that the man would be condemned on the charge of extortion, and that the prejudice thus created against him would secure his condemnation on both charges. It was an abominable trick, and Tiberius saw through it. The conclusion of the narrative of Tacitus is no less ingenious; he says: “There even then remained some traces of expiring liberty. Therefore Gnæus Piso said, ‘In what place will you give your opinion, Cæsar? If first, I shall have something to follow; if last, I am afraid I may inadvertently differ from you.’ Thoroughly alarmed by these words, and penitent because of the imprudence of his outburst, he allowed the accused to be acquitted of the charges of ‘Majestas.’ The case of extortion was referred to the assessors.” As these are the only three cases tried under the law of “Majestas” in the first twelve months of the reign of Tiberius, we must admit that he marched very slowly to that tragic wickedness to which Tacitus refers, and by means of an art which is so artful, as to be to our eyes absolutely invisible. It is further to be remembered that there was formal documentary evidence of the charges, and of their subsequent dismissal, but no evidence can have been forthcoming as to the Emperor’s burst of temper, or the acquiescence of the audience in the supposed revelation of his wickedness except tradition and private memoirs. The remark of Gnæus Piso was to the point, but it is evidence of the weakness of the Senate, not of the tyranny of Tiberius. Tiberius having thus summarily quashed three cases under the “Lex Majestatis,” and sent a senatorial oppressor of a province to be dealt with by the constitutional court, may have offended those surviving heirs of the old senatorial tradition to whom the restoration of the Senate implied the restoration of the abuses of the senatorial administration, but he had done nothing tyrannical. The narrative of Tacitus proceeds, however, as if Tiberius had waded knee deep in blood, and triumphed in the perversion of justice: “Not satiated with the processes in the Senate he used to attend the courts, sitting at the end of the tribunal, in order not to remove the Prætor from his official seat.” There is no question about the fact; Augustus used in the same unofficial fashion to attend the courts and watch the administration of justice, acting in this respect like any other Senator, but the skilful use of the words “not satiated” gives a sinister significance to an innocent statement.