106 



poet Lutorius, a frieud of Sejanus, who, as we have related above, was 

 actually acquitted. The times therefore could uot have been quite so 

 bad even then, as Suetonius avers, who tells us, that " every informer 

 received credit, and that every offence was treated as a capital crime." 

 (Suet. Tib. 61). 



We are now in a position to judge of the accuracy of Tacitus' state- 

 ment, in which he commends in general terms the administration of 

 justice under Tiberius, but exempts from this praise the trials for high 

 treason. I think a candid historian would not characterize the adminis- 

 tration of this branch of the criminal law as harsher than was compatible 

 with strict principles of justice according to Roman notions ; he would 

 come to the conclusion, that Tiberius was not the bloodthirsty tyrant, 

 that the vulgate of history represents him to have been ; that wanton 

 cruelty was foreign to his nature, that, though hard and severe, he was 

 less inclined to harsh measures than the majority of the public men 

 of his time, that he was more temperate than they, more generous, 

 more equitable, and every way more respectable and honourable. 



What then was the cause of that odium of his contemporaries, 

 which has blackened his memory for so many generations? If our 

 analysis of his life and government is at all correct, this hatred was 

 ungenerous and unjust. It is not warranted or even explained by 

 his actions as an administrator, as a legislator, or a judge, as we 

 understand those terms, nor by his policy, if it is judged by a true 

 standard. The cause must be found therefore in a discrepancy 

 between the principles of government, which Tiberius adopted and 

 those, which his contempoi'aries approved of. We may distinguish two 

 classes of detractors of Tiberius — the aristocracy and the populace, 

 and the motives of both are easily explained. 



The Roman aristocracy felt the transition from the republic to the 

 monarchy to be a loss both of political power and material profit. 

 This nobility was essentially a nobility of officials. Office opened its 

 ranks to a new comer, and office gave him intlueuce and wealth. The 

 revenues of the state were looked upon as the legitimate patrimony of 

 a class. Since the expansion of the republic the provinces were 

 exposed to systematic robbery by the members of this aristocracy, who 

 at the beginning of their political career were genei'ally poor and greedy, 

 because in the absence of the law of primogeniture the estates of a 

 family were constantly subdivided, and because the enormous expenses, 

 required to obtain office and to secure popularity, exhausted the 

 resources of the candidates for higher functions, before they went into 

 their provincial governments loaded with debt and eager to enrich 

 themselves during their terms of office. All the checks, which a few 



