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Rh Livia Augusta; and to the latter the crime of consulting soothsayers about the destinies of the imperial family—of course including in her inquiry the important question, "How long is his majesty likely to live?" For a while it was necessary that the defendant should be proved guilty of some act or deed. Afterwards words spoken or written were admitted in evidence of disaffection, and many a scroll was burnt by the hangman in the Forum; and several authors died suddenly, because a volume in which Brutus and Cassins were extolled, or an unlucky epigram or pasquinade was found, was traced to their pen.

Impeachment of conspicuous citizens and party-leaders was no novelty in Rome: the commonwealth had bequeathed it to the empire, and the empire did little more than place it on a new platform. Laws on the subject of treason to the State (majestas) had existed from the days of the kings. Indictments of political or personal opponents were among the privileges and the barriers of public freedom, and the brightest laurels in the orator's crown were the convictions of a Scipio Asiaticus, a Verres, or a Catiline. But when the emperor united in his own person the various functions, civil and military, of the republic—when he was consul, prince of the senate, censor, proconsul-general, commander of the army, and tribune of the people—when he could legally as well as logically say, Létat, cest moi—the law of majestas applied to his person alone, since he was the only representative of the nobles, the knights, the people, the legions, and the subjects of Rome. Consequently he was the target at which all satirical arrows were aimed, the object of every conspiracy, the aim of every rebel. The