gather in the hall, each bringing his present, and even
the slaves make their little inexpensive offerings. The gifts are
chiefly little trinkets of gold, silver, and ivory--rings, miniature
hands, axes, swords, or crescents--which are to be strung across the
baby's breast. The original purpose of all these objects was to act as
charms against the blighting of the child by evil powers, or, more
definitely, by the "evil eye," that malignant influence which still
troubles so many good Italians, both ignorant and learned. With the
same intention the father hangs upon the child's neck a certain object
which it will carry till it comes of age. If a few years later you met
the boy Publius in the Roman streets, you would find him wearing a
round case or locket in gold, some two inches in diameter and
resembling the modern cased watch. Inside is shut his protecting
amulet. When he is sixteen and puts on the man's toga, his amulet will
be laid aside. In the case of the little Silia it will be worn until
she marries. Poorer folk, for whom gold is too expensive, will enclose
the amulet in a case of leather.

The naming over, the child is registered. The Romans were adepts in
the art of utilising a religious or superstitious practice for
purposes of state, and the development of the registration of births
and deaths is but one instance. In older times it had been a custom,
on the occasion of a birth, to pay a visit to the shrine of "Juno the
Birth-Goddess," and to leave a small coin by way of offering. It is
easy for a state to convert an already established general custom into
a rule; and at our date this shrine of Juno had become practically a
registration office, where a small fee was paid and the name of the
child entered upon the rolls.

We need not follow with any closeness the infancy of either boy or
girl till the seventh year. The ancient world was very much like the
modern. Suffice it to glance at them cutting their teeth on the teeth
of wolves or horses, rocked in cradles decorated with gold and purple,
or running about and calling their parents by the time-honoured
_mamma, tata_--words, if we can call them words, which came from those
small Roman mouths precisely as they have come from time immemorial
from so many others. Their slave nurse, who is a Greek and talks Greek
to them, tells them the old wives' tales and fables. They play with
rattles, balls, and little carts, with pet birds and monkeys, and the
girl with d