tuous
collection of gems formed by Hadrian, with many works of the most
famous painters and sculptors, even the precious ornaments of the
emperor's chapel or Lararium, and the wardrobe of the empress Faustina,
who seems to have borne the loss without a murmur, were exposed for
public auction. "These treasures," said Aurelius, "like all else that
I possess, belong by right to the Senate and People." Was it not a
characteristic of the true kings in Plato that they had in their houses
nothing they could call their own? Connoisseurs had a keen delight in
the mere reading of the Praetor's list of the property for sale. For
two months the learned in these matters were daily occupied in the
appraising of the embroidered hangings, the choice articles of personal
use selected for preservation by each succeeding age, the great
outlandish pearls from Hadrian's favourite cabinet, the marvellous
plate lying safe behind the pretty iron wicker-work of the shops in the
goldsmiths' quarter. Meantime ordinary persons might have an interest
in the inspection of objects which had been as daily companions to
people so far above and remote from them--things so fine also [62] in
workmanship and material as to seem, with their antique and delicate
air, a worthy survival of the grand bygone eras, like select thoughts
or utterances embodying the very spirit of the vanished past. The town
became more pensive than ever over old fashions.

The welcome amusement of this last act of preparation for the great war
being now over, all Rome seemed to settle down into a singular quiet,
likely to last long, as though bent only on watching from afar the
languid, somewhat uneventful course of the contest itself. Marius took
advantage of it as an opportunity for still closer study than of old,
only now and then going out to one of his favourite spots on the Sabine
or Alban hills for a quiet even greater than that of Rome in the
country air. On one of these occasions, as if by favour of an
invisible power withdrawing some unknown cause of dejection from around
him, he enjoyed a quite unusual sense of self-possession--the
possession of his own best and happiest self. After some gloomy
thoughts over-night, he awoke under the full tide of the rising sun,
himself full, in his entire refreshment, of that almost religious
appreciation of sleep, the graciousness of its influence on men's
spirits, which had made the old Greeks conceive of it as a god. It was