Publius Manlius Torquatus sat at his desk. Who should he vote for in the ridiculous contest for Chief Priest? If only the Senate knew he was actually a convinced atheist, who didn’t believe in the crass superstitions of the simple and gullible, there would be Hades to pay – as it were. The trouble was he didn’t really believe that most of the Priests themselves seriously believed in the Gods – they were just in it for what they could get! After all, he was a Priest himself.

At all costs he had to disguise his true feelings. No-one in their right minds would want a sanctimonious little bore like Scipio Nasica as Chief Priest – he least of all. On the other hand Cordatus, the more civilised candidate, had already garnered enough votes to be elected, so what did it matter? If he voted for Nasica, and put on a suitably pious and virtuous air of smug moral superiority whilst he did so, then he might fool people into thinking he was more religious than they had previously imagined. It might be rank hypocrisy, but it worked for him!