ever accrued by marriage, gift, or collateral
succession, the property was secured to the son; but the father, unless
he had been specially excluded, enjoyed the usufruct during his life.

As a just and prudent reward of military virtue, the spoils of the enemy
were acquired, possessed, and bequeathed by the soldier alone; and the
fair analogy was extended to the emoluments of any liberal profession,
the salary of public service, and the sacred liberality of the emperor
or empress. The life of a citizen was less exposed than his fortune to
the abuse of paternal power. Yet his life might be adverse to the
interest or passions of an unworthy father: the same crimes that flowed
from the corruption were more sensibly felt by the humanity of the
Augustan age; and the cruel Erixo, who whipped his son till he expired,
was saved by the Emperor from the just fury of the multitude. The Roman
father, from the license of servile dominion, was reduced to the gravity
and moderation of a judge. The presence and opinion of Augustus
confirmed the sentence of exile pronounced against an intentional
parricide by the domestic tribunal of Arius. Adrian transported to an
island the jealous parent who, like a robber, had seized the opportunity
of hunting to assassinate a youth, the incestuous lover of his
step-mother. A private jurisdiction is repugnant to the spirit of
monarchy; the parent was again reduced from a judge to an accuser, and
the magistrates were enjoined by Severus Alexander to hear his
complaints and execute his sentence. He could no longer take the life of
a son without incurring the guilt and punishment of murder; and the
pains of parricide, from which he had been excepted by the Pompeian
law, were finally inflicted by the justice of Constantine.

The same protection was due to every period of existence; and reason
must applaud the humanity of Paulus for imputing the crime of murder to
the father who strangles, or starves, or abandons his new-born infant;
or exposes him in a public place to find the mercy which he himself had
denied. But the exposition of children was the prevailing and stubborn
vice of antiquity: it was sometimes prescribed, often permitted, almost
always practised with impunity by the nations who never entertained the
Roman ideas of paternal power; and the dramatic poets who appeal to the
human heart represent with indifference a popular custom which was
palliated by the motives of economy and compassion.