The first act of the candidate was to send in his name (_profiteri_) to the magistrate destined to preside. This _professio_ had to be made three weeks (_trinum nundinum, intra legitimos dies_)[822] before the date of election. A list of the candidates was then prepared for the people[823] after the magistrate had examined their names and satisfied himself of the qualifications of the competitors. Up to the middle of the last century B.C. the candidates need not be in Rome; but after the year 63 B.C. some unknown law enacted that they should make the _professio_ in person,[824] and a similar clause was again inserted in Pompeius’ law _de jure magistratuum_ of 52 B.C.[825] During the interval between the _professio_ and the election, canvassing, which had commenced long before the open profession of candidature, became brisker. Legitimate _ambitio_ almost rose to the dignity of a formal act. The aspirant, in a dazzlingly whitened robe (_candidatus_), surrounded by a cortège and accompanied by a slave with a good memory for names (_nomenclator_), affably saluted all the citizens whom he met, and shook hands warmly with the rustic voter. Rome’s habit of extending her franchise made the country vote always of some importance; but after the social war the canvassing that followed the _professio_ was as nothing compared with that which had preceded it. The municipal voters, who could not come up for ordinary legislative business, flocked to Rome for the elections in the summer; and to secure success all Italy had to be sounded from the Padus to the Lacinian promontory. Canvassing on this gigantic scale required time and an elaborate organisation. We find Cicero beginning to canvass on 17th July 65 B.C. for the consular elections in 64; and men better circumstanced in birth, wealth, and rank commenced operations by setting in motion a vast machine, which had as its head some noble coterie at Rome (_sodalitas_), and as its instruments the election agents (_divisores_), each of whom took charge of a portion of a tribe. The means used were not necessarily illegitimate, although the names of the _divisores_ became associated with bribery,[826] and a series of laws—not longer, however, than the chain of enactments which Rome usually devoted to some special theme—strove by ever-increasing penalties to stamp out an evil which disappeared only with the popular assemblies themselves. After the people had chosen the new magistrate by their suffrage, a final duty had to be performed by the president in the shape of the _renuntiatio_, or formal announcement of the result of the election. That this was not a purely formal act is shown by the president’s power to refuse to return a legally, or even morally, unqualified candidate who had slipped through the previous stages of election.[827]