policy 772.pol.001 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

It is however, I think, a convenient opportunity for me to review the hitherto prevailing methods of administration in the other departments of the State, inasmuch as that year brought with it the beginning of a change for the worse in Tiberius’s policy. In the first place, public business and the most important private matters were managed by the Senate: the leading men were allowed freedom of discussion, and when they stooped to flattery, the emperor himself checked them. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire bestowed honours with regard to noble ancestry, military renown, or brilliant accomplishments as a civilian, letting it be clearly seen that there were no better men to choose. The consul and the praetor retained their prestige; inferior magistrates exercised their authority; the laws too, with the single exception of cases of treason, were properly enforced.

As to the duties on corn, the indirect taxes and other branches of the public revenue, they were in the hands of companies of Roman knights. The emperor intrusted his own property to men of the most tried integrity or to persons known only by their general reputation, and once appointed they were retained without any limitation, so that most of them grew old in the same employments. The city populace indeed suffered much from high prices, but this was no fault of the emperor, who actually endeavoured to counteract barren soils and stormy seas with every resource of wealth and foresight. And he was also careful not to distress the provinces by new burdens, and to see that in bearing the old they were safe from any rapacity or oppression on the part of governors. Corporal punishments and confiscations of property were unknown.

empire 994.emp.00 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

As soon as Sallustius Crispus who shared the secret (he had, in fact, sent the written order to the tribune) knew this, fearing that the charge would be shifted on himself, and that his peril would be the same whether he uttered fiction or truth, he advised Livia not to divulge the secrets of her house or the counsels of friends, or any services performed by the soldiers, nor to let Tiberius weaken the strength of imperial power by referring everything to the Senate, for “the condition,” he said, “of holding empire is that an account cannot be balanced unless it be rendered to one person.”

Meanwhile at Rome people plunged into slavery- consuls, senators, knights. The higher a man’s rank, the more eager his hypocrisy, and his looks the more carefully studied, so as neither to betray joy at the decease of one emperor nor sorrow at the rise of another, while he mingled delight and lamentations with his flattery. Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Apuleius, the consuls, were the first to swear allegiance to Tiberius Caesar, and in their presence the oath was taken by Seius Strabo and Caius Turranius, respectively the commander of the praetorian cohorts and the superintendent of the corn supplies. Then the Senate, the soldiers and the people did the same. For Tiberius would inaugurate everything with the consuls, as though the ancient constitution remained, and he hesitated about being emperor. Even the proclamation by which he summoned the senators to their chamber, he issued merely with the title of Tribune, which he had received under Augustus. The wording of the proclamation was brief, and in a very modest tone. “Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire would,” it said, “provide for the honours due to his father, and not leave the lifeless body, and this was the only public duty he now claimed.”

peak 3390.p.0 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

At the peak of the arrests in the mid-thirties, paranoia reigned in the cities. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire slept with suitcases of warm clothes and supplies ready under their beds. Arrests usually came at night, when there would be few witnesses. People lived in terror of the sound of a knock on the door or an elevator that opened at their floor. Private conversations were scrutinized as much as published work for any possible incriminating comment. In the later years jokes that satirized the Soviet state were rated according to how many years one could get for repeating them. Opportunists took advantage of this frenzy to rid themselves of opponents or of those standing in their way. One might be promoted by denouncing one’s boss anonymously. One might get a better apartment by denouncing a neighbor. Of course a denouncer knew too much and often disappeared himself shortly after his victim.