e 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 Caesars. First went
Vespasian Caesar, 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 Caesar, the father, came Titus Caesar, 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.

Next to the chariot of Titus, alongside of it indeed, and as little
behind as custom would allow, rode Domitian, gloriously arrayed and
mounted on a splendid steed. Then came the tribunes and the knights
on horseback, and after them the legionaries to the number of five
thousand, every man of them having his spear wreathed in laurel.

Now the great procession was across the Tiber, and, following its
appointed path down broad streets and past palaces and temples, drew
slowly towards its object, the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus, that stood
at the head of the Sacred Way beyond the Forum. Everywhere the side
paths, the windows of houses, the great scaffoldings of timber, and the
steps of temples were crowded with spectators. Never before did Miriam
understand how many people could inhabit a single city. They passed them
by thousands and by tens of thousands, and still, far as the eye could
reach, stretched the white sea of faces. Ahead that sea would be quiet,
then, as the procession pierced it, it began to murmur. Presently
the murmur grew to a shout, the shout to a roar, and when the Caesars
appeared in their glittering char