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80 DAKKNESS AND DAWN
of the nobles as they slowly drove up the steep hill of Aricia.
Of tliis
promiscuous throng to say nothing of Asiatics,
Gauls, Germans, Spaniards, arid Scythians some were
'
From farthest south,
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
Meroe, Nilotic isle and more to west
;
The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea ;
From India and the Golden Chersonese,
And iitmost Indian isle, Taprobane,
Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed.'
One quarter of the city that across the Tiber was
largely given up to Jews. They had flocked to Home in
extraordinary numbers after the visit of Pompey
to Jerusalem.
Sober Eoman burghers long remembered with astonishment,
and something of alarm, the wild wail which
they raised at the funeral of Julius Caesar, who had always
been their generous patron. They were numerous enough,
and organised enough, to make it a formidable matter to
offend them, though the majority of them conspicuous
everywhere by the basket and hay which they carried to
keep their food clean from Gentile profanation pursued
the humblest crafts, and sold sulphur-matches or mended
broken pottery, while the lowest of all told fortunes, or
begged, or cheated, with cringing mien. The persistence
and ability of many of their race had, however, gained them
a footing in the houses of the great. Aliturus, the actor, was
at this moment a favourite of Nero, and of Rome. The
authors of that age Martial, Juvenal, Persius, Tacitus
abound with wondering and stinging allusions to the votaries
of Mosaism.
They made many converts, and the splendid beauty of
Berenice and Drusilla, the daughters of Herod Agrippa
I..
together with the wealth of their brother, Agrippa II., had
given them a prominent position in distinguished circles. To
their father, the brilliant adventurer Agrippa I., the favourite
of Caligula, Claudius had practically owed his elevation to the
Empire, since he it was who induced the senators to acquiesce
in that uncouth dominion.
The streets of Rome were full of persons who lived in
semi-pauperism ;
lazzaroni who had nothing to depend upon
but the sportula or dole supplied by noble and wealthy
families, or grants of corn made at nominal prices by the