Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/52

no THE DECLINE AND FALL ment. Such crimes as threatened the life of the sovereign or the safety of the state were adjudged worthy of death ; but their attention was principally confined to the defence of the person and pro])erty of the subject. According to the strange jurisprudence of the times, the guilt of blood mijifht be re- deemed by a fine ; yet the high price of nine hundred pieces of gold declares a just sense of the value of a simple citizen. Less atrocious injuries, a wound, a fracture, a l)low, an op- probrious word, were measured with scrupulous and almost ridiculous diligence ; and the prudence of the legislator en- couraged the ignoble practice of bartering honour and revenge for a pecuniary compensation. The ignorance of the Lombards, in the state of Paganism or Christianity, ijave implicit credit to the malice and mischief of witchcraft ; but the judges of the seventeenth century might have been instructed and con- founded b}' the wisdom of Rotharis, who derides the absurd superstition, and protects the wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty.*^' The same spirit of a legislator, superior to his age and country, may be ascribed to Luitprand, who condemns, while he tolerates, the impious and inveterate abuse of duels, ^^ observing from his own experience that the juster cause had often been oppressed by successful violence. What- ever merit may be discovered in the laws of the Lombards, they are the genuine fruit of the reason of the barbarians, who never admitted the bishops of Italy to a seat in their legislative councils. But the succession of their kings is marked with virtue and ability ; the troubled series of their annals is adorned with fair intervals of peace, order, and domestic ]iap])iness ; and the Italians enjoyed a milder and more equitable government than any of the other kingdoms which had been founded on the ruins of the Western empire.'"' Misery of Amidst the arms of the Lombards, and under the despotism Rome ^ •'-'.See Leges Rotharis, Xo. 379, p. 47. .Striga is used as the name of a witch. It is of the purest classic origin (Horat. epod. v. 20. Petron. c. 134) ; and from the words of Petronius (quK striges comederunt ncrvos tuos?)it may be inferred that the prejudice was of Italian rather than barl^aric extraction. "•' (,)uia incerti sumus de judicio Dei, et niultos audivimus per pugnam sine justa causa suam causam perdere. Sed propter consuetudinem gentem nostram Lango- bardorum legem impiam vetare non possumus. See p. 74, No. 65, of the laws of Luitprand, promulgated A.D. 724. '■•' Read the history of Paul W'arnefrid ; particularly 1. iii. c. t6. Baronius rejects the praise, which appears to contradict the invectives of pope Gregory the Great; but Muratori (Annali d'ltalia, torn. v. p. 217) presumes to insiimate that the saint may have magnified the faults of Arians and enemies.