Of two only is it true that their influence was in any way repressive. The principate of Tiberius is notorious for the silence of literature; whether the fact is due as much to the character of Tiberius as to the temporary exhaustion of genius following naturally on the brilliance of the Augustan period, is more than doubtful. But Tiberius cannot be acquitted of all blame. The cynical humour with which it pleased him to mark the steady advance of autocracy, the _lentae maxillae_ which Augustus attributed to his adopted son,[3] the icy and ironic cruelty which was--on the most favourable estimate--a not inconsiderable element in his character, no doubt all exercised a chilling influence, not only on politics but on all spontaneous expression of human character. Further, we find a few instances of active and cruel repression. Lampoons against the emperor were punished with death.[4] Cremutius Cordus was driven to suicide for styling 'Brutus and Cassius the last of all the Romans'.[5] Mamercus Scaurus had the misfortune to write a tragedy on the subject of Atreus in which he advised submission to Atreus in a version of the Euripidean [Greek: tas t_on turann_on amathias pherein chre_on][6] He too fell a victim to the Emperor's displeasure, though the chief charges actually brought against him were of adultery with the Princess Livilla and practice of the black art. We hear also of another case in which _obiectum est poetae quod in tragoedia Agamemnonem probris lacessisset_ (Suet. _Tib_. 61). It is worthy of notice that actors also came under Tiberius's displeasure.[7] The mime and the Atellan farce afforded too free an opportunity for improvisation against the emperor. Even the harmless Phaedrus seems to have incurred the anger of Sejanus, and to have suffered thereby.[8] Nor do the few instances in which Tiberius appears as a patron of literature fill us with great respect for his taste. He is said to have given one Asellius Sabinus 100,000 sesterces for a dialogue between a mushroom, a finch, an oyster, and a thrush,[9] and to have rewarded a worthless writer,[10] Clutorius Priscus, for a poem composed on the death of Germanicus. On the other hand, he seems to have had a sincere love of literature,[11] though he wrote in a crabbed and affected style. He was a purist in language with a taste for archaism,[12] left a brief autobiography[13] and dabbled in poetry, writing epigrams,[14] a lyric _conquestio de morte Lucii Caesaris_[15] and Greek imitations of Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius, the learned poets of Alexandria. His taste was bad: he went even farther than his beloved Alexandrians, awaking the laughter of his contemporaries even in an age when obscure mythological learning was at a premium. The questions which delighted him were--'Who was the mother of Hecuba?' 'What was the name of Achilles when disguised as a girl?' 'What did the sirens sing?'[16] Literature had little to learn from