The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
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provinces. There is ample testimony to prove that his reign was, to the subjects, a period of unusual happiness. The discipline of the troops was strictly maintained, and the control exercised over the conduct of the governors was efficient and severe. The means of obtaining justice against oppression were facilitated, and under no reign were there so many prosecutions of governors and procurators for extortion. Besides this, the burdens were never increased; and the new principle of keeping the same governor at his post for a long time seems to have worked satisfactorily. G. Poprasus Sabinus, legatus of Macedonia and Achaia, which Tiberius had united in a single imperial province (15 A.D.), held that office throughout almost the whole reign. The imperial provinces were, as a rule, more equitably ruled than the senatorial. This is shown clearly under Tiberius by the number of cases in which proconsuls were condemned for maladministration. The subjects themselves considered it a piece of good fortune to be transferred from the government of the senate to that of the Emperor. Tiberius expressed his provincial policy in saying that “it is the part of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to flay them.” The special regulation which made the governors responsible for acts of rapacity on the part of their wives, deserves notice.
If he cared for the provinces, Tiberius did not neglect to help and guide the senate in promoting the welfare of Italy. He provided for the public safety and the security of travelers against robbers by stationing troops in various parts of the country; and all disturbances were promptly suppressed. He also concerned himself for the revival of agriculture, which had been slowly and surely declining in Italy during the past century, owing to the disappearance of the population of free laborers, so that the peninsula was dependent on foreign supplies for her maintenance.
A serious economic crisis occurred in 33 A.D., and the Emperor was obliged to interpose in order to save credit. The professional accusers (delatores) made an attack upon the money-lending capitalists, who had been systematically acting in defiance of two laws of Julius Caesar. One of these laws forbade any one to have more than 60,000 sesterces of ready money in hand; the rest of each man’s property was to be invested in lands and houses in Italy. The other regulated the relations between lenders and borrowers, and the amount of interest. The matter came before the city praetor Gracchus, who thought it necessary to refer the question to the senate, as so many people were concerned. But the senators themselves were all guilty of transgressing the law, and so they appealed to the Emperor. He granted a year and six months, within which term everyone was to arrange his accounts in conformity with the law. The usurers immediately called in their loans, and a large number of the debtors, in order to meet their obligations, were obliged to sell their estates. It was foreseen that this would lead to a scarcity of money, and, in order to keep specie in circulation, a senates consultum in the spirit of Caesar’s law was passed, that every creditor should have at least two-thirds of his capital invested in estates in Italy. But the remedy proved only an aggravation of the evil. For the creditors hoarded up their money to buy land cheap, and the value of estates fell so much that the debtors could not pay their debts. Many families were ruined; but at length Tiberius came to the rescue, and advanced 100,000,000 sesterces as a loan fund, from which any debtor might borrow, for three years without interest, on giving security to the state for double the amount. By this means credit was restored, and the remaining debtors were enabled to save their estates or get the legitimate value for them.
Tiberius paid special and minute attention to the administration of justice. He introduced a new and salutary regulation, that nine days should intervene between the sentence and its execution, in the case of culprits condemned by the senate. That body became, in his reign, the high court of criminal justice. But the Emperor exercised paramount control over its decisions; and in all cases which affected his own interest, the senate merely expressed what they knew to be his will. In legislation Tiberius was also active. The lex Junia Norbana (19 A.D.) was a measure to protect such freedmen as had not been strictly emancipated, but were released from slavery by their masters. This law rendered them independent of their masters for life, and gave them commercium withoutconnubium, or, as it was called, Juniana Latinitas. They could neither bequeath property by will, nor receive bequests from others. The equestrian class was also limited by a senatus consultum, which excluded those whose grandfathers were not freeborn, and who did not possess a fortune of 400,000 sesterces.
In his endeavors to reform abuses and suppress nuisances in Rome and Italy, the Emperor increased and confirmed his unpopularity. He limited the number of gladiators in the arena, and on the occasion of a riot in the theatre, he expelled the players from the city. He made a vain attempt to banish soothsayers from Italy. He tried to suppress the Oriental rites, which were making themselves a home in Rome; he forbade especially the worship of Isis, and cast her statue into the river. He also adopted severe measures against Jews, who possessed Roman citizenship, in Italy. They had attempted to evade military service, and on this ground were regarded as bad subjects, and their rites were forbidden. Four thousand Jew freedmen were transported to Sardinia, and set the task of reducing the robbers who infested that unhealthy island. The limitation of the right of asylum may also be mentioned here, though it chiefly affected the eastern part of the Empire, where many places of refuge had been established for the protection of criminals. These religious refuges secured immunity to crime, and they had become public nuisances.
Tiberius could do little to combat the prevailing luxury and dissipation among the higher classes. Frugal and moderate himself, he deeply disapproved of the extravagance of the aristocracy, and the absurd sums which were spent on furniture and the luxuries of the table. But he saw clearly that sumptuary laws were futile, and he said publicly that the time was not fit for a censorship. He was careful to keep up the state religion, which Augustus had revived. His mother Livia sat in public among the Vestal virgins; and the priests of the newly founded college of the Sodales Augustales, who were to preserve the worship of the divine Augustus, consisted of the leading senators.
The part of the policy of Tiberius, which perhaps did most to render him disliked by both contemporaries and posterity, was the new interpretation which he gave to maiestas. This crime was properly an offence against the abstract majesty of the commonwealth, and it came to include anything tending to bring the state into contempt. A lex Julia of Caesar had defined strictly the various forms which maiestas might assume, and had been extended by Augustus, who, however, had made little use of it. But Tiberius seized on the law of maiestas as a means for his own security; and under him treason became an offence against the person of the Emperor, who thus comes to be regarded as the state. Any insult offered to the Princeps in either speech or writing, was brought under the head of maiestas. Tiberius did not deem himself safe against treachery, and he decided to resort to this engine, which could not fail to be abused and bring odium upon him. It was an instrument, by the fear of which he hoped to control the senators, and prevent them from expressing a dissentient view, lest it should be construed as treason. The case of Lutorius Priscus shows how outrageously his safeguard could be abused. Priscus was a knight who had written verses on the death of Germanicus, and had received from Tiberius a gift as a reward. Some time later Drusus fell ill, and Priscus, encouraged by his former success, composed a poem on Drusus, to be published in case the prince should not recover. But, though Drusus did not die, the poet could not resist the pleasure of reading his composition to an audience, and the consequence was that the matter became known, and he was accused before the senate. The senate found him guilty of counting on the death of a Caesar; only two senators proposed that he should be leniently dealt with, as his act was due to thoughtlessness, not to evil intent. But he was condemned to death, and the sentence was forthwith carried out. Tiberius was absent from Rome when this happened, and when he returned he regretted the occurrence, and praised the view of the small minority. This affair of Priscus led to the regulation already mentioned, that a delay should intervene between the sentence and the infliction of punishment.
The evils of this unhappy extension of the scope of maiestas were aggravated by the encouragement which was given by Tiberius to the delatores. Originally the delator was one who apprized the officers of the exchequer, of debts that were due to the state. The name was extended to those who informed in the cases of offences which were subject to fines. Augustus encouraged delation by offering rewards to those who lodged information against the violators of his marriage laws. Delation soon became a regular profession, and as there was no public prosecutor, it was very convenient to the government to have prosecutions conducted by private