Artaxerxes, that very powerful king of
Persia, to whom the great length of one of his limbs caused the name of
Longhand to be given, wishing, through the natural lenity of his
disposition, to reprove the varieties of punishment in which his nation,
always cruel, had hitherto delighted, punished some criminals by taking
off their turbans instead of their heads: and instead of the old royal
fashion of cutting off people's ears for their offences, he used to cut
the tassels which hang from their caps. And this moderation and lenity
made him so popular and respected that all the Grecian writers vie with
each other in celebrating his many admirable actions.

5. Again, when Praenestinus was praetor, and was brought before the court
of justice, because, in the Samnite war, when ordered to march with all
speed to reinforce the army, he had been very dilatory in his movements,
Papirius Cursor, who at that time was dictator, ordered the lictor to
get ready his axe; and when the praetor, having discarded all hope of
being able to clear himself, seemed utterly stupefied at the order, he
commanded the lictor to cut down a shrub close by; and having in this
jocular manner reproved him, he let him go: without himself incurring
any disrespect by so doing, since all knew him for a man who, by his own
unassisted vigour, had brought long and dangerous wars to a happy
termination; and had been the only man reckoned able to resist
Alexander the Great if that prince had invaded Italy.

6. Valentinian, perhaps, was ignorant of these models; and as he never
considered that the mercy of the emperor is always the best comfort of
persons in distress, he increased all punishments by his free use of
both fire and sword: punishments which the merciful disposition of our
ancestors looked upon as the very last resource in the most imminent
dangers--as we may learn from the beautiful sentiment of Isocrates, who
continually insists that we ought rather to pardon a king who is
sometimes defeated in war, than one who is ignorant of justice.

7. And it was under the influence of this saying of his that I imagine
Cicero uttered that admirable sentence, in his defence of Oppius: "That
indeed to have greatly contributed to the safety of one other person was
an honour to many; but that to have had no share in injuring others had
never been thought discreditable to any one."

8. A desire of increasing his riches without any regard to right and
wrong, and of