The Curia Julia has a magnificent hall with tiers of comfortable and highly carved benches (_subsellia_) curving in a semi-circle not unlike the legislative chambers of other times. The six hundred senators sit fairly close together, so that the debates can be in easy voice. At the entrance the consuls’ viatores and lictors check off the Fathers entering to exclude interlopers, but there is no real secrecy. The doors are numerous and stand wide, and a curious crowd is permitted to linger around them; especially are the young sons of a good many senators seen there, eagerly following all the proceedings wherein they hope soon to have a part. (See p. 190.) Facing the benches rises a low dais whereon is a line of curule chairs for the consuls and prætors, also a long solid settee whereon ten of the younger senators sit down solemnly together. These ten are the tribunes of the Plebs,--shorn now of nearly all their ancient authority, but still maintaining the “shadow of a great name,” a name surviving from the time when, as in the days of such personages as Gaius Gracchus, a tribune could be mightier than a consul. =288. The Gathering of the Senators.=--The Fathers drop into their seats. No law adjusts their precedence, but etiquette gives the front row to the ex-consuls, the next banks to the ex-prætors, behind them the former ædiles, tribunes, and quæstors with the _pedani_[179] (senators who have never held elective office) modestly in the rear. The defendant Pedius attended by several distinguished senators, his relatives, all clad in the gray togas of distress and mourning, and also by his two advocates both in conventional white, take seats in the front benches. As they do this it is noted as of ominous significance that several ex-consuls, who had come in first, promptly shift to the other side of the hall. At the center of the platform is observed a majestic, gilded statue of Victory, with expanded wings, flowing robes, standing upon a globe, and stretching forth a laurel crown.[180] Before it, upon a little altar, a few coals are smoking. Presently a door at the side of the platform opens, and a lictor signs with his fasces. The chatter across the now crowded hall ceases instantly; all the toga-clad figures rise together, while the presiding consul, Gaius Juventius Varus,[181] leads in the array of magistrates, each in the ornate toga prætexta. =289. Opening the Session: Taking the Auspices.=--Gravely this official company seats itself in the curule chairs; gravely Varus casts a handful of incense upon the altar before the Victory, and a cloud of fragrance fills the hall. Then Varus, a tall and very majestic figure, signs to the senators; they also are seated, next his voice sounds clearly: “Bring forth the chickens!”