the owner to the measure of a dismal tom-tom.
Lucilia and Claudia followed the shady alley, that ran parallel to the main road, greatly amused at the dazzling, noisy and ever-new scenes that met them at every turn.
“Supposing we should meet your Aurelius—” said Lucilia.
“My Aurelius! My sweet child, pray do not get into the habit of saying such things.”
“Well, then—Caius Aurelius.”
“It is not likely. He rarely comes now to the plain of Mars.”