were distinguished rather by an inclination to hand over all their responsibilities to the Emperor than by an uncompromising attitude towards his government, there were a minority who were disgusted because fuller advantage was not taken of the opportunities afforded, and because the liberal policy of the Emperor brought them little nearer to the cherished abuses of the old oligarchical government. When we reflect that the first six books of the _Annals of Tacitus_ cover a period of twenty-three years, and that he had access to the Senatorial archives no less than to private memoirs, we are astonished at the meagreness of his information. If we remove from these books all that refers to the campaigns in Germany, Thrace, and Africa, all that is concerned with the death of Germanicus, all that has to do with the personal history of the Imperial family, singularly little remains to tell us how the Senate administered the Provinces which had been left to its care, and the two great questions in which statesmen are profoundly interested, the questions of Revenue and Defence, are hardly touched upon. For this there are two reasons, apart from the fact that Tacitus was an incompetent historian; one is that Tacitus avowedly interested himself only in recording events which seemed to him striking illustrations of good or bad behaviour, history to him being merely a primer of morals and a collection of examples; the other is that very little business actually was transacted before the Senate. We may take as an example the case of Cappadocia. This country was annexed by Germanicus, its native rulers were deposed, and it passed from the status of an allied kingdom to that of a province. It might be anticipated that we should have a record of discussions in the Senate as to the terms upon which this new Province was to be added to the Empire, as to whether it was to be Imperial or Senatorial, as to its probable cost and revenue; but we have nothing of the kind, we have not even the innuendo of a grievance based on the fact that Tiberius fixed its tribute at half the usual amount, and treated it as an Imperial Province from the outset. Similarly the Government of Achaia passed into the hands of the Emperor at the request of the Province itself, without any debate in the Senate, so far as we are informed by Tacitus. Africa was a Senatorial Province; the moment that trouble between the Roman inhabitants and a native prince declared itself, the Senate practically threw the whole responsibility on Tiberius by asking him to nominate a Governor. With all its pretensions, and in spite of all the encouragement given to it by Tiberius to assume the position of an advisory council to the Emperor, if not of a representative assembly of the Empire, the Senate reverted more and more to its old position of a domestic council representing the best families at Rome and attending to little beyond their interests.