the duty of the governors to maintain the
peace of their province, by the arbitrary and rigid administration of
justice; the freedom of the city evaporated in the extent of empire,
and the Spanish malefactor, who claimed the privilege of a Roman, was
elevated by the command of Galba on a fairer and more lofty cross. [187]
Occasional rescripts issued from the throne to decide the questions
which, by their novelty or importance, appeared to surpass the authority
and discernment of a proconsul. Transportation and beheading were
reserved for honorable persons; meaner criminals were either hanged,
or burnt, or buried in the mines, or exposed to the wild beasts of the
amphitheatre. Armed robbers were pursued and extirpated as the enemies
of society; the driving away horses or cattle was made a capital
offence; [188] but simple theft was uniformly considered as a mere civil
and private injury. The degrees of guilt, and the modes of punishment,
were too often determined by the discretion of the rulers, and the
subject was left in ignorance of the legal danger which he might incur
by every action of his life.

[Footnote 185: Such is the number assigned by Valer'us Maximus, (l. ix.
c. 2, No. 1,) Florus (iv. 21) distinguishes 2000 senators and
knights. Appian (de Bell. Civil. l. i. c. 95, tom. ii. p. 133, edit.
Schweighauser) more accurately computes forty victims of the senatorian
rank, and 1600 of the equestrian census or order.]

[Footnote 186: For the penal laws (Leges Corneliae, Pompeiae, Julae,
of Sylla, Pompey, and the Caesars) see the sentences of Paulus, (l. iv.
tit. xviii.--xxx. p. 497--528, edit. Schulting,) the Gregorian Code,
(Fragment. l. xix. p. 705, 706, in Schulting,) the Collatio Legum
Mosaicarum et Romanarum, (tit. i.--xv.,) the Theodosian Code, (l.
ix.,) the Code of Justinian, (l. ix.,) the Pandects, (xlviii.,) the
Institutes, (l. iv. tit. xviii.,) and the Greek version of Theophilus,
(p. 917--926.)]

[Footnote 187: It was a guardian who had poisoned his ward. The crime
was atrocious: yet the punishment is reckoned by Suetonius (c. 9) among
the acts in which Galba showed himself acer, vehemens, et in delictis
coercendis immodicus.]

[Footnote 188: The abactores or abigeatores, who drove one horse, or
two mares or oxen, or five hogs, or ten goats, were subject to capital
punishment, (Paul, Sentent. Recept. l. iv. tit. xviii. p. 497, 498.)
Hadrian, (ad Concil. Baeticae,) most severe where the offence was mos