United States or Switzerland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Undoubtedly the Lex de majestate did give rise in time to false accusations, to private reprisals, and to unjust sentences of condemnation. Although it had been devised to defend the prestige of the state in the person of the magistrates who represented it, the law was frequently invoked by senators who wished to vent their fiercest personal hatreds.
No historian who understands the affairs of the world in general, and the story of the first century of the empire in particular, will attribute to ferocity or to the tyrannical spirit of Tiberius the increasingly harsh application of the Lex de majestate which followed the death of Germanicus and the trial of Piso.
At length, however, in reply to something which I had proposed, he said shortly, Multo minus scandalosum fuisset dispensare cum majestate vestrâ super duabus uxoribus, quam ea cedere quæ ego petebam, it would have created less scandal to have granted your Majesty a dispensation to have two wives than to concede what I was then demanding.
Already I have sent orders to Ferrara, to the incomparable Anichino, for the majestate girdle; I will send to Venice for gold leaf and " "But do you not heed me that I will not wed?" she broke in with passionate calm, her face white, her bosom heaving. He rose, leaning heavily upon a gold-headed cane, and looked at her a moment without speaking, his brows contracted.
But in the dealings of Rome with foreign kings, these evils had often before arisen, and at last been made criminal; and while Gabinius was tried for treason, de majestate, for leading his army out of his province, Rabirius was tried, under the Lex Julia de pecuniis repetundis, for lending money and taking office under Auletes.
Too credulous of Tacitus, many writers have severely characterized the facility and the severity with which the senate condemned those accused under the Lex de majestate: they consider it an indication of ignoble servility toward the emperor.
In the earlier period the ground on which charges were usually brought was malversation; in the time of the empire they were also frequently brought under the above-mentioned law de majestate. It has been said that this common act of accusation, the birthright of the Roman citizen, the greatly esteemed palladium of Roman freedom, became the most convenient instrument of despotism.
About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels appeared Addison wrote these lines: "Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus, Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam."
Word Of The Day