The king of Abyssinia never is seen to walk, nor to set his foot upon the ground, out of his palace; and when he would dismount from the horse or mule on which he rides, he has a servant with a stool, who places it properly for him for that purpose. He rides into the anti-chamber to the foot of his throne, or to the stool placed in the alcove of his tent. We are told by Athenaeus[1] such was the practice in Persia, whose king never set his foot upon the ground out of his palace.
The king of Abyssinia very often judges capital crimes himself. It is reckoned a favourable judicature, such as, Claudian says, that of a king in person should be, "Piger ad pænas, ad præmia velox." No man is condemned by the king in person to die for the first fault, unless the crime be of a horrid nature, such as parricide or sacrilege. And, in general, the life and merits of the prisoner are weighed against his immediate guilt; so that if his first behaviour has had more merit towards the state than his present delinquency is thought to have injured it, the one is placed fairly against the other, and the accused is generally absolved when the sovereign judges alone.
Herodotus[2] praises this as a maxim of the kings of Persia in capital judgments, almost in the very words that I have just now used; and he gives an instance of it:—Darius had condemned Sandoces, one of the king's judges, to be crucified for corruption, that is, for having given false judgment for a bribe. The man was already hung up on the cross, when the king, considering with himself how manygood
