poverty; but it is easy to see that the severity of Tiberius would not be popular with the Senate, and that a prejudice could be created against him by giving an example of his strictness in this matter early in his reign. Paterculus, more just than Tacitus, praises Tiberius for the discrimination with which he assisted impoverished Senators. In the same year there were heavy floods in the Tiber; the lower regions of the city were inundated, many buildings fell, many lives were lost. Asinius Gallus, the second husband of Vipsania, moved that the Sibylline books should be consulted. We are not surprised to hear that Tiberius rejected the motion “on religious no less than practical grounds.” It is an interesting illustration of the curious development of the Italian intellect that these same men who could seriously propose in their solemn assembly to consult the Roman Mother Shipton in a case of this kind should form a bold engineering scheme for dealing with the difficulty. It was suggested, after a committee had reported, that the tributaries which brought the floods into the Tiber should be diverted. The scheme was abandoned, as deputations from the inhabitants of the valleys through which these rivers flowed pointed out that they would suffer serious loss if it were carried out. There were also religious obstacles; these rivers were worshipped, and Tiber himself might object to the proposed diminution of his glorious stream. We then have a fragment of administration dismissed by Tacitus in a couple of lines without comment. The provinces of Achaia and Macedonia begged to be relieved of the expense of the Senatorial Government and transferred to the Imperial provinces; both of these provinces had suffered in consequence of the Pannonian war. The Imperial administration was less expensive than that of the Senate, not necessarily because the Senatorial Government was corrupt, but because the honours paid to the Senatorial viceroys and their trains were expensive; there was the difference between maintaining a court and paying an official. Adverse comment was in this case impossible, because when Tacitus was writing, the process of removing the distinction between Senatorial and Imperial provinces was in progress. Trajan would hardly have approved of a reactionary comment, such as Tacitus might have been tempted to make. These provinces were restored to the Senate by Claudius.