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Whether it be the gods or man, the law of the hearth or of the heart, that is at issue, both agree that what is private and holy has no place in the forum of common debate. But, within these well-recognized limits, the Greek citizen was a Radical; that is to say, he was ready to apply his reason to public affairs without fear or prejudice.
In early manhood he was a close student, but as he advanced in age he became more and more absorbed in public action. As ominous storms threatened the common weal, he found less delight in his library than in the stern strife of the forum. As he prognosticated the coming tempest and comprehended its fearful issue, he became transformed in aspect like one inspired.
We find lacustrine marls on the sides of the Esquiline Hill where it slopes down into the Forum, and fresh-water bivalve and univalve shells in the ground under the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol; while on the face of the Aventine Hill, overhanging the Tiber at a height of ninety feet, is a cliff of travertine, which is half a mile long.
My first view of old Rome was in the moonlight. We passed through the silent Forum, not on the level of the ancient city, which recoils from modern footsteps and goes downward towards the dust of those who made it famous, but by the ruined temples and columns whose rent seams were shaped anew into graceful perfection by the magical light, by the wilderness of the ruined Caesar's palace, until we looked wonderingly into the intricacy of arch and corridor and column of which was built the arch-temple of Paganism, the Coliseum.
He studied oratory and made his mark in the Roman Forum; he studied the political situation, and step by step made himself a power among men. He was shrewd enough to cultivate Pompey, then the Roman favorite, and brought himself into closer relations with him by marrying his relative. Steadily he grew into public favor and respect, and laid his hands on the reins of control.
For days and days in the Forum there was an incessant shower of tickets that were exchangeable, not for bread or trivial sums, but for gems, pictures, slaves, fortunes, ships, villas and estates. The creator of that shower was bound to be adored. It was that, no doubt, which awoke him.
Here it is all of it; the tragic theater and the comic theater; the basilica; the greater forum and the lesser one; the market place; the amphitheater for the games; the training school for the gladiators; the temples; the baths; the villas of the rich; the huts of the poor; the cubicles of the slaves; shops; offices; workrooms; brothels.
These are the traits of a good and heroic woman; and that she reciprocated the regard which makes her nephew so emphatic in her praise may be conjectured from the fact that, when he made his début as a candidate for the honours of the State, she emerged from her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time her matronly reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced for his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence of the crowds who thronged the Forum and the streets of Rome.
Others of more pacific turn went to the Forum, where beneath the porticos the young aristocrats were competing for the laurel crown offered for the most skilled in music and song.
The tribune, therefore, burning with rage, sent his officer to the consul; the consul sent his lictor to the tribune, exclaiming that he was a private individual, without military office and without civil authority: and the tribune would have been roughly handled, had not both the entire assembly risen up with great warmth in behalf of the tribune against the consul, and a crowd of people belonging to the excited multitude, rushed from all parts of the city into the forum.
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