I was, presumably, viewing the throbbing heart of glorious Rome for the last time.

I should have felt chief mourner at my own funeral.

Actually I relished, I hugely enjoyed, every pace of my progress through the filling streets, where the passers-by and idlers were still fresh, and lively after a night's sleep and where everything was irradiated by cheerful morning sunlight.

I felt cheerful as the sunlight.
Beyond the Meat Market I had my bearers stop at the Temple of Fortune, which I entered, there I prayed fervently before the statue of the Goddess.
When I was again out in the market I bought two live white hens, young and plump, and assigned one of my relief-bearers to carry carefully the basket in which the old market-woman ensconced them, after I had paid her well for her basket as well as her hens.
Then I had my men carry me down the straight empty street along the southwest flank of the Circus Maximus.

Half way along it I halted them before the Temple of Mercury.