the Mainotes in Greece, and in certain of the southern
states of North America. The obligation or inclination to take vengeance
depends on the fact of homicide, and not on the circumstances in which
it was committed, i.e. it is a part of the _lex talionis_. The mischief
of this system was alleviated under the Levitical law by the creation of
cities of refuge, and in Greece and Italy, both in Pagan and Christian
times, by the recognition of the right of sanctuary in temples and
churches. A second mode of dealing with homicide was that known to early
Teutonic and early Celtic law, where the relatives of the deceased,
instead of the life of the slayer, received the wer of the deceased,
i.e. a payment in proportion to the rank of the slain, and the king
received the blood-wite for the loss of his man. But even under this
system certain crimes were in Anglo-Saxon law bot-less, i.e. no
compensation could be paid, and the offender must suffer the penalty of
death. In the laws of Khammurabi, king of Babylon (2285-2242 B.C.), the
death penalty is imposed for many offences. The modes for executing it
specially named are burning, drowning and impalement (_Oldest Code of
Laws_, by C.H.W. Johns, 1903). Under the Roman law, "capital" punishment
also included punishments which deprived the offender of the status of
Roman citizen (_capitis deminutio, capitis amissio_), e.g. condemnation
to servitude in the mines or to deportation to an island (_Dig._ 48.
19).

British and foreign laws and methods.

_United Kingdom._--The modes of capital punishment in England under the
Saxon and Danish kings were various: hanging, beheading, burning,
drowning, stoning, and precipitation from rocks. The principle on which
this variety depended was that where an offence was such as to entitle
the king to outlaw the offender, he forfeited all, life and limb, lands
and goods, and that the king might take his life and choose the mode of
death. William the Conqueror would not allow judgment of death to be
executed by hanging and substituted mutilation; but his successors
varied somewhat in their policy as to capital punishment, and by the
13th century the penalty of death became by usage (without legislation)
the usual punishment for high and petty treason and for all felonies
(except mayhem and petty larceny, i.e. theft of property worth less than
1s.); see Stephen, _Hist. Cr. Law_, vol. i. 458; Pollock and Maitland,
_Hist. Eng. Law_, vol. ii. 459. It