But Cicero was too honorable to lend himself to an accusation
which he knew to be false. Some of the young lords in their disappointment
threatened Caesar at the senate-house door with their swords; but the
attack missed its mark, and served only to show how dreaded Caesar already
was, and how eager a desire there was to make an end of him.
The list submitted for judgment contained the names of none but those who
were indisputably guilty. The Senate voted at once that they were traitors
to the State. The next question was of the nature of their punishment. In
the first place the persons of public officers were sacred, and Lentulus
was at the time a praetor. And next the Sempronian law forbade distinctly
that any Roman citizen should be put to death without a trial, and without
the right of appeal to the assembly.[16] It did not mean simply that
Roman citizens were not to be murdered, or that at any time it had been
supposed that they might. The object was to restrain the extraordinary
power claimed by the Senate of setting the laws aside on exceptional
occasions. Silanus, the consul-elect for the following year, was,
according to usage, asked to give his opinion first. He voted for
immediate death. One after the other the voices were the same, till the
turn came of Tiberius Nero, the great-grandfather of Nero the Emperor.
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