in a sack; and a cock, a viper,
a dog, and a monkey, were successively added, as the most suitable
companions. [175] 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. [176]

4. The malice of an incendiary. After the previous ceremony of whipping,
he himself was delivered to the flames; and in this example alone our
reason is tempted to applaud the justice of retaliation.

5. Judicial perjury. The corrupt or malicious witness was thrown
headlong from the Tarpeian rock, to expiate his falsehood, which was
rendered still more fatal by the severity of the penal laws, and the
deficiency of written evidence.

6. The corruption of a judge, who accepted bribes to pronounce an
iniquitous sentence.

7. Libels and satires, whose rude strains sometimes disturbed the
peace of an illiterate city. The author was beaten with clubs, a worthy
chastisement, but it is not certain that he was left to expire under the
blows of the executioner. [177]

8. The nocturnal mischief of damaging or destroying a neighbor's corn.
The criminal was suspended as a grateful victim to Ceres. But the sylvan
deities were less implacable, and the extirpation of a more valuable
tree was compensated by the moderate fine of twenty-five pounds of
copper.

9. Magical incantations; which had power, in the opinion of the Latin
shepherds, to exhaust the strength of an enemy, to extinguish his life,
and to remove from their seats his deep-rooted plantations.

The cruelty of the twelve tables against insolvent debtors still remains
to be told; and I shall dare to prefer the literal sense of antiquity
to the specious refinements of modern criticism. [178] [1781] After
the judicial proof or confession of the debt, thirty days of grace
were allowed before a Roman was delivered into the power of his
fellow-citizen. In this private prison, twelve ounces of rice were his
daily food; he might be bound with a chain of fifteen pounds weight;
and his misery was thrice exposed in the market place, to solicit the
compassion of his friends and countrymen. At the expiration of sixty
days, the debt was discharged by the loss of liberty or life; the
insolvent debtor was either put to death, or sold in foreign slavery
beyond the Tyber: but, if several creditors were alike obstinate and
unrelenting, they might legally dismember his body, and satiate their
revenge by this horrid partition.