Nowhere are
processions so splendid, festivals so magnificent, the whole body of the
population accustomed, either as actors or as spectators, to such daily
displays of opulence and grandeur.
How is all this done? How do all these men live? What do they do for
themselves and for one another? What is the object of this
multiplication of insignia and titles? What is the meaning of the red
stockings and the purple stockings, and the red and the purple hat-band,
and the various decorations of the horses, and the infinite varieties of
cut and color and device in dress and equipage, which you begin to
distinguish only when you become accustomed to objects so unlike
anything you have ever seen before? For every one of them has a meaning,
and tells the instructed eye the hopes and aspirations and half the
history of the bearer as plainly as a tablet or an inscription.
Without attempting, on the present occasion, to answer all of these
questions in detail, I shall endeavor to give such an outline of the
organization of the Roman Government as shall cover the most important
of them.
Pages:
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56