498
THE DECLINE AND FALL
in characters of blood.[1] They approve the inhuman and unequal principle of retaliation; and the forfeit of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a limb for a limb, is rigorously exacted, unless the offender can redeem his pardon by a fine of three hundred pounds of copper. The decemvirs distributed with much liberality the slighter chastisements of flagellation and servitude; and nine crimes of a very different complexion are adjudged worthy of death. 1. Any act of treason against the state, or of correspondence with the public enemy. The mode of execution was painful and ignominious: the head of the degenerate Roman was shrouded in a veil, his hands were tied behind his back, and, after he had been scourged by the lictor, he was suspended in the midst of the forum on a cross, or inauspicious tree. 2. Nocturnal meetings in the city; whatever might be the pretence — of pleasure, or religion, or the public good. 3. The murder of a citizen; for which the common feelings of mankind demand the blood of the murderer. Poison is still more odious than the sword or dagger; and we are surprised to discover, in two flagitious events, how early such subtle wickedness had infected the simplicity of the republic and the chaste virtues of the Roman matrons.[2] The parricide who violated the duties of nature and gratitude was cast into the river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey, were successively added as the most suitable companions.[3] Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could never be felt, till the middle of the sixth century first revealed the guilt of a parricide.[4] 4. The malice of an incendiary.
- ↑ The viith, de delictis, of the xii. tables is delineated by Gravina (Opp. p. 292, 293, with a Commentary, p. 214-230). Aulas Gellius (xx. 1) and the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum afford much original information.
- ↑ Livy mentions two remarkable and flagitious æras, of 3000 persons accused, and of 190 noble matrons convicted, of the crime of poisoning (xl. 43, viii. 18). Mr. Hume discriminates the ages of private and public virtue (Essays, vol. i. p. 22, 23). I would rather say that such ebullitions of mischief (as in France in the year 1680) are accidents and prodigies which leave no marks on the manners of a nation.
- ↑ The xii. Tables and Cicero (pro Roscio Amerino, c. 25, 26) are content with the sack; Seneca (Excerpt. Controvers. v. 4) adorns it with serpents: Juvenal pities the guiltless monkey (innoxia simia — Satir. xiii. 156). Hadrian (apud Dositheum Magistrum, l. iii. c. 16, p. 874-876, with Schulting's Note), Modestinus (Pandect. xlviii. tit ix. leg. 9), Constantine (Cod. l. ix. tit. xvii.), and Justinian (Institut. l. iv. tit. xviii.), enumerate all the companions of the parricide. But this fanciful execution was simplified in practice. Hodie tamen vivi exuruntur vel ad bestias dantur (Paul. Sentent. Recept. l. v. tit. xxiv. p. 512, edit. Schulting).
- ↑ The first parricide at Rome was L. Ostius, after the second Punic war (Plutarch in Romulo, tom. i. p. 57). During the Cimbric, P. Malleolus was guilty of the first matricide (Liv. Epitom. l. lxviii.).
