himself, because we were then the citizens of a single city; there was not even temptation for us when our dominion was confined to Italy. It was through our foreign victories that we learned to waste the property of others, by our civil wars to waste our own. And what a small thing it is to which our attention is called by the Ædiles! What a trifle if it is compared with our other responsibilities! Yes, nobody bethinks himself that Italy is dependent upon external resources, that the sustenance of the Roman people is exposed every day to the uncertainties of the winds and waves! “And should the resources of the Provinces fail to come to the rescue of our landowners, and slaves, and farms, our own forests, forsooth, our own estates will protect us! This is the anxiety, Conscript Fathers, which falls upon the shoulders of the Prince, and if he refuses to attend to this, the State will be dragged down to perdition. For those other difficulties a remedy can be found in our own conduct; may a sense of honour improve ourselves, necessity restrain the poor, satiety the rich. Or if any one of the magistrates holds out a prospect of so much industry, such rigour as to be able to contend with these abuses, I both commend him, and admit that I am thereby relieved of part of my burden. But if they are willing enough to demonstrate abuses, and then, when they have obtained the credit of this action, stir animosities, and hand them over to me, believe me, Conscript Fathers, that I too have no taste for unpopularity; tasks involving serious, and generally unjust, unpopularity I will undertake for the good of the State. I rightly protest against being required to incur trivial and useless causes of offence likely to be profitable neither to myself nor to you.” The language of Tacitus leaves it uncertain as to whether these words are the actual letter of Tiberius, or only an epitome of the real letter; but the sense, if not the form, is clearly the Emperor’s own. In his view of the inefficiency of sumptuary legislation Tiberius was far in advance of his time; no law can in these matters do for the individual what he refuses to do for himself. Indirectly Tiberius reproaches the Senate for their individual complicity in the offences against which legislation was demanded; he also reproaches those zealous magistrates, the Ædiles, whose business it was to look after the markets and repress extravagant expenditure, for their previous neglect of duty; he also points out that there was an abundance of laws to meet the offence, and an equally abundant neglect of those laws. The constitutional position which Tiberius takes up is also noteworthy; it was not for him to anticipate the action of the ordinary magistrates; on the other hand, the greater cares of the Empire are his, and these domestic concerns can be left to those officials whom the constitution provided for the purpose.