And at last, as the sun sank yet lower toward the horizon, a yet brighter brilliancy investing the scene, as far down the line new shouts arose, and the struggling throng caught up the loud acclaim and carried it onward like a great wave, betokening the speedy approach of the most distinguished feature of the procession--the conqueror himself--hailed Imperator by his troops--with his most noble friends clustered about him, the myrtle wreath encircling his brow, and his earnest gaze fixed upon the Capitol, the honorable termination of his route. In every respect, indeed--except in the display of those few distinctive formalities required to mark, as with a legal stamp, the actual and comparative value of the honor--the same old familiar story, so often hitherto rehearsed upon that line of Sacra Via and of Forum: incense burning upon the altars, which had blazed for other heroes; garlands hanging from the arches which had graced past festivities; and surging crowds, heedful only of the present glory, and, with the customary popular fickleness, ready to forget it all as soon as the fleeting pageant should be over, now with indiscriminating zeal cheering the march of Sergius Vanno as frantically as in other days they had greeted the triumphal cars of Caesar and of Vespasian. CHAPTER II. Gradually the sun approached and dipped below the blue line of extended plain which lay between the city and the sea; the long shadows of afternoon began to blend into the one deeper shade of evening; the groups of distant buildings became more and more indistinct; the arches of the Colosseum softly faded away, leaving but a broad mass of unbroken wall; upon the Palatine Hill the great house of the Caesars shone less and less gloriously as the sky darkened behind the pile of decorated roofs; here and there a light gleamed from some distant quarter; here and there stars began to glisten in the sky. Then the concourse of people, who had waited so long and patiently, began to break apart. The pageant was not yet entirely over, for fresh battalions of soldiers still marched past at rapid pace, tuning their steady tramp to the cadence of their songs of triumph. But the great feature of the occasion--the conqueror himself--had ridden by; and what yet remained was but a faint recapitulation of the glories which had gone before. Therefore the patricians retired from their balconies, the horsemen abandoned their stations and plunged down the many streets which led out from the Forum, and the crowd of slaves and menial citizens, already rendered so indistinct in the fading light as to resemble one writhing, struggling monster rather than separate beings, began to stretch out its long arms into the narrow lanes and byways, and so gradually to melt away.