They reached the Temple.  The Senate was already nearly ready for business; every toothless consular who had been in public service for perquisites only, and who for years had been wasting his life enjoying the pickings of an unfortunate province—­all such were in their seats on the front row of benches.  Behind them were the praetorii and the aedilicii,[136] a full session of that great body which had matched its tireless wisdom and tenacity against Pyrrhus, Hannibal, and Antiochus the Great, and been victorious.  Drusus ran his eye over the seats.  There they sat, even in the midst of the general excitement, a body of calm, dignified elders, severe and immaculate in their long white togas and purple-edged tunics.  The multitudes without were howling and jeering; within the temple, reigned silence—­the silence that gathered about the most august and powerful assembly the world has ever seen.

  [136] Ex-praetors and ex-aediles.

The Temple was built of cool, grey stone; the assembly hall was quite apart from the shrine.  The Senate had convened in a spacious semicircular vaulted chamber, cut off from the vulgar world by a row of close, low Doric columns.  From the shade of these pillars one could command a sweeping view of the Forum, packed with a turbulent multitude.  Drusus stood on the Temple steps and looked out and in.  Without, confusion; within, order; without, a leaderless mob; within, an assembly almost every member of which had been invested with some high command.  For a moment the young man revived courage; after all, the Roman Senate was left as a bulwark against passion and popular wrath; and for the time being, as he looked on those motionless, venerable faces, his confidence in this court of final appeal was restored.  Then he began to scan the features of the consulars, and his heart sank.  There was Lucius Calpurnius Piso, with the visage of a philosopher, but within mere moral turpitude.  There was Favonius; there were the two sanguinary Marcelli, consuls respectively for the two preceding years; there was Domitius; there was Cato, his hard face illumined doubtless by the near realization of unholy hopes; there was Faustus Sulla, another bitter oligarch.  Drusus saw them all, and knew that the Caesarian cause had been doomed without a hearing.  Caius Marcellus, the new consul, sat in his separate seat, in all the splendid dignity of his embroidered toga.  Around him stood his twelve lictors.  But Lentulus, at whose behest the Senate had been convened, and who was to act as its president, had not come.  Drusus followed Antonius over to the farther side of the house, where on a long, low bench[137] the other tribunes of the plebs were seated.  Quintus Cassius was already there.  The other tribunes darted angry glances at their newly arrived colleague.  Drusus remained standing behind Antonius, ready to act as a body-guard, as much as to serve in mere official capacity.  Even as they entered he had noticed