The meal over, the man of politics or business would leave his house,
outside which his clients and friends or other hangers-on would be
waiting for him, and proceed to the Forum,--the centre, as we have
seen, of all his activity--accompanied by these people in a kind of
procession. Some would go before to make room for him, while others
followed him; if bent on election business, he would have experienced
helpers,[424] either volunteers or in his pay, to save him from making
blunders as to names and personalities, and in fact to serve him
in conducting himself towards the populace with the indispensable
_blanditia_.[425] Every Roman of importance liked to have, and usually
had, a train of followers or friends in descending to the Forum of a
morning from his house, or in going about other public business; what
Q. Cicero urges on his brother in canvassing for the consulship may
hold good in principle for all the public appearances of a
public man,--"I press this strongly on you, always to be with a
multitude.
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