There are instances of literary censorship on the part of the imperial authorities of Rome before the institution of the Christian Church. These are outside of the range of my present subject, but certain examples may be cited as curiosities. =Early Prohibitions of Literature.=--Tacitus remarks that Augustus was the first ruler who undertook to punish a word written or spoken (that is to say, a word unaccompanied by action). While the law of the Roman Republic had recognised as deserving of punishment only criminal deeds, the Emperor brought the authority of the law to bear upon writings described as libellous or scandalous (_libelli famosi_). He ordered, for instance, that the writings of Labienus should be publicly burned. His successor, Tiberius, issued a still stronger regulation for the supervision of undisciplined or insubordinate writings. Cremutius Cordus was driven from his occupation and left to die through poverty for the offence of speaking of Gaius Cassius as “the last Roman.” His writings were ordered to be burned by the Aediles. Tacitus speaks with scorn of those who, in the possession of a little momentary power, undertake to crush out opinions not in accord with their own, or to prevent such opinions from being handed down to posterity. The writings of Vejinto were prohibited by Nero. Concerning this prohibition, Tacitus writes: “So long as the possession of these writings was attended with danger, they were eagerly sought and read; when there was no longer any difficulty in securing them, they fell into oblivion.” An edict ascribed to Domitian ordered that the historian Hermogenes and any book-dealers who concerned themselves with the distribution of certain writings of his which had libelled the Emperor should be crucified.[13] The German historian Schmitz is, however, of opinion that this so-called edict of Domitian was apocryphal. It appears certainly, however, to have been the case that the policy of these earlier emperors was decidedly opposed to any freedom of expression of thought. If it is the case that in the later centuries of imperial rule there are fewer instances of punishments of writers or orders for the suppression of literature, the explanation may be that literary activity had already been substantially repressed. Justinian deposed from office Severus and certain other bishops because they had been lax in their supervision of literature, and had permitted the wide circulation throughout the realm of prohibited books and pernicious writings. With the development of the Church of Rome to the ecclesiastical headship of the world, the claim for the supervision of literature and for the control of the productions of authors was asserted by the Church as the legitimate successor of the imperial authority. It is the opinion of Lea that the earliest act of censorship, and perhaps the most sweeping, of the Christian Church is that contained in the “Apostolic Constitutions” which purport to have been written by St.