It has been held that the Senate and people of Rome were particularly free from religious intolerance; their behaviour in this matter has been favourably contrasted with that of Christian governments, and there are many who believe that the Romans never interfered with religious observances till they adopted an attitude of exceptional malignity towards the professors of Christianity. Such a view does not, however, correctly represent the facts of the case. Comparatively early in its history the Roman Senate had proceeded with considerable severity against those who were infected with that strange hysterical epidemic which spread over Europe under the guise of the worship of Bacchus, and in the year 19 A.D. we find the Senate passing decrees to repress Egyptian and Jewish religious rites. According to Suetonius the devotees were ordered to burn their vestments and other religious furniture, while he and Tacitus agree in telling us that four thousand freedmen “infected with that superstition” who were of fitting age for military service were sent off to Sardinia to check brigandage there, “and if they should perish in the unwholesome climate, it was not a serious loss.” “The rest,” according to Tacitus, “were to withdraw from Italy unless they abandoned their profane observances before a fixed date.” The language of Tacitus does not distinguish between Jew and Egyptian so far as religion was concerned, for though he mentions both races, he only alludes to one superstition. The persecution of Jews on religious grounds is thus anterior to Christianity, and the persecutions were not confined to Jews and Egyptians; Chaldæans were included, and as we have already seen, after the case of feather-headed Scribonius Libo Magians and “mathematicians” were also expelled from Italy. In these persecutions Tiberius is not directly responsible, he left the matter in the hands of the Senate. Sardinia was a Senatorial Province, and he apparently saw no reason for interference. Italy was not, however, swept clear of “mathematicians” and other persons under the ban of the Senate, with whom in fact the head of the executive was probably in private sympathy, for Thrasyllus the “mathematician” had been his constant attendant since the days of the retirement at Rhodes. Decrees for the expulsion of these undesirables recur under subsequent Emperors. The subject is a complicated one, and the more complicated to us because men so diverse according to our conceptions are included in the same ban. We do not know much of the Chaldæans and Magians, but we know something of the Jews, and we are surprised to find them classed with Egyptians and subjected to the same penalties as Chaldæans, Magians and “mathematicians,” and we further ask ourselves why the Senate, which countenanced the worship of the Great Mother and other alien deities, assumed an attitude of intolerance towards the Jews.