be thwarted by the Dauphin, nor his own power to be shaken. There were indeed some motives for the crime; but it does not follow thence that it was really committed, and I certainly doubt it. Piso’s poisoning Germanicus, might have been winked at by Tiberius; but his insulting and publicly reviling him, was an offence against the _majestas_ which he could not have overlooked when his adopted son was in the case: and moreover that Piso, when Germanicus was sent to succeed him, would not give up the province of Syria, but drew together his troops and prepared to march to Rome, is the most puzzling event in Roman history. Piso and his wife Munatia Plancina, a daughter of the orator Munatius Plancus, were condemned, and the secret was buried with them. There were some suspicion that Livia herself had suggested the plan of poisoning Germanicus: she was horrible enough not to spare her grandson, and it may be that she did not care at all about offending Tiberius. Soon after the death of Germanicus, began the prosecutions for _crimen majestatis_,—those never to be defined charges against which no man could shield himself; for it was a crime which, as early as the republic, had the most different meanings, and indeed might have been applied to anything: whoever had brought any calamity upon the state, was wont to be thus prosecuted. In the reign of Augustus, by a law which we do not know, an offence against the _imperator_ was made a _crimen majestatis_, as formerly those against the republic had been. All trials for this were conducted before the senate, which in fact was only a condemning machine in the hands of the tyrant; just as the National Convention was under Robespierre. Many things were classed under the head of _crimen majestatis_, which in reality did not belong to it at all; as for instance, amours with princesses. At first, that charge was met with very seldom indeed under Tiberius; but gradually there grew up a herd of informers who made it their business to bring to judgment any one who had given offence to the emperor. Tiberius himself acted a neutral part; but the senate got more and more into the frightful habit of condemning whenever it was at all agreeable to the emperor.—On the whole, however, the state during the first nine years of Tiberius was in a very happy condition: there were very few condemnations indeed; and in several of these cases the persons whom they affected were hardly deserving of sympathy. Tiberius lived in retirement, but with dignity and great outward decorum, treating the first men of the nation with much distinction. Augustus was not a close-fisted manager; at the end of his reign he was even in financial difficulties; but he regularly published the accounts of the year before: this was not kept up by Tiberius, who laid by huge hoards. The indirect taxes in Italy were raised, and some new ones brought in. This state of things lasted as long as old Livia lived; and as yet apprehensions were felt only by