ection of jurors had taken place, amidst loud
cheers and counter-cheers--the accuser like a strict censor rejecting
the most worthless, the defendant like a kind-hearted trainer of
gladiators all the best--as soon as the jury had taken their seats, the
loyalists at once began to feel distrust. There never was a seedier lot
round a table in a gambling hell. Senators under a cloud, equites out at
elbows, tribunes who were not so much made of money as "collectors" of
it, according to their official title.[97] However, there were a few
honest men in the panel, whom he had been unable to drive off it by
rejection, and they took their seats among their uncongenial comrades
with gloomy looks and signs of emotion, and were keenly disgusted at
having to rub elbows with such rascals. Hereupon, as question after
question was referred to the panel in the preliminary proceedings, the
severity of the decisions passes belief: there was no disagreement in
voting, the defendant carried none of his points, while the accuser got
even more than he asked. He was triumphant. Need I say more? Hortensius
would have it that he was the only one of us who had seen the truth.
There was not a man who did not think it impossible for him to stand his
trial without being condemned a thousand times over. Farther, when I was
produced as a witness, I suppose you have been told how the shouts of
Clodius's supporters were answered by the jury rising to their feet to
gather round me, and openly to offer their throats to P. Clodius in my
defence. This seemed to me a greater compliment than the well-known
occasion when your fellow citizens[98] stopped Xenocrates from taking an
oath in the witness-box, or when, upon the accounts of Metellus
Numidicus[99] being as usual handed round, a Roman jury refused to look
at them. The compliment paid me, I repeat, was much greater.
Accordingly, as the jurymen were protecting me as the mainstay of the
country, it was by their voices that the defendant was overwhelmed, and
with him all his advocates suffered a crushing blow. Next day my house
was visited by as great a throng as that which escorted me home when I
laid down the consulship. Our eminent Areopagites then exclaimed that
they would not come into court unless a guard was assigned them. The
question was put to the whole panel: there was only one vote against the
need of a guard. The question is brought before the senate: the decree
is passed in the most solemn and la