As the candidates left the podium, the grey-haired fistfighters, who had called a truce while their favourites were on stage, fell to cursing and striking each other again.

A number of other candidates paraded across the podium, none of them eliciting more than a smattering of applause or angry catcalls. Then Catilina arrived.

We heard his approach long before we saw him. It began with a roar of sound that seemed to come all the way from the Fontinal Gate and grew louder and louder at it approached the Villa Publica. The sound was like a wall, palpable and impenetrable, as if one might be crushed beneath it. What it was made of was hard to tell at first — the aggregate of booing, hissing, cheering, applauding, jeering, cursing was blended into a single roar. Nor was the physical reaction of the crowd easy to determine. When the retinue passed by, men opened their mouths to shout, but were they cursing or cheering? They thrust their arms into the air, but did a clenched fist signal hatred or support? Through the throng I glimpsed Catilina himself, and from the smile on his face one might have thought that every voice was cheering and every upraised fist was his to command.

When he stood upon the podium, the uproar was deafening. The crowd began to chant his name: 'Catilina! Catilina!' Around me young men jumped up and down, waving their arms. It seemed to me that the whole crowd adored him, and that all their jeering and cursing must have been not for Catilina, but for his enemies. Cicero, meanwhile, withdrew to the farthest corner of the podium and turned his face away.

Catilina withdrew into the Villa Publica with his rivals, and the voting commenced. The wealthier classes, which vote first, had already gathered outside the Sheep Pen. At the entrance each voter was given a wooden tablet and a stylus with which to write the name of his candidate; the styluses and tablets were gathered up at the end of each roped aisle and the tablets deposited in an urn for counting after the entire century had voted; the overall choice of each century counted for a single vote. In all, there are just under two hundred centuries, of which the two very wealthiest classes claim over a hundred. The lower classes have many more individual voters, but control far fewer centuries. The very poorest class, who might arguably make up a majority of Romans, have only five centuries among them. Often, by the time their turn to vote arrives, the outcome has already been decided and they are not allowed to vote at all; not surprisingly, they come to the elections more to view the spectacle than to vote, if they come at all.

We had found a shady spot and were sitting against the west wall of the Villa Publica, where I was explaining these matters to Meto, when Belbo, scratching his straw-coloured hair, asked, 'And what class do you belong to, Master?'

I looked askance at his bovine race, but Meto pressed the question. 'Yes, Papa, what class? You've never told me.'

'Because I haven't bothered to vote for a very long time.'

'But you must know.'

'Actually, yes. We changed classes this year, thanks to my inheritance from Lucius Claudius. Where before we were members of the Fifth Class — which is to say just above the poor — we are now members of the Third Class, just below the rich, along with most other families who own a single farm and a dwelling in the city.'

'And which century do we vote with?'

'If we voted, we would gather with those of the Second Century of the Third Class.'

'And I would be able to vote as well?' I made a face. ‘You would if—' 'I want to see it.' To see what?'

'The Second Century of the Third Class. The other voters of our century.' 'But why?’

'Papa…' He had only to speak with a certain inflection to remind me of our conversation of the night before.

'Very well. But there's no hurry. It's not quite noon, and the first two classes can't have completed their voting yet. And after them, the equestrians, who have their own special class of eighteen centuries, will vote, and then the Third Class. We'll have some wine and a bite to eat, and then we shall go find our fellow voters. The crowd will have shrunk by then; people will start to leave from the heat and the dust and the boredom'

Which was not true, for when we rejoined the crowd, it seemed, if anything, to have grown. Nor was there a feeling of boredom in the air, but rather a charge of excitement, like the rush of wind before a thunderstorm. Men moved about restlessly, with the hush of anticipation in their voices.

At length the Third Class was called upon to vote. A large group of men, better dressed than most but not with the polished look of patricians or the ostentation of equestrian landowners or merchants, gathered outside the Sheep Pen. The First Century filed into the first aisle, the Second Century into the second aisle, and so on.

'There,' said Meto, 'that would be our century, wouldn't it?'

'Yes—’

'Come, Papa, I want to see!'

We moved into the milling throng that was slowly being funnelled into the Sheep Pen. 'But, Meto, there's nothing to see—'

'No slaves here, only citizens!' said an election official posted outside the enclosure. He was looking at Belbo, who nodded and backed away.

'But there's no need.' I protested. 'He can stay with us. We're only—'

'For Catilina!' a voice whispered in my ear. At the same time a newly minted coin was pressed into my palm.

I looked around and saw the face of one of the crowd workers I had recognized before, one of Crassus's henchmen. He recognized me as well.

"The Finder! I thought you'd left Rome for good.' 'I have.'

'And I thought you never voted.' 'I don't.'

‘Well, then!' He snatched the coin out of my palm.

Without meaning to, I found that I was shuffling forwards with everyone else, hemmed in by the crowd and heading for the second aisle of the Sheep Pen. Meto was ahead of me. He was looking down at a shiny coin held between his forefinger and thumb.

'Meto, we need to—'

‘But, Papa, we're almost there.'

And so we were. Before I knew it, we were at the entrance to the voting aisle, and a bored-looking census officer holding a scroll was scmtinizing Meto. 'Family name?' he demanded wearily.

'Gordianus,' said Meto.

'Gordianus, Gordianus — yes, here it is. Not many of you. And which one are you — you hardly look old enough, to vote.' 'I'm sixteen,' protested Meto, 'as of yesterday.'

'Oh, yes, so you are,' said the official, squinting at the list 'Here,

take your tablet and stylus. And you're Gordianus, the pater?' he asked,looking up at me.

^‘Yes. but-'

'Here, your tablet and stylus. Next' — And so, like a sheep, I found myself being driven to the voting urn. Ahead of me Meto scribbled on his tablet. We shuffled forward. Another officer at the end of the line collected our styluses and watched us cast our ballots into the urn. As I did so, the officer gave me an odd look.

We stepped out of the Sheep Pen, where Belbo was waiting for us. I breathed a sigh of relief, then heard a shout behind me. 'You, citizen! With the beard!' I turned around. 'Yes, you!'

The officer had plucked my tablet from the urn and was holding it up. You've made a mistake, citizen!' he laughed. 'There's no "Nemo" in the race for consul'

I shrugged. 'Even so, that's whom I'm voting for.'

Meto would not say for whom he had voted, protesting that his ballot was secret, but it was obvious from the despondent look on his face when it was announced that our century had gone for Silanus. And so he received his first bitter disappointment as a voter.

The disappointment was even more bitter for many in the crowd assembled before the Villa Publica when later that afternoon it was announced that the centuries of the Fifth Class and the free poor would not be needed to determine the outcome. Silanus and Murena had won. The Optimates had maintained their control of the consulships. For the second time in two years, Catilina had been repudiated at the polls. All around us I heard muttered curses and even cries of despair amid the general applause, and I felt a sudden tension in the air.