« Suet. Tib. 57 | Suet. Tib. 58 | Suet. Tib. 59 | About This Work »
58It was at about this time that a praetor asked him whether he should have the courts convened to consider cases of lese-majestie; to which he replied that the laws must be enforced, and he did enforce them most rigorously. One man had removed the head from a statue of Augustus, to substitute that of another; the case was tried in the senate, and since the evidence was conflicting, the witnesses were examined by torture. After the defendant had been condemned, this kind of accusation gradually went so far that even such acts as these were regarded as capital crimes: to beat a slave near a statue of Augustus, or to change one’s clothes there; to carry a ring or coin stamped with his image into a privy or a brothel, or to criticize any word or act of his. Finally, a man was put to death merely for allowing an honour to be voted him in his native town on the same day that honours had previously been voted to Augustus.
« Suet. Tib. 57 | Suet. Tib. 58 | Suet. Tib. 59 | About This Work »