That the senatusconsultum in question was general, and was directed indiscriminately at all foreign religions, appears not merely from the direct statement of Suetonius and Tacitus, and the association of the two stories by Josephus, but also from a reference of Seneca. In his philosophic essays, written in the form of letters to his friend Lucilius (108, 22), he says: “I began [under the teaching of Sotion] to abstain from animal food.... You ask me when I ceased to abstain. My youth was passed during the first years of Tiberius Caesar’s rule. At that time foreign rites were expelled; but one of the proofs of adherence to such a superstition was held to be the abstinence from the flesh of certain animals. At the request of my father, who did not fear malicious prosecution, but hated philosophy, I returned to my former habits.” The words of Seneca, _sacra movebantur_, suggest the τῶν ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ παρακινηθέντων of Philo (_loc. cit._), “when there was a general agitation [against the Jews?] in Italy.” It is further noticeable that the _mathematici_, _i.e._ the soothsayers, against whom the Roman laws were at all times severe, were also included in this decree.[335] [Illustration: SYMBOLS AND INSCRIPTIONS FROM JEWISH CATACOMBS AND CEMETERIES IN ROME (From Garrucci)] It has been pointed out before (above, p. 242) that the observance of foreign religious rites was never forbidden as such by Roman laws. From the first of the instances, the Bacchanalian persecution of 186 B.C.E., it was always some definite crime, immorality or imposture, that was attacked and of which the rites mentioned were alleged to be the instruments. The “expulsion” of the Isis-worshipers during the republic meant only that certain foreigners were summarily ordered to leave the city, something that the Lex Junia Penni in 83 B.C.E. and the Lex Papia of 65 B.C.E. attempted to enforce, and which the Roman police might do at any time when they thought the public interest demanded it. Roman citizens practising these rites could never be proceeded against, unless they were guilty of one of the crimes these foreign practices were assumed to involve. The two stories cited by Josephus, one concerning an Isis-worshiper, the other a Jew, may not be true. Whether true or not, the incidents they record surely did not of themselves cause the expulsion of either group. But these are fair samples of the stories that were probably told and believed in Rome, and similar incidents no doubt did occur. The association of the _mathematici_ with the other two makes it probable that the senatusconsultum was directed against fraud, the getting of money under false pretenses, and that the Jewish, Isiac, and other rites, as well as astrology, were mentioned solely as types of devices to that end.