ce, of age and
dignity, which may aggravate the shame and sufferings of the injured
person; but if he admitted the idea of a fine, a punishment, an example,
he invaded the province, though, perhaps, he supplied the defects, of
the criminal law.

The execution of the Alban dictator, who was dismembered by eight
horses, is represented by Livy as the first and the fast instance of
Roman cruelty in the punishment of the most atrocious crimes. But this
act of justice, or revenge, was inflicted on a foreign enemy in the heat
of victory, and at the command of a single man. The twelve tables afford
a more decisive proof of the national spirit, since they were framed by
the wisest of the senate, and accepted by the free voices of the people;
yet these laws, like the statutes of Draco, are written in characters
of blood. They approve the inhuman and unequal principle of retaliation;
and the forfeit of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a limb for a
limb, is rigorously exacted, unless the offender can redeem his pardon
by a fine of three hundred pounds of copper. The decemvirs distributed
with much liberality the slighter chastisements of flagellation and
servitude; and nine crimes of a very different complexion are adjudged
worthy of death. _1._ Any act of _treason_ against the state, or of
correspondence with the public enemy. The mode of execution was painful
and ignominious: the head of the degenerate Roman was shrouded in
a veil, his hands were tied behind his back, and after he had been
scourged by the lictor, he was suspended in the midst of the forum on
a cross, or inauspicious tree. _2._ Nocturnal meetings in the city;
whatever might be the pretence, of pleasure, or religion, or the public
good. _3._ The murder of a citizen; for which the common feelings of
mankind demand the blood of the murderer. Poison is still more odious
than the sword or dagger; and we are surprised to discover, in two
flagitious events, how early such subtle wickedness had infected the
simplicity of the republic, and the chaste virtues of the Roman matrons.
The parricide, who violated the duties of nature and gratitude, was cast
into the river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper,
a dog, and a monkey, were successively added, as the most suitable
companions. Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could never be
felt, till the middle of the sixth century first revealed the guilt of
a parricide. _4._The malice of an _incendiary_.