“Are you Miriam, the grand-daughter of Benoni?” he asked.
“I am Miriam,” she answered, “whom you, Simon, and your fellows doomed to a cruel death, but who have been preserved——”
“——To walk in a Roman Triumph. Better that you had died, maiden, at the hands of your own people.”
“Better that you had died, Simon, at your own hands, or at those of the Romans.”
“That I am about to do,” he replied bitterly. “Fear not, woman, you will be avenged.”
“I ask no vengeance,” she answered. “Nay, cruel as you are I grieve that you, a great captain, should have come to this.”
“I grieve also, maiden. Your grandsire, old Benoni, chose the better part.”
Then the soldiers separated them and they spoke no more.
An hour passed and the procession began its march along the Triumphal Way. Of it Miriam could see little. All she knew was that in front there were ranks of fettered prisoners, while behind men carried upon trays and tables the golden vessels of the Temple, the seven-branched candlestick and the ancient sacred book of the Jewish law. They were followed by other men, who bore aloft images of victory in ivory and gold. Then, although these did not join them till they reached the Porta Triumphalis, or the Gate of Pomp, attended, each of them, by lictors having their fasces wreathed with laurel, came the Cæsars. First went Vespasian Cæsar, the father. He rode in a splendid golden chariot, to which were harnessed four white horses led by Libyan soldiers. Behind him stood a slave clad in a dull robe, set there to avert the influence of the evil eye and of the envious gods, who held a crown above the head of the Imperator, and now and again whispered in his ear the ominous words, Respice post te, hominem memento te (“Look back at me and remember thy mortality.”)
After Vespasian Cæsar, the father, came Titus Cæsar, the son, but his chariot was of silver, and graved upon its front was a picture of the Holy House of the Jews melting in the flames. Like his father he was attired in the toga picta and tunica palmata, the gold-embroidered over-robe and the tunic laced with silver leaves, while in his right hand he held a laurel bough, and in his left a sceptre. He also was attended by a slave who whispered in his ear the message of mortality.