Embroidered silk curtains fluttered all around it, gold ornaments studded its polished sides, and it held no less a person than the nobleman who had feasted the people with baskets of meat.

This fact had become known to the rabble before the palace gates.

Such an opportunity of showing their exultation in their bondage, their real servility in their imaginary independence, was not to be lost; and accordingly they let loose such a torrent of clamorous gratitude on their entertainer's appearance, that a stranger in Rome would have thought the city in revolt.

They leapt, they ran, they danced round the prancing horses, they flung their empty baskets into the air, and patted approvingly their 'fair round bellies'.

From every side, as the carriage moved on, they gained fresh recruits and acquired new importance.