bench, remind the judges of the laws, and of their oaths, and the nature
of the charge brought before them, he likewise took upon himself the
correction of public morals, where they tended to decay, either through
neglect, or evil custom.

XXXIV. He reduced the expense of the plays and public spectacles, by
diminishing the allowances to actors, and curtailing the number of
gladiators. He made grievous complaints to the senate, that the price of
Corinthian vessels was become enormous, and that three mullets had been
sold for thirty thousand sesterces: upon which he proposed that a new
sumptuary law should be enacted; that the butchers and other dealers in
viands should be subject to an assize, fixed by the senate yearly; and
the aediles commissioned to restrain eating-houses and taverns, so far as
not even to permit the sale of any kind of pastry. And to encourage
frugality in the public by his own example, he would often, at his solemn
feasts, have at his tables victuals which had been served up the day
before, and were partly eaten, and half a boar, affirming, "It has all
the same good bits that the whole had." He published an edict against
the practice of people's kissing each other when they met; and would not
allow new-year's gifts [333] to be presented after the calends [the
first] of January was passed. He had been in the habit of returning
these offerings four-fold, and making them with his own hand; but being
annoyed by the continual interruption to which he was exposed during the
whole month, by those who had not the opportunity of attending him on the
festival, he returned none after that day.

XXXV. Married women guilty of adultery, though not prosecuted publicly,
he authorised the nearest relations to punish by agreement among
themselves, according to ancient custom. He discharged a Roman knight
from the obligation of an oath he had taken, never to turn away his wife;
and allowed him to divorce her, upon her being caught in criminal
intercourse with her son-in-law. Women of ill-fame, divesting themselves
of the rights and dignity of matrons, had now begun a practice of
professing themselves prostitutes, to avoid (215) the punishment of the
laws; and the most profligate young men of the senatorian and equestrian
orders, to secure themselves against a decree of the senate, which
prohibited their performing on the stage, or in the amphitheatre,
voluntarily subjected themselves to an infamous sentence,