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Any Roman of this period, who was not wholly carried away by the current intoxicating idea of the national greatness, must have wished that the ships' beaks might be torn down from the orator's platform in the Forum, that at least he might not be constantly reminded by them of the naval victories achieved in better times.
"I will make these pretty creatures useful, from the very beginning, so that in after time men shall love them dearly. Come, my birds," He cried, "come hither to me, and with the beaks which I have given you hollow me out here, and here, and here, basins for the lakes and pools which I intend to fill with water for men and for you, their friends.
He was not frightened at the ugly sputter of the owls, as in the days of old. Their throaty menace and snapping beaks did not stop him nor turn him aside. The slashing scrape of claws in the bark of trees and the occasional crackling of brush were matters of intimate knowledge, and he gave but little attention to them in his eagerness to reach those who had gone ahead of him.
The front of it was afterwards adorned by Augustus with the beaks of ships taken at Actium. The small Heroön or Temple of Cæsar behind the Rostra was erected on the spot where the body of Cæsar was burned before the house which he had so long inhabited, and in a part of the Forum especially associated with his greatest political triumphs.
Now and again half, a dozen small birds swoop down on one of these birches, to peck at the catkins, and then look about for a stone or a rough tree trunk to rub the gum from their beaks. Each is jealous of the rest; they watch and chase and drive one another away, though there are millions of catkins for them to take all they will. And the one that is chased never does anything but take to flight.
On the ninth night the Runes of Wisdom appeared before mine eyes, and slipping down from the tree I took them to myself. "And I shall tell why my ravens fly to thee, carrying in their beaks scraps of leather. It is that thou mayst make for thyself a sandal; with that sandal on thou mayst put thy foot on the lower jaw of a mighty wolf and rend him.
Where once I had furnished them entertainment and jollity, I now preyed upon them. No jests from me ever bid for their smiles now. They were too precious. I could not afford to dispense gratuitously the means of my livelihood. I was a lugubrious fox praising the singing of my friends, the crow's, that they might drop from their beaks the morsels of wit that I coveted.
It felt quite glad at all the need and misfortune it had suffered, now it realised its happiness in all the splendour that surrounded it. And the great swans swam round it, and stroked it with their beaks.
A happy family of magpies, grey-blue above, with barred tails and yellow beaks, flitted about in restless quest, their constant cries being the only sound which broke the peaceful stillness, until the faint and distant sound of shouts and tom-toms showed that the first act of the farce had begun.
The black birds with red beaks and red legs looked at her. She threw herself on the bed and pressed her face into the pillow and cried "Mamma! Mamma!" Passion Week. It gave you an awful feeling of something going to happen. In the long narrow dining-room the sunlight through the three windows made a strange and solemn blue colour in the dark curtains.
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