The days which followed were the most nerve-wracking Cicero had endured in public life. On the morning of the consular election he was so dispirited he could hardly bring himself to go out to the Field of Mars to vote, but of course he had to be seen to be an active citizen. The result was never in doubt, from the moment the trumpets sounded and the red flag was hoisted over the Janiculum Hill. Hortensius and Quintus Metellus were backed by Verres and his gold, by the aristocrats, and by the supporters of Pompey and Crassus. Nevertheless, there was always a race-day atmosphere on these occasions, with the candidates and their supporters streaming out of the city in the early morning sunshine toward the voting pens, and the enterprising shopkeepers piling their stalls with wine and sausages, dice and parasols, and all else that was necessary to enjoy a good election. Pompey, as senior consul, in accordance with the ancient custom, was already standing at the entrance to the returning officer’s tent, with an augur beside him. The moment all the candidates for consul and praetor, perhaps twenty senators, had lined up in their whitened togas, he mounted the platform and read out the traditional prayer. Soon afterwards the voting started and there was nothing for the thousands of electors to do except mill around and gossip until it was their turn to enter the enclosures.

This was the old republic in action, the men all voting in their allotted centuries, just as they had in ancient times, when as soldiers they elected their commander. Now that the ritual has become meaningless, it is hard to convey how moving a spectacle it was, even for a slave such as I, who did not have the franchise. It embodied something marvelous-some impulse of the human spirit that had sparked into life half a millennium before among that indomitable race who dwelled amid the hard rocks and soft marshland of the Seven Hills: some impulse toward the light of dignity and freedom, and away from the darkness of brute subservience. This is what we have lost. Not that it was a pure, Aristotelean democracy, by any means. Precedence among the centuries-of which there were 193-was determined by wealth, and the richest classes always voted earliest and declared first: a significant advantage. These centuries also benefited by having fewer members, whereas the centuries of the poor, like the slums of Subura, were vast and teeming; as a consequence, a rich man’s vote counted for more. Still, it was freedom, as it had been practiced for hundreds of years, and no man on the Field of Mars that day would have dreamed that he might live to see it taken away.

Cicero’s century, one of the twelve consisting entirely of members of the equestrian order, was called around mid-morning, just as it was starting to get hot. He strolled with his fellows into the roped-off enclosure and proceeded to work the throng in his usual way-a word here, a touch of the elbow there. Then they formed themselves into a line and filed by the table at which sat the clerks, who checked their names and handed them their voting counters. If there was to be intimidation, this was generally the place where it occurred, for the partisans of each candidate could get up close to the voters and whisper their threats or promises. But on this day all was quiet, and I watched Cicero step across the narrow wooden bridge and disappear behind the boards to cast his ballot. Emerging on the other side, he passed along the line of candidates and their friends, who were standing beneath an awning, paused briefly to talk to Palicanus-the rough-spoken former tribune was standing for a praetorship-and then exited without giving Hortensius or Metellus a second glance.

Like all those before it, Cicero’s century backed the official slate-Hortensius and Quintus Metellus for consul; Marcus Metellus and Palicanus for praetor-and now it was merely a question of going on until an absolute majority was reached. The poorer men must have known they could not affect the outcome, but such was the dignity conveyed by the franchise that they stood all afternoon in the heat, waiting their turn to collect their ballots and shuffle over the bridge. Cicero and I went up and down the lines as he canvassed support for the aedileship, and it was marvelous how many he knew personally-not just the voters’ names, but their wives’ names and the numbers of their children, and the nature of their employment: all done without any prompting from me. At the eleventh hour, when the sun was just starting to dip toward the Janiculum, a halt was called at last and Pompey proclaimed the winners. Hortensius had topped the poll for consul, with Quintus Metellus second; Marcus Metellus had won most votes for praetor. Their jubilant supporters crowded around them, and now for the first time we saw the red-headed figure of Gaius Verres slip into the front rank-“The puppet-master comes to take his bow,” observed Cicero-and one would have thought that he had won the consulship by the way the aristocrats shook his hand and pounded him on the back. One of them, a former consul, Scribonius Curio, embraced Verres and said, loud enough for all to hear, “I hereby inform you that today’s election means your acquittal!”

