12.13. 13. Of Writings.
In writings there is something more permanent than
in words, but when they are in no way preparative to high treason they
cannot amount to that charge.
And yet Augustus and Tiberius subjected satirical writers to the
same punishment as for having violated the law of maiestas.
Augustus,
[38]
because of some libels that had been written against
persons of the first quality; Tiberius, because of those which he
suspected to have been written against himself. Nothing was more fatal
to Roman liberty. Cremutius Cordus was accused of having called Cassius
in his annals the last of the Romans.
[39]
Satirical writings are hardly known in despotic governments, where
dejection of mind on the one hand, and ignorance on the other, afford
neither abilities nor will to write. In democracies they are not
hindered, for the very same reason which causes them to be prohibited in
monarchies; being generally levelled against men of power and authority,
they flatter the malignancy of the people, who are the governing party.
In monarchies they are forbidden, but rather as a subject of civil
animadversion than as a capital crime. They may amuse the general
malevolence, please the malcontents, diminish the envy against public
employments, give the people patience to suffer, and make them laugh at
their sufferings.
But no government is so averse to satirical writings as the
aristocratic. There the magistrates are petty sovereigns, but not great
enough to despise affronts. If in a monarchy a satirical stroke is
designed against the prince, he is placed on such an eminence that it
does not reach him; but an aristocratic lord is pierced to the very
heart. Hence the decemvirs, who formed an aristocracy, punished
satirical writings with death.
[40]
Footnotes
[38]
Tacitus, "Annals," Book i. 72. This continued under the following
reigns. See the first law in the Cod. de famosis libellis.
[39]
Tacitus, "Annals," Book iv. 34.
[40]
The law of the Twelve Tables.
