Yet people were not deceived by all this apparent regard for liberty and justice; for they saw, as they thought, from the very commencement, the germs of tyranny, especially in the renewal of the law of treason (majestas). In the time of the republic there was a law under this name, by which any one who had diminished the greatness (majestas) of the Roman people by betraying an army, exciting the plebs to sedition, or acting wrongly in command, was subject to punishment. It applied to actions alone; but Sulla extended it to speeches, and Augustus to writings against not merely the state, but private individuals, on the occasion of Cassius Severus having libelled several illustrious persons of both sexes. Tiberius, who was angered by anonymous verses made on himself, directed the prætor, when consulted by him on the subject, to give judgment on the law of treason. As this law extended to words as well as actions, it opened a wide field for mischief, and gave birth to the vile brood of delators or public informers answering to the sycophants, those pests of Athens in the days of her democratic despotism. This evil commenced almost with the reign of Tiberius, in whose second year two knights, Falonius and Rubrius, were accused, the one of associating a player of infamous character with the worshippers of Augustus, and of having sold with his gardens a statue of that prince, the other of having sworn falsely by his divinity. Tiberius however would not allow these absurd charges to be entertained. Soon after Granius Marcellus, the prætor of Bithynia, was charged with treason by his quæstor, Cæpio Crispinus, for having spoken evil of Tiberius, having placed his own statue on a higher site than that of the Cæsars, and having cut the head of Augustus off a statue to make room for that of Tiberius. This last charge exasperated Tiberius, who declared that he would vote himself on the matter; but a bold expression used by Cn. Piso brought him to reason, and Marcellus was acquitted. After the death of Germanicus, Tiberius acted with less restraint; for his son Drusus did not possess the qualities suited to gain popularity, and thus to control him. In fact, except his affection for his noble adoptive brother, there was nothing in the character of Drusus to esteem. He was addicted to intemperance, devoted to the sports of the amphitheatre, and of so cruel a temper, that a peculiarly sharp kind of sword was named from him drusian. Tiberius made him his colleague in the consulate, and then obtained for him the tribunician power (22); but Drusus was fated to no long enjoyment of the dignity and power thus conferred on him. A fatal change was also to take place in the conduct and government of Tiberius himself, of which we must now trace the origin.