THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER
When the sun's first rays reddened the walls of the Capitol the life of Rome had been astir for more than an hour.
The Romans arose from their couches by the light of the morning stars. Carts from the Campagna rolled in the darkness through the tortuous streets, slaves awakened by the crowing of the cock trudged along carrying baskets and farm utensils, and by the hour of dawn all the houses had their doors thrown open, and the citizens not employed in the fields gathered in the Forum, that centre of traffic and of public business, that had begun to be adorned with the earlier temples, but still retained broad barren spaces upon which in later centuries were to rise the architectural glories of Rome, mistress of the world.
Actæon had been in the great city for two days, lodged in an extramural inn established by a Greek. He never ceased to marvel at this austere Republic, existing almost in poverty, a hardy nation of farmers and soldiers who filled the world with their fame while they endured greater privation than any hamlet on the outskirts of Athens.
Actæon expected to appear before the Senate that very day. The majority of the Fathers of the Republic lived in the country, in rustic villas with walls of unseasoned adobe roofed with branches, overseeing the work of their slaves, guiding the plow like Cincinnatus and Camillus; when affairs of state called them to the Senate they came into Rome in their carts, drawn by oxen, riding among baskets of vegetables and sacks of grain, and with their toil-calloused hands they arrayed themselves in the toga before entering the Forum, transfigured by the majesty lent by their flowing vestments.
The Greek arrived at the Forum by sunrise, encountering the customary crowd—venerable Romans wrapped in their togas discoursing before the young men and their clients on the art of prudently placing money upon good security, the chief attainment of every citizen; and hungry Greek pedagogues scheming ever, in search of a situation among that sombre people more apt in war than in culture; old legionaries, their gray military cloaks covered with patches, their thoughts yearning back to the by-gone wars against Pyrrhus and Carthage, persecuted by debts and threatened with slavery by their creditors, in spite of the cicatrices all over their bodies; and the plebe, with no other clothing than the lacerna—a short cape of coarse cloth finished with the cucullus or pointed hood—the multitudinous Roman plebe, exploited and oppressed by the patricians, ever dreaming, as a remedy for their ills, of new divisions of the public lands which, by means of usury, gradually fell into the hands of the rich.
On the steps of the Comitium the members of a tribe were gathered to probate the will of one of their people who had just died. Near the military tribune veteran centurions wearing greaves and helmets of bronze stood leaning on staves of vine-wood, the badge of their military rank, discussing the siege of Saguntum and the audacity of Hannibal, eager to march immediately against the Carthaginian.
On the huge blocks of blue stone which paved the Forum the vendors of hot drinks established their great craters, beating on them with ladles to attract the people, and at the foot of the steps of the temple of Concord some Etruscan buffoons, wearing hideous masks, began their grotesque pantomime, attracting the children and the idle from all sides of the quadrangle.
It was cold; a damp and icy wind was blowing off the Pontine marshes; the sky was gray; and from the crowd stirring about the Forum rose a continuous and melancholy buzzing. Actæon compared this square with the bright Agora of Athens, and even with the Forum of Saguntum in its days of peace. The Grecian joyousness was lacking in Rome, the sweet and gladsome lightness of an artistic people, careless of riches, and if engaging in commerce doing so only that it may live more expansively. This was a people cold and sad, devoted to lucre and to the laying up of money, disdainful of ideals, with no other industry than agriculture and war, squeezing the last grain of wheat from their lands, and robbing the enemy; methodical, lacking initiative and youthfulness.
"This people," said the Athenian to himself, "seems never to have been as young as twenty. Even the children seem to be born old."