On the steps of the Comitium the members of a tribe were gathered to probate the will of one of their people who had just died. Near the military tribune veteran centurions wearing greaves and helmets of bronze stood leaning on staves of vine-wood, the badge of their military rank, discussing the siege of Saguntum and the audacity of Hannibal, eager to march immediately against the Carthaginian.
On the huge blocks of blue stone which paved the Forum the vendors of hot drinks established their great craters, beating on them with ladles to attract the people, and at the foot of the steps of the temple of Concord some Etruscan buffoons, wearing hideous masks, began their grotesque pantomime, attracting the children and the idle from all sides of the quadrangle.
It was cold; a damp and icy wind was blowing off the Pontine marshes; the sky was gray; and from the crowd stirring about the Forum rose a continuous and melancholy buzzing. Actæon compared this square with the bright Agora of Athens, and even with the Forum of Saguntum in its days of peace. The Grecian joyousness was lacking in Rome, the sweet and gladsome lightness of an artistic people, careless of riches, and if engaging in commerce doing so only that it may live more expansively. This was a people cold and sad, devoted to lucre and to the laying up of money, disdainful of ideals, with no other industry than agriculture and war, squeezing the last grain of wheat from their lands, and robbing the enemy; methodical, lacking initiative and youthfulness.
"This people," said the Athenian to himself, "seems never to have been as young as twenty. Even the children seem to be born old."
Actæon with his Grecian sagacity thought over what he had seen within the two days; the cruel discipline of the family, of the religion, and of the State, which held the citizens in subjection; their absolute ignorance of poetry and art; that stern training, sad, based only on duty, which obliged every Roman to a long and painful obedience so that he might some day be able to command.
The father, who in Greece was a friend, in Rome was a tyrant. For the Latin city there existed no other member of the family than the father; the wife, the children, the clients, were almost on the level of slaves; they were instruments of toil, without rights and without name. The gods heard only him; in his house he was priest and judge; he could kill his wife, sell the children three times over, and his authority over the offspring persisted down the years; the conquering consul, the omnipotent senator, trembled when in his father's presence; and in this gloomy and despotic organization, more stern even than that of Sparta, Actæon divined a latent force cradled in mystery which some day should burst its bonds, clasping the world as in an embrace of iron. The Greek detested this gloomy nation, but it held his admiration.