Throughout the letter we detect a profound contempt for the Senate, as being a body ever ready to talk, but never ready to act, and we are therefore prepared to believe that there is some truth in the story which tells us that Tiberius seldom left the Senate House without exclaiming, “Men made for slavery!” We also see that Tiberius was sensitive to public opinion, and was not prepared to face unpopularity except with good reason. The implied warning against the folly of passing laws which it is impossible to enforce shows sound statesmanship; the vice of clamouring for fresh laws in order to check offences which have been already provided for by old ones, and of invoking the aid of legislation in matters where good example and sound conduct on the part of individuals are more effective, is a vice which has survived the Roman Senate. The result of the debate was fresh energy on the part of the Ædiles, but Tacitus says that it was not until the reign of Vespasian that there was any marked improvement, that Emperor being himself averse to luxury. As, however, Tiberius was no less distinguished by plainness of living, it is more probable that the effect was produced by a general equalizing of fortunes among the well-to-do. While Tiberius thus refused to take upon himself the responsibilities of the Senate in domestic matters, he was equally little inclined to allow them to throw upon him the burden of administering their own Provinces, and carefully referred deputations from the Senatorial Provinces to the Consuls; he punished a private servant of his own who had the management of his estates in Asia, a Senatorial Province, for attempting to exercise powers other than those of the business agent of a private person. We may remark that the care of feeding the city, which we should have expected to be in the department of the Senate, was really in the hands of the Emperor, who held Egypt in his own exclusive management for that special purpose; nor was Tiberius a sufficiently enlightened economist not to attempt to control the price of corn. Another subject which from time to time still taxed the energies of the Senate was the prevalence of alien rites, and especially of all forms of magic and divination.