he Roman laws approved the
slaughter of the nocturnal thief; though in open daylight a robber could
not be slain without some previous evidence of danger and complaint.
Whoever surprised an adulterer in his nuptial bed might freely exercise
his revenge; [179] the most bloody and wanton outrage was excused by
the provocation; [180] nor was it before the reign of Augustus that
the husband was reduced to weigh the rank of the offender, or that the
parent was condemned to sacrifice his daughter with her guilty seducer.
After the expulsion of the kings, the ambitious Roman, who should dare
to assume their title or imitate their tyranny, was devoted to the
infernal gods: each of his fellow-citizens was armed with the sword
of justice; and the act of Brutus, however repugnant to gratitude or
prudence, had been already sanctified by the judgment of his country.
[181] The barbarous practice of wearing arms in the midst of peace,
[182] and the bloody maxims of honor, were unknown to the Romans; and,
during the two purest ages, from the establishment of equal freedom to
the end of the Punic wars, the city was never disturbed by sedition,
and rarely polluted with atrocious crimes. The failure of penal laws was
more sensibly felt, when every vice was inflamed by faction at home and
dominion abroad. In the time of Cicero, each private citizen enjoyed the
privilege of anarchy; each minister of the republic was exalted to
the temptations of regal power, and their virtues are entitled to the
warmest praise, as the spontaneous fruits of nature or philosophy. After
a triennial indulgence of lust, rapine, and cruelty, Verres, the tyrant
of Sicily, could only be sued for the pecuniary restitution of three
hundred thousand pounds sterling; and such was the temper of the laws,
the judges, and perhaps the accuser himself, [183] that, on refunding
a thirteenth part of his plunder, Verres could retire to an easy and
luxurious exile. [184]

[Footnote 179: The first speech of Lysias (Reiske, Orator. Graec. tom.
v. p. 2--48) is in defence of a husband who had killed the adulterer.
The rights of husbands and fathers at Rome and Athens are discussed with
much learning by Dr. Taylor, (Lectiones Lysiacae, c. xi. in Reiske, tom.
vi. p. 301--308.)]

[Footnote 180: See Casaubon ad Athenaeum, l. i. c. 5, p. 19. Percurrent
raphanique mugilesque, (Catull. p. 41, 42, edit. Vossian.) Hunc mugilis
intrat, (Juvenal. Satir. x. 317.) Hunc perminxere calones, (Hor