ver the desolation
of the city, applied a severe remedy to the growing evil. [43] He
reserved to the prince and senate the sole cognizance of the extreme
cases which might justify the destruction of an ancient edifice; imposed
a fine of fifty pounds of gold (two thousand pounds sterling) on every
magistrate who should presume to grant such illegal and scandalous
license, and threatened to chastise the criminal obedience of their
subordinate officers, by a severe whipping, and the amputation of both
their hands. In the last instance, the legislator might seem to forget
the proportion of guilt and punishment; but his zeal arose from a
generous principle, and Majorian was anxious to protect the monuments
of those ages, in which he would have desired and deserved to live. The
emperor conceived, that it was his interest to increase the number
of his subjects; and that it was his duty to guard the purity of the
marriage-bed: but the means which he employed to accomplish these
salutary purposes are of an ambiguous, and perhaps exceptionable,
kind. The pious maids, who consecrated their virginity to Christ, were
restrained from taking the veil till they had reached their fortieth
year. Widows under that age were compelled to form a second alliance
within the term of five years, by the forfeiture of half their wealth
to their nearest relations, or to the state. Unequal marriages were
condemned or annulled. The punishment of confiscation and exile was
deemed so inadequate to the guilt of adultery, that, if the criminal
returned to Italy, he might, by the express declaration of Majorian, be
slain with impunity. [44]

[Footnote 43: The whole edict (Novell. Majorian. tit. vi. p. 35) is
curious. "Antiquarum aedium dissipatur speciosa constructio; et ut
aliquid reparetur, magna diruuntur. Hinc jam occasio nascitur, ut etiam
unusquisque privatum aedificium construens, per gratiam judicum.....
praesumere de publicis locis necessaria, et transferre non dubitet"
&c. With equal zeal, but with less power, Petrarch, in the fourteenth
century, repeated the same complaints. (Vie de Petrarque, tom. i. p.
326, 327.) If I prosecute this history, I shall not be unmindful of the
decline and fall of the city of Rome; an interesting object to which any
plan was originally confined.]

[Footnote 44: The emperor chides the lenity of Rogatian, consular of
Tuscany in a style of acrimonious reproof, which sounds almost like
personal resentment, (Novell.