disguised under the hood of a travelling-dress, as the wearer
hurried, at night-fall, along one of the streets below the palace, to
some amorous appointment. Unfamiliar as he still was with dead
faces, he was taken by surprise, and touched far beyond what he had
reckoned on, by the piteous change there; even the skill of Galen
having been not wholly successful in the process of embalming. It
was as if a brother of his own were lying low before him, with that
meek and helpless expression it would have been a sacrilege to treat
rudely.

Meantime, in the centre of the Campus Martius, within the grove of
poplars which enclosed the space where the body of Augustus had been
burnt, the great funeral pyre, stuffed with shavings of various
aromatic woods, was built up in many stages, separated from each
other by a light entablature of woodwork, and adorned abundantly with
carved and tapestried images. Upon this pyramidal or flame-shaped
structure lay the corpse, hidden now under a mountain of flowers and
incense brought by the women, who from the first had had their
fondness for the wanton graces of the deceased. The dead body was
surmounted by a waxen effigy of great size, arrayed in the triumphal
ornaments. [32] At last the Centurions to whom that office belonged,
drew near, torch in hand, to ignite the pile at its four corners,
while the soldiers, in wild excitement, flung themselves around it,
casting into the flames the decorations they had received for acts of
valour under the dead emperor's command.

It had been a really heroic order, spoiled a little, at the last
moment, through the somewhat tawdry artifice, by which an eagle--not
a very noble or youthful specimen of its kind--was caused to take
flight amid the real or affected awe of the spectators, above the