Citizens assembled to vote for the consuls in the same way that their earliest ancestors had massed to go to war. Just as in the days of the kings, a military trumpet would be blown at daybreak to summon them to the Campus. A red flag would flutter on the Janiculum Hill beyond the Tiber, signalling that no enemies could be seen. The citizens would then line up as though for battle, with the richest at the front and the poorest at the rear. This meant that it was always the senior classes who were the first to pass into the Ovile. Nor was that their only privilege. So heavily weighted were
...more
