“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 went on record against the measure.  These were Curio and Caelius; and they stood for some moments alone on the deserted side of the house, defiantly glaring at the raging Senate.  Antonius and Cassius contemptuously remained in their seats—­for no magistrate could vote in the Senate.