Proscription is an almost direct lift from the Latin, but its meaning has become gentler than was once its lot. During Tiberius' reign, one scrofulous pleb called Sejanus wound up running Rome on a day-to-day basis. People who he didn't like, which seemed to include most of the patrician class, were proscribed, i.e. they were declared to be non-people, their goods largely confiscated by the State and their persons liable to summary execution.

Rome was a minor bloodbath for some years. Tiberius finally reacted when it was demonstrated to him that Sejanus was intent on gaining the purple for himself. He was summarily executed.