The doubtful and decisive point, then, of this great struggle was this: whether greater success would attend Cicero in his efforts to move the public with his tenacious and insistent accusations, or Verres and his friends in their efforts to tire out that public with their passive resistance. At last, on August 5th, the trial, the preparations for which had occupied so many months, began. The public expectations and curiosity were immense. The struggles and intrigues of the parties had by now converted the trial into a political event. The Democratic opposition wanted Verres to be convicted, so as to inflict a humiliation on the dominant party and to be able to accuse it of countenancing the pillage of the provinces. The Conservative party wished for Verres’s acquittal so as to be able to assert that these accusations of misgovernment, like so many others that had been launched on previous occasions against other governors, were calumnies concocted by the Democratic party, and noxious calumnies to boot, inasmuch as they jeopardised the prestige of the Empire amongst its subjects. Rome was, during these weeks, full of Italians from the North and South, who had come for the elections, the games, and the new census; hence the trial gained in general interest and importance. During the days of waiting for the Pompeian games to begin, this great trial, in which Hortensius and Cicero, the Conservative aristocracy and the Popular party, were to be pitted against each other, promised to be an interesting way of passing the time for all those strangers who had nothing to do. In ancient Rome, as in all parts of the world nowadays, trials were a gratuitous spectacle much to the taste of the public. Thus, on that morning of the 5th of August, an immense crowd thronged the Forum, round the benches on which the judges, the prosecution, the defendant, and his supporters were to take their seats. Verres showed a proud and resolute bearing, and appeared surrounded by a crowd of influential friends. Cicero had the first word, and made a short speech, in which he did not refer to any of the facts to which his witnesses were expected to testify, saying that he would let them speak for themselves. He preferred to deal generically with the political and moral importance of the trial. He said that the provinces, nay, the whole Empire was anxiously following the proceeding which would tell whether there were judges and any hope of justice in Rome. He concluded with a dexterous reference to the suspicions of corruption which were flying about, and to the boasts that Verres was supposed to have made of his ability, with the help of his money, to flout with impunity every court of justice. It was for Hortensius to reply to Cicero’s speech; but he complained that it had been so vague and generic that it contained no single point which he could seize and demolish.