Civil wars and proscriptions had left great voids in Roman families; more prolific foreigners, freedmen, and slaves began to dominate the noisy city now beginning to earn her title of Mistress of the World. The visitor to Pompeii today, noting the large and heavy paving blocks, the narrow sidewalks, the deep ruts made in these solid streets by the heavy wagons, the open shops, the indecent signs, sees Rome in miniature. All this cosmopolitan disorder marked the greater town that had not twenty thousand inhabitants but a million; the noise and the congestion increased out of all proportion to its size because of the character of its dwellers, for Rome had a large foreign population. As in modern New York or London, it was in the foreign quarters that were found the discomforts, the loud misunderstandings, and the noisy, tragic fights for small things. The stranger arriving in Rome had hardly entered its gates when he was being jostled and shoved. The narrow streets were filled with pedlars calling their wares of all kinds, from matches (_sulphurata_), in exchange for broken glass where money was scarce, to a dish of boiled peas for an _as_, or fine smoking sausages for those who had more money. Idlers filled the streets at all hours, but especially at the lunch hour (the sixth) when business ceased and those who patronized the cafés (_tabernæ_) were hurrying to get to their accustomed tables.[338] [Illustration: THE FINDING OF ROMULUS AND REMUS] Around billboards (_programmata_) announcing new plays or exhibitions, crowds gathered while other groups watched acrobats, who beat themselves for the comic effects produced; dancers, jugglers, snake charmers, and performers of every kind and nation abounded. Heavily loaded wagons rumbled noisily along while their drivers cursed and lashed the tired beasts of burden, or the appearance of a tamed bear threw an entire street into wild and joyous confusion. Or perhaps a new troupe of gladiators entered town, to the complete cessation of all business and pastimes.[339] Here and there in the streets, money-changers and others set up tables in convenient places where they were least apt to be driven away, and hawked loudly the bargains that they offered. Money from all the world was then flowing Romeward, and in nothing was this shown more than in expensive funerals, with their hired and vociferous mourners, blocking the streets and putting an end for the time being, to other business—and amusements.[340] Narrow as were the streets, they were made more so by the _tabernæ_, built up against the houses, this practice becoming so much of a nuisance (as in modern times) that the Emperor Domitian caused a decree to be issued against them, forcing the owners to remove the encroachments and confine themselves to the area of the house.[341]