ed by the
Twelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, since
pecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments were
inflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for military
crimes; but Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for various
offences, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to labor
in the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common,--_aquae et
ignis interdictio_; and this was equivalent to the deprivation of the
necessities of life and incapacitating a person from exercising the
rights of citizenship. Under the emperors persons were confined often on
the rocky islands off the coast, or in a compulsory residence in a
particular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place on
the banks of the Euxine, and Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, when
inflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading; also by strangling
in prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carry
their cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious and
lingering of all deaths; it was abolished by Constantine, from reverence
to the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also by
burning alive and exposure to wild beasts; it was thus the early
Christians were tormented, since their offence was associated with
treason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than the
lower classes, and their punishments were less cruel and ignominious;
thus Seneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his
mode of death. The criminal laws of modern European States followed too
often the barbarous custom of the Roman emperors until a recent date.
Since the French Revolution the severity of the penal codes has been
much modified.

The penal statutes of Rome however, as Gibbon emphatically remarks,
"formed a very small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all
judicial proceedings the life or death of the citizen was determined
with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant
or inheritance." This was owing to the complicated relations of society,
by which obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the State
are explicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of
brass, but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth and
development of commerce and dominion, that questions should arise which
could not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the p