=292. The Water Clocks; Methods of a Prosecutor; Applause in the Senate.=--Just as the chief prosecutor commences, the servitors reappear and set close beside him a large glass vessel upon a wooden stand, perforated to empty slowly into a second vessel beneath, and when thus emptied the upper container is promptly refilled. Calvus has been informed he can have “only four water clocks” (about two hours)--an outrageously insufficient number in his opinion, when many an advocate can get twelve--but time must be given the other orators and after that the Senate must discuss and vote. Speedily Calvus warms to his task, and in long periods of sonorous Latin his voice resounds through the Curia. He delights to expand upon the enormity of the crime of putting to death not a mere provincial, not a simple Roman plebeian, but a Roman eques. His speech abounds with elegant and apparently impromptu allusions, metaphors and similes--duly practiced half a month before. He goes out of his way to pay an extended and fulsome compliment to the benignity and liberality of the Emperor in condescending to let the Senate settle the issue. Words at length almost fail him when he calls on the Fathers in the name of Justice, Virtue, Heavenly Vengeance, and all the other guardian deities of the state to punish the hideous misdeeds of such a criminal as Pedius. As he proceeds the Senate kindles at his eloquence. First his personal friends who are sitting directly behind him begin to shout “_Euge!_” and “_Sophos!_” Then the applause re-echoes from all over the hall. Presently the occupants of the curule chairs on the platform begin to clap, the consul half rises from his seat as if transported by the oratory, and even Pedius’s own advocates politely join in that applause which Calvus is professionally bound to return with interest as soon as they begin to speak in turn. Soon, all too soon, for the orator, and for those senators who love “the good old times,” when an advocate could thunder all day long, the four water clocks are exhausted. Calvus subsides, to be immediately surrounded by his friends who compare his efforts to those of Cato, Hortensius, Cicero, and such later masters as Cornelius Tacitus; while the freedman immediately speeds off to inform Gratia of the “wonderful triumph” of her husband--a triumph of oratory, whatever be the actual verdict.