At last the house cools down. The taking of the opinion now proceeds among the prætors-designate and the ex-prætors. No senator can speak twice, but each man, when on his feet, has great liberty of action--several of the younger men half ironically support Gavius, and one senator earns unpopularity by insisting on his right of the floor and calling attention to the embezzlements reported in the African municipality of Utica--a matter quite beside the question. Two or three long and eloquent speeches are delivered in favor of Lupercus’s stern proposal. It is growing late and nobody wants to call on the ex-ædiles and other junior senators,[185] and cries are rising, “_Divide! Divide!_” =297. Taking a Vote of the Senate. A Sentence of Banishment.=--Varus again rises, “Conscript Fathers: you have heard the opinions of these very noble men of consular and prætorian rank. Two propositions are before you. Those who favor the penalties for Sextus Pedius proposed by Appius Lupercus let them walk to the right! Those the lesser penalty proposed by Marcus Gavius to the left.” The hundreds of togas rise together. Gavius is not without a certain minority of supporters who start with him to the left, but most of these, seeing how many ex-consuls of birth and character are following Lupercus, desert Gavius, who is left with only a trifling band around him. There is no need for Varus to count the result. Even while the Senate is dividing the luckless Pedius, with his kinsmen and advocates, is seen gliding through a side exit. It is the defendant’s right thus to anticipate sentence and to slip away with as little ignominy as possible into exile. At a word from the consul the senators return to their seats. The long shadows of evening are stretching through the doors of the Curia, as Varus announces that Sextus Pedius having been convicted of high crimes is banished from Rome and from Italy. He must quit the city to-morrow. He must quit Italy in twenty days. Should he tarry or return he will be “cut off from fire and water,” and dealt with “after the ancient custom”--_i.e._ he will be scourged with his head in a forked stake, then sewed in a bag with a cock, a dog, and a viper, and flung into the sea. Everybody is anxious to be gone. In the great mansions six hundred expensive cooks are fuming over the delay to six hundred expensive dinners. The terrible fate of Pedius will make talk for all Rome through ten days. Varus raises his hand and at length pronounces the sonorous ancient formula, “_Nihil vos moramur, patres conscripti_”--“We detain you no longer, Conscript Fathers.”