And he rejoiced that he could be a Roman, and share in his country's deathless fame, perhaps could win for her new honour,--could be consul, triumphator, and lead his applauding legions up to the temple of Capitoline Jove--another national glory added to so many.
So the vision of the great city of tall ugly tenement houses, basking on her "Seven Hills," which only on their summits showed the nobler temples or the dwellings of the great patricians, broke upon him.

And it was with eyes a-sparkle with enthusiasm, and a light heart, that he reached the Porta Esquilina, left the carriage for a litter borne by four stout Syrians sent out from the house of his late uncle, and was carried soon into the hubbub of the city streets.
Everywhere was the same crowd; shopping parties were pressing in and out the stores, outrunners and foot-boys were continually colliding.
Drusus's escort could barely win a slow progress for their master.
Once on the Sacred Way the advance was more rapid; although even this famous street was barely twenty-two feet wide from house wall to house wall.

Here was the "Lombard" or "Wall Street" of antiquity.

Here were the offices of the great banking houses and syndicates that held the world in fee.

Here centred those busy equites, the capitalists, whose transactions ran out even beyond the lands covered by the eagles, so that while Gaul was yet unconquered, Cicero could boast, "not a sesterce in Gaul changes hands without being entered in a Roman ledger." And here were brokers whose clients were kings, and who by their "influence" almost made peace or war, like modern Rothschilds.
Thither Drusus's litter carried him, for he knew that his first act on coming to Rome to take possession of his uncle's property should be to consult without delay his agent and financial and legal adviser, lest any loophole be left for a disappointed fortune-hunter to contest the will.