What actually happened was no doubt that in Rome and in Italy overzealous officials undertook to treat the observance of foreign rites as conclusive or at least presumptive evidence of guilt under this act. Perhaps, as Philo says, it was one of the instances of Sejanus’ tyranny to do so. But there is no reason to doubt Philo’s express testimony that Tiberius promptly checked this excess of zeal and enforced the decree as it was intended (_loc. cit._): ὡς οὐκ ἐπὶ πάντας προβάσης τῆς ἐπεξελεύσεως, ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ μόνους τοὺς αἰτίους—ὀλίγοι δὲ ῆσαν—κινῆσαι δὲ μηδὲν ἐξ ἔθους; _i.e._ “since the prosecution was not directed against all, but only against the guilty, who were very few. Otherwise there was to be no departure from the customary attitude.” The transference of the four thousand recruits, _libertini generis_, to Sardinia undoubtedly took place, and was very likely the expression of alarm on the part of Sejanus or Tiberius at the spread of Judaism in Rome. It may well be that the removal of these men was caused rather by the desire to withdraw them from the range of proselytism than by the purpose of allowing them to die in the severe climate of Sardinia. There is as a matter of fact no evidence that Sardinia had a noticeably different climate from that of Italy. It was one of the granaries of the empire.[336] Perhaps we may reconstitute the decree as follows: The penalty imposed was, for foreigners, expulsion; for Roman citizens, perhaps exile; for freedmen, forfeiture of their newly acquired liberty in favor of their former masters or the latter’s heirs. This last fact will explain the statement of Suetonius. Many of the people affected were no doubt freedmen, and several instances where such a penalty was actually inflicted would account quite adequately for the words _perpetua servitus_ of Suetonius. The “malicious prosecution,” _calumnia_, which Seneca asserts his father did _not_ fear, would be based, as against Roman citizens, on the violation of this law against fraudulent practices, of which, as we have seen, the adoption of foreign rites would be taken as evidence. The personal relations between Gaius and the Jewish king Agrippa seemed to guarantee an era of especial prosperity for the Roman Jews. However, the entire principate of that indubitable paranoiac was filled with the agitation that attended his attempt to set up his statue at Jerusalem. His death, which Josephus describes in gratifyingly minute detail, brought permanent relief on that point.