The laughter which greets a successful cartoon in _Punch_, and the prompt recognition which greets a happy allusion to current events, do little to shake a government or to disturb public order, but when the representatives of law and order are held up to ridicule by the unmistakeable gestures of a skilled actor in a large theatre, not only is the effectiveness of ridicule enormously increased, but the conflicting sympathies of the spectators provoke an immediate riot. We have seen that among the business transacted by Tiberius and the Senate in the first year of his reign was the discussion of a proposal to restore to the Prætors the right of beating actors, which had been withdrawn from them by Augustus. The reason for this proposal was an increase of turbulence in the theatres, which had resulted in the deaths of several of the spectators, the murder of some soldiers and a centurion, and even of the commander of a prætorian cohort, who had endeavoured to check the abuse of magistrates from the stage, and the consequent disturbance in the audience. An Italian audience was quick to catch even an undesigned allusion to current events, and allusion by gesture never failed to meet with its response; thus the actors became in a way the mouthpieces of public opinion, and the despotism of the ruling powers was tempered by epigrams in flesh and blood, if not in actual words; parties were formed, distinguished actors were supported by men of rank, not merely from admiration of their professional skill, but because they were in some sense a political power. In the year 23 A.D. Tiberius found himself obliged to draw the attention of the Senate to the continued insolence of the actors, and a decree was passed by which they were banished from Italy. The particular form of dramatic exhibition which called down this severity was that known as the Atellan farce, which had long been used for the purposes of political satire by educated men. It had been originally a performance in the Oscan dialect; then what we should call “topical songs” had been introduced in Latin. There had been a period during which the Atellan plays had been considered eminently respectable, and men of rank had taken part in them without losing dignity; but either the character of the performance had degenerated, or the sentence of expulsion was less general than the words of Tacitus would imply, and was restricted to men whom we should not consider professional actors, and who had adopted this way of expressing their criticisms of the government.