There are few forces in politics harder to resist than a feeling that something is inevitable, for humans move as a flock, and will always rush like sheep toward the safety of a winner. On every side now, one heard the same opinion: Cicero was done for, Cicero was finished, the aristocrats were back in charge, no jury would ever convict Gaius Verres. Aemilius Alba, who fancied himself a wit, told everyone he met that he was in despair: the bottom had dropped out of the market for Verres’s jurors, and he couldn’t sell himself for more than three thousand. Attention now switched to the forthcoming elections for aedile, and it was not long before Cicero detected Verres’s hand at work behind the scenes here as well. A professional election agent, Ranunculus, who was well disposed toward Cicero and was afterwards employed by him, came to warn the senator that Verres had called a nighttime meeting at his own house of all the leading bribery merchants and had offered five thousand to every man who could persuade his tribe not to vote for Cicero. I could see that both Cicero and his brother were worried. Worse was to follow. A few days later, on the eve of the actual election, the Senate met with Crassus in the chair, to witness the praetors-elect draw lots to determine which courts they would preside over when they took office in January. I was not present, but Cicero was in the chamber, and he returned home afterwards looking white and limp. The unbelievable had happened: Marcus Metellus, already a juror in the Verres case, had drawn the extortion court!

Even in his darkest imaginings, Cicero had never contemplated such an outcome. He was so shocked he had almost lost his voice. “You should have heard the uproar in the house,” he whispered to Quintus. “Crassus must have rigged the draw. Everyone believes he did it, but nobody knows how he did it. That man will not rest until I am broken, bankrupt, and in exile.” He shuffled into his study and collapsed into his chair. It was a stiflingly hot day, the third of August, and there was hardly room to move among all the accumulated material from the Verres case: the piles of tax records and affidavits and witness statements, roasting and dusty in the heat. (And these were only a fraction of the total: most were locked in boxes in the cellar.) His draft speech-his immense opening speech, which kept on growing and growing, like some proliferating madness-was stacked in tottering piles across his desk. I had long since given up trying to keep track of it. Only he knew how it might come together. It was all in his head, the sides of which he now began massaging with the tips of his fingers. He asked in a croaking voice for a cup of water. I turned away to fetch it, heard a sigh and then a thump, and when I looked around he had slumped forward, knocking his skull against the edge of his desk. Quintus and I rushed to either side of him and pulled him up. His cheeks were dead gray, with a livid streak of bright red blood trickling from his nose; his mouth hung slack and open.

Quintus was in a panic. “Fetch Terentia!” he shouted. “Quickly!”

I ran upstairs to her room and told her the master was ill. She came down at once and was magnificent in the way she took command. Cicero by now was feebly conscious, his head between his knees. She knelt beside him, called for water, pulled a fan from her sleeve, and starting waving it vigorously to cool his cheeks. Quintus, in the meantime, still wringing his hands, had dispatched the two junior secretaries to fetch whatever doctors were in the neighborhood, and each soon returned with a Greek medic in tow. The wretched quacks immediately began arguing between themselves about whether it was best to purge or bleed. Terentia sent both packing. She also refused to allow Cicero to be carried up to bed, warning Quintus that word of this would quickly get around, and the widespread belief that her husband was finished would then become an accomplished fact. She made him rise unsteadily to his feet and, holding his arm, took him out into the atrium, where the air was fresher. Quintus and I followed. “You are not finished!” I could hear her saying sternly to him. “You have your case-now make it!” Cicero mumbled something in reply.

Quintus burst out: “That is all very well, Terentia, but you do not understand what has just happened.” And he told her about Metellus’s appointment as the new president of the extortion court, and its implications. There was no chance of a guilty verdict being returned once he was in the judge’s chair, which meant that their only hope was to have the hearing concluded by December. But that was impossible, given Hortensius’s ability to spin it out. There was simply too much evidence for the time available: only ten days in court before Pompey’s games, and Cicero’s opening statement alone would take up most of it. No sooner would he have finished outlining his case than the court would be in recess for the best part of a month, and by the time they came back the jury would have forgotten his brilliant points. “Not that it matters,” Quintus concluded gloomily, “as most of them are in the pay of Verres already.”

“It is true, Terentia,” said Cicero. He looked around him distractedly, as if he had only just woken up and realized where he was. “I must pull out of the election for aedile,” he muttered. “It would be humiliating to lose, but even more humiliating to win and not be able to discharge the duties of the office.”

“Pathetic,” replied Terentia, and she angrily pulled her arm free of his. “You do not deserve to be elected if this is how you surrender at the first setback, without putting up a fight!”