'Death to all knaves of parasites!' chimed in another.
'Honour to the citizens of Rome!' roared a third party with modest
enthusiasm.
'Give that freedman our bones to pick!' screamed an urchin from the
outskirts of the crowd.
This ingenious piece of advice was immediately followed; and the
populace gave vent to a shout of triumph as the unfortunate freedman,
scared by a new volley of missiles, retreated with ignominious
expedition to the shelter of his patron's halls.
In the slight and purified specimen of the 'table talk' of a Roman mob
which we have here ventured to exhibit, the reader will perceive that
extraordinary mixture of servility and insolence which characterised not
only the conversation but the actions of the lower orders of society at
the period of which we write. Oppressed and degraded, on the one hand,
to a point of misery scarcely conceivable to the public of the present
day, the poorer classes in Rome were, on the other, invested with such a
degree of moral license, and permitted such an extent of political
privilege, as flattered their vanity into blinding their sense of
indignation.
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