Imperium

This in itself surprised people, for it was known that there was little love lost between the two old rivals, and there was a stir among the onlookers; Catilina and Hybrida certainly both turned to stare. For a moment or two, Cicero and Hortensius regarded each other, then simultaneously they nodded and reached out and slowly shook the hand of the other. No word was uttered, and with the handclasp still in place, Hortensius half turned to the men behind him and raised Cicero’s arm above his head. A great shout of applause, mingled with some boos and groans, broke out, for there was no doubt what the gesture meant: I certainly never expected to see anything like it. The aristocrats were supporting Cicero! Immediately, Hortensius’s attendants turned and disappeared into the throng, presumably to spread the word among the nobles’ agents in the centuries that they were to switch their support. I risked a look at Catilina and saw on his face an expression of puzzlement rather than anything else, for the incident, though obviously significant—people were still buzzing about it—was so fleeting that Hortensius was already walking away. An instant later, Figulus called to the candidates to follow him to the platform so that the voting could begin.

    YOU CAN ALWAYS SPOT A FOOL, for he is the man who will tell you he knows who is going to win an election. But an election is a living thing—you might almost say, the most vigorously alive thing there is—with thousands upon thousands of brains and limbs and eyes and thoughts and desires, and it will wriggle and turn and run off in directions no one ever predicted, sometimes just for the joy of proving the wiseacres wrong. This much I learned on the Field of Mars that day, when the entrails were inspected, the skies were checked for suspicious flights of birds, the blessings of the gods were invoked, all epileptics were asked to leave the field (for in those days an attack of epilepsy, or morbus comitialis, automatically rendered proceedings void), a legion was deployed on the approaches to Rome to prevent a surprise attack, the list of candidates was read, the trumpets were sounded, the red flag was hoisted over the Janiculum Hill, and the Roman people began to cast their ballots.
    The honor of being the first of the 193 centuries to vote was decided by lot, and to be a member of this centuria praerogativa, as it was known, was considered a rare blessing, for its decision often set the pattern for what followed. Only the richest centuries were eligible for the draw, and I remember how I stood and watched as that year’s winners, a stalwart collection of merchants and bankers, filed self-importantly over the wooden bridge and disappeared behind the screens. Their ballots were quickly counted, and Figulus came to the front of his tribunal and announced that they had put Cicero in first place and Catilina second. At once a gasp went up, for all those fools I was speaking of had predicted it would be Catilina first and Hybrida second, and then the gasp quickly turned into cheers as Cicero’s supporters, realizing what had happened, began a noisy demonstration which spread across the Field of Mars. Cicero was standing under the awning beneath the consul’s platform. He permitted himself only the most fleeting of smiles, and then, such was the actor in the man, he composed his features into an expression of dignity and authority appropriate to a Roman consul. Catilina—who was as far away from Cicero as it was possible to get, with all the other candidates lined up between them—looked as if he had been struck in the face. Only Hybrida’s expression was blank—whether because he was drunk as usual or too stupid to realize what was happening I cannot say. As for Crassus and Caesar, they had been loitering and chatting together near to the place where the voters emerged after casting their ballots, and I could have laughed aloud as they looked at each other in disbelief. They held a hurried consultation and then darted off in different directions, no doubt to demand how the expenditure of twenty million sesterces had failed to secure the centuria praerogativa .
    If Crassus really had purchased the eight thousand votes which Ranunculus had estimated, that would normally have been enough to swing the election. But this ballot was unusually heavy, thanks to the interest aroused all across Italy, and as the voting went on throughout the morning it became apparent that the