Whether honestly or not, the Roman government aimed its measures solely at certain indubitably criminal acts, which, it was alleged, were associated with the practice of the foreign cults. These acts were often offenses against public morality. Conditions of high religious excitement often sought a physical outlet in dancing or shouting, and no doubt often enough, when the stimulation of wine or drugs or flagellation was added, in sexual excesses. Instances that were perhaps isolated and exceptional were treated as characteristic, and made the basis for repressive legislation.[261] Another and better founded objection to many of the forms of foreign religion was the opportunities they offered for swindlers. As early as 139 B.C.E. the astrologers were banished from Rome, not because of the feeling that the astrological system was baseless, but because of the readiness with which professed astrologers defrauded the simple by portentous horoscopes, which they alone could interpret or avert.[262] The “Chaldeans” or _mathematici_ included many men who were neither the one nor the other. It was obviously easier for a Syrian or Oriental generally to make these claims than for either Greek or Italian. Syrians in the city accordingly found the profession of quack tempting and profitable, and doubtless many Jews as well entered it. We have evidence too that many of the mushroom political associations were grouped about some of these foreign deities. The possession of common _sacra_ was, in a sense, the distinguishing mark of any organized body of men, and organization of the masses in all forms was the commonest device of the agitators of the revolutionary period. Clodius had his mobs grouped in _decuries_ and _curiae_.[263] It is likely enough that in some of these groups, consisting largely of freedmen of foreign birth, various foreign deities were worshiped in the communal _sacra_, so that the various police measures restricting or forbidding these rites may have had strong political motives as well. When Caesar reconstituted the state after Pharsalia, he knew from direct experience the danger that lay in unrestricted association ostensibly for religious purposes. The θίασοι, “cult-associations,” which he dissolved were undoubtedly grouped about some Greek or Oriental deity. The Jews were specially exempted, for reasons easy to guess at, but which we cannot exactly determine.[264] This striking favor cannot but have immensely increased their influence. We need not suppose that Caesar’s orders were any more effective than previous decrees of this character had been. But even a temporary clearing of the field gave the active propagandists among the Jews an opportunity which they fully utilized.