Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Quo Vadis (1897 Curtin translation).djvu/33

Rh many-colored swarms of butterflies or beetles. From above, down immense steps, from the sides of the temple dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, came new waves; at the rostra people listened to chance orators; here and there were heard the shouts of hawkers selling fruit, wine or water mixed with fig-juice; cheats offered marvellous medicines; soothsayers guessed for hidden treasures; interpreters of dreams showed their art. Here and there, in the tumult of conversations and cries, were mingled sounds of the Egyptian sistra, of the sambuké, or of Grecian flutes. Here and there the sick, the pious, or the afflicted were bearing offerings to the temples. In the midst of the people, on the stone flags, flocks of doves, eager for the grain given them, and like movable many-colored and dark spots, now rising for a moment with a loud sound of wings, now dropping down again to places left vacant by people. From time to time the crowds opened before litters in which were visible the affected faces of women, or the heads of senators and knights, with features, as it were, rigid and exhausted from living. The many-tongued population repeated aloud their names, with the addition of some term of ridicule or praise. Among the unordered groups pushed from time to time, advancing with measured tread, parties of soldiers or watches, preserving order on the streets. Around about, the Greek language was heard as often as Latin.

Vinicius, who had not been in the city for a long time, looked with a certain curiosity on that swarm of people and on that Forum Romanum, which both dominated the sea of the world and was flooded by it, so that Petronius, who divined the thoughts of his companion, called it "the nest of the Quirites without—the Quirites." In truth, the local element was well-nigh lost in that crowd, composed of all races and nations. There were to be seen Ethiopians, gigantic light-haired people from the distant north, Britons, Gauls, Germans, sloping-eyed dwellers of Lericum; people from the Euphrates and from the Indus, with beards dyed brick color; Syrians from the banks of the Orontes, with black and mild eyes; dwellers in the deserts of Arabia, dried up as a bone; Jews, with their flat breasts; Egyptians, with the eternal indifferent smile on their faces; Numidians and Africans; Greeks from Hellas, who commanded the city equally with the Romans, but commanded it through science, art, wisdom, and deceit; Greeks from the islands, from