treason

Reading notes

• The Annals §3.25 informers

  Delatores, professional accusers who profited from prosecutions; the marriage laws gave them endless openings into private households.

• The Annals §3.38 a charge of treason added

  Maiestas (treason) had become the routine 'supplement' tacked onto other charges to ensure conviction—a hallmark of Tiberius's reign.

• The Annals §3.56 the tribunician power

  The tribunicia potestas, the legal core of the principate: the powers of a tribune of the plebs held permanently, by which the princeps outranked all without the hated names of king or dictator; sharing it marked the chosen heir.

• The Histories §1.79 treason

  Maiestas, the offense against the majesty of the Roman state (and, under the principate, of the emperor); Tacitus notes the cynical reversal whereby greed was relabeled treason so the guilty could be pardoned.