81 



place for the exhibitiou of this shadow and mummery of freedom. 

 Aa extemporized joke, a word, or even a significant gesture applied 

 to an innocent 2:)assage, would fall like a spark on the excitable audience, 

 and, as we have seen in neighbouring countries in our own time, might 

 easily cause violent commotions. Of course these were distasteful and 

 highly irritating to the government, against which, as a matter of 

 course, they were directed. This was an additional motive for Tiberius 

 to look upon all these public amusements with no favourable eye, and 

 to repress by stringent enactments the license of the theatres. An 

 opportunity offered itself in a disturbance in the theatre, which resulted 

 in the death of several persons, amongst them soldiers of the guard 

 and a centurion, who had vainly endeavoured to restore order. The 

 matter was brought before the senate, and it was proposed to give the 

 praetors a summary jurisdiction over the actors, with the right of 

 inflicting corporal punishments (jus virgarum). This motion, no doubt 

 approved of by Tiberius, was vehemently opposed by the tribune 

 Haterius Agrippa, who was even allowed to make use of the once 

 formidable weapon of the tribunician intercession on the plea, that 

 Augustus had declared actors to be exempt from the ignominious 

 punishment of slaves. Tiberius yielded, and tried by some other and 

 milder measures to curtail the license of the stage.* 



A characteiistic incident bearing upon the same point is related by 

 Dion Cassius (57, 17). Tiberius had issued a proclamation, in which 

 he deprecated for the future all new^ year's presents. In the following 

 night he recollected having made use in it of a word not purely 

 latin. He was so annoyed and disturbed in his mind, that he could 

 not rest, until he had sent for some scholars to ask their opinion. 

 Among these there was one, Ateius Capito, who might have been 

 a courtier at the court of Louis XIV., for with the spirit and the 

 wit of a Frenchman he gave it as his opinion, that, though nobody 

 might have used the expression before, it w"as quite classical, since the 

 Emperor had employed it. This servility roused the honest indigna- 

 tion of Marcellus, who, with something of the old Roman frankness 

 retorted, that the Emperor might indeed give the Roman franchise to 

 men, but not to words.'' 



If similar instances of free-spoken honesty were not more frequent 

 than they appear to have been, it was not that Tiberius discountenanced 

 or punished them, (ho seemed on the contrary to draw them forth), but 

 because there was hardly any courage, honesty or public virtue left 

 among the statesmen of that age, and because their abject servility was 



" .Similar instances, Tucit. Annul, ii., 31, 35, 30, 51. 

 ' ^h KaiTap ai'^pdirni^ /i.ct' troKiTflai' Pu>naia>i/ Svi^acrat S'lvyat 'pi'i/nant 5e oH. 



