It was fortunate for the Empire that Tiberius failed in his attempt to restore the Senate, for no tyranny can be worse than that of the direct government of dependencies by an irresponsible debating society, divided into parties more or less organized, which intrigue abroad to further their interests at home, and the Senate itself showed a sounder political insight than the Emperor in refusing to assume responsibilities for which it was eminently unfit. If, however, the greater political questions are passed over by Tacitus, some of the minor subjects with which the Senate dealt are not uninteresting; it retained the position of guardian of the public morals, or at the least of the morals of those families of whom it was composed or whose members were employed in the government of the city and Empire. Adultery under the Julian laws passed by Augustus was not a sin but a crime, and we accordingly have some cases in which Roman ladies of high rank are arraigned before the Senate along with their paramours. The number of these cases is not great, and in comparison with similar cases in our own divorce courts remarkably small, from which we may conclude either that the Senate was a lenient censor of morals, or that the standard of morality was high; it is further possible that the Senate was only called upon to intervene when the family of the culprit had failed in its duty. Actors seem to have been a source of trouble to the fathers of the city, but it is not altogether certain in what the “licence” of actors consisted. At first sight it might appear that they were guilty merely of a laxity of morals which is not uncommonly attributed, with or without justice, to the theatrical profession, and that the decrees prohibiting Senators and Equestrians from public and private intercourse with actors were directed against purely private scandals; but there is also evidence that the stage occupied to some extent the position of the modern press, and that the licence of the actors consisted in public and private derision of eminent men, and in the exhibition of caricatures, which if not dangerous to public order, were at least offensive. The fragments of references made on the stage to Tiberius, preserved by Suetonius, are sufficient to indicate a freedom of criticism which in our own day would be considered intolerable. Our own habits allow our public men to be caricatured weekly in the comic papers in a manner which is not found equally acceptable in Germany, but lenient though we are in such matters, even Englishmen have failed to tolerate the caricatures of eminent statesmen on the stage, and “the Happy Land,” in which three Cabinet Ministers appeared under their own names, and in a very successful counterfeit presentment of their persons, was modified by the then Lord Chamberlain.