Imperium

represented there, even Popillius Laenas, whose nephew Cicero had rescued from a charge of parricide on the day Sthenius came to see us. The atmosphere was more akin to a family festival than an election day, and Cicero as ever was in his element on these occasions; I doubt if there was one supporter whose hand he did not shake, and with whom he did not establish a moment of rapport sufficient to leave the other man feeling he had been specially signaled out.
    Just before we left, Quintus pulled him to one side to ask, quite angrily as I recall, where on earth he had been all night—he had almost sent men out looking for him—to which Cicero, conscious of the people all around him, replied quietly that he would tell him later. But that only made Quintus more aggrieved. “Who do you think I am?” he demanded. “Your maid? Tell me now!” And so Cicero told him then very rapidly about the journey out to the palace of Lucullus and the presence there of Metellus and Catulus, as well as Hortensius and Isauricus.
    “The whole patrician gang!” whispered Quintus excitedly, his irritation entirely forgotten. “My gods, whoever would have thought it? And are they going to support us?”
    “We talked for hour after hour, but in the end, they would not commit themselves until they had spoken to the other great families,” replied Cicero, glancing nervously around, but the din was too great for him to be overheard. “Hortensius, I think, would have agreed on the spot. Catulus remains instinctively opposed. The others will do what self-interest dictates. We shall just have to wait and see.”
    Atticus, who had heard all this, said, “But they believed in the truth of the evidence you showed them?”
    “I think so, yes. Thanks to Tiro. But we can discuss all this later. Put on your bravest faces, gentlemen,” he said, gripping the hands of each of us in turn. “We have an election to win!”
    Seldom can a candidate have staged a more splendid show than Cicero did during his walk down to the Field of Mars, and for that much credit must go to Quintus. We made up a parade of three or four hundred, with musicians, young men carrying green boughs wound with ribbons, girls with rose petals, actor friends of Cicero’s from the theater, senators, knights, merchants, stall holders, regular spectators from the law courts, guild officers, legal clerks, representatives from the Roman communities in Sicily and Nearer Gaul. We set up a terrific noise of cheering and whistling as we came onto the campus and there was a great surge of voters toward us. It is always said of elections, in my experience, that whichever one is in progress at the time is the most significant there has ever been, and on that day, at least, it was arguably true, with the added excitement that no one knew how it would turn out, given the activity among the bribery agents, the sheer number of candidates, and the enmity between them following Cicero’s attack on Catilina and Hybrida in the Senate.
    We had anticipated trouble, and Quintus had taken the precaution of stationing some of our heftier supporters immediately behind and in front of his brother. As we approached the voting pens I felt increasingly worried, for I could see Catilina and his followers up ahead, waiting beside the returning officer’s tent. Some of these ruffians jeered us as we arrived at the enclosure, but Catilina himself, after a brief and contemptuous glance in Cicero’s direction, resumed talking to Hybrida. I muttered to young Frugi that I was surprised he did not at least put on a show of intimidation—that, after all, was his usual tactic—to which Frugi, who was no fool, responded, “He does not feel he needs to—he is so confident of victory.” His words filled me with unease.
    But then a very remarkable thing happened. Cicero and all the other senators seeking either the consulship or the praetorship—perhaps two dozen men—were standing in the small area reserved for the candidates, surrounded by a low sheep fence to separate them from their supporters. The presiding consul, Marcius Figulus, was talking to the augur, checking that all was propitious for the ballot to begin, when just at that moment Hortensius appeared, followed by a retinue of about twenty men. The crowd parted to let him through. He approached the fence and called to Cicero, who interrupted his conversation with one of the other candidates—Cornificius, I think it was—and went over to him.