,
and finally ending with these words, that brought everything to a
head:--

"Seeing then, Conscript Fathers, that Quintus Cassius and Marcus
Antonius are using their tribunician office to aid Caius Caesar to
perpetuate his tyranny, the consuls ask you to clothe the magistrates
with dictatorial power in order that the liberties of the Republic may
not be subverted!"

The liberties of the Republic! Liberty to plunder provinces! To bribe!
To rob the treasury! To defraud! To violate the law of man and God! To
rule the whole world so that a corrupt oligarchy might be aggrandized!
Far, far had the nation of the older Claudii, Fabii, and Cornelii
fallen from that proud eminence when, a hundred years before,
Polybius, contrasting the Romans with the degenerate Greeks, had
exclaimed, "A statesman of Hellas, with ten checking clerks and ten
seals, ... cannot keep faith with a single talent; Romans, in their
magistracies and embassies, handle great sums of money, and yet from
pure respect of oath keep their faith intact."

But the words of selfish virulence and cant had been uttered, and up
from the body of the house swelled a shout of approval, growing louder
and louder every instant.

Then up rose Domitius, on his face the leer of a brutal triumph.

"Conscript Fathers," he said, "I call for a vote on the question of
martial law. Have the Senate divide on the motion. 'Let the consuls,
praetors, tribunes of the plebs, and men of consular rank see to it
that the Republic suffers no harm.'"

Another shout of applause rolled along the seats, fiercer and fiercer,
and through it all a shower of curses and abusive epithets upon the
Caesarians. All around Drusus seemed to be tossing and bellowing the
breakers of some vast ocean, an ocean of human forms and faces, that
was about to dash upon him and overwhelm him, in mad fury
irresistible. The din was louder and louder. The bronze casings on the
walls rattled, the pediments and pavements seemed to vibrate; outside,
the vast mob swarming around the Curia reëchoed the shout. "Down with
Caesar!" "Down with the tribunes!" "_Io!_ Pompeius!"

It was all as some wild distorted dream passing before Drusus's eyes.
He could not bring himself to conceive the scene as otherwise. In a
sort of stupor he saw the senators swarming to the right of the
building, hastening to cast their votes in favour of Domitius's
motion. Only two men--under a storm of abuse and hootings, passed to
the left and