re
gold and scarlet. He prohibited the players from acting in the theatre,
but permitted them the practice of their art in private houses. He
forbad the castration of males; and reduced the price of the eunuchs who
were still left in the hands of the dealers in slaves. On the occasion
of a great abundance of wine, accompanied by a scarcity of corn,
supposing that the tillage of the ground was neglected for the sake of
attending too much to the cultivation of vineyards, he published a
proclamation forbidding the planting of any new vines in Italy, and
ordering the vines in the provinces to be cut down, nowhere permitting
more than one half of them to remain [812]. But he did not persist in
the execution of this project. Some of the greatest offices he conferred
upon his freedmen and soldiers. He forbad two legions to be quartered in
the same camp, and more than a thousand sesterces to be deposited by any
soldier with the standards; because it was thought that Lucius Antonius
had been encouraged in his late project by the large sum deposited in the
military chest by the two legions which he had in the same
winter-quarters. He made an addition to the soldiers' pay, of three
gold pieces a year.

VIII. In the administration of justice he was diligent and assiduous;
and frequently sat in the Forum out of course, to cancel the judgments of
the court of The One Hundred, which had been procured through favour, or
interest. He occasionally cautioned the judges of the court of recovery
to beware of being too ready to admit claims for freedom brought before
them. He set a mark of infamy upon judges who were convicted of taking
bribes, as well as upon their assessors. He likewise instigated the
tribunes of the people to prosecute a corrupt aedile for extortion, and
to desire the senate to appoint judges for his trial. He likewise took
such effectual care in punishing magistrates of the city, and governors
of provinces, guilty of malversation, that they never were at any time
more moderate or more just. Most of these, since his reign, we have seen
prosecuted for crimes of various kinds. Having taken upon himself the
reformation of the public manners, he restrained the licence of the
populace in sitting promiscuously with the knights in the theatre.
Scandalous libels, published to defame persons of rank, of either sex, he
suppressed, and inflicted upon their authors a mark of infamy. He
expelled a man of quaestorian ran