Chap, xliv] THE DECLINE AND FALL 535 perpetual exile in two separate islands. 194 Eeligion pronounces an equal censure against the infidelity of the husband ; but, as it is not accompanied by the same civil effects, the wife was never permitted to vindicate her wrongs ; 195 and the distinction of simple or double adultery, so familiar and so important in the canon law, is unknown to the jurisprudence of the Code and Pandects. I touch with reluctance, and dispatch with im- unnatural patience, a more odious vice, of which modesty rejects the name, and nature abominates the idea. The primitive Romans were infected by the example of the Etruscans 196 and Greeks ; 197 in the mad abuse of prosperity and power, every pleasure that is innocent was deemed insipid ; and the Scatinian law, 198 which had been extorted by an act of violence, was insensibly abolished by the lapse of time and the multitude of criminals. By this law, the rape, perhaps the seduction, of an ingenuous youth was compensated, as a personal injury, by the poor damages of ten thousand sesterces, or fourscore pounds ; the ravisher might be slain by the resistance or revenge of chastity ; and I wish to believe that at Rome, as in Athens, the voluntary and effeminate deserter of his sex was degraded from the honours and the rights of a citizen. 199 But the practice of vice was not discouraged by the severity of opinion ; the indelible stain of manhood was con- 194 Till the publication of the Julius Paulus of Schulting (1. ii. tit. xxvi. p. 317- 323), it was affirmed and believed that the Julian laws punished adultery with death ; and the mistake arose from the fraud or error of Tribonian. Yet Lipsius had sus- pected the truth from the narratives of Tacitus (Annal. ii. 50, iii. 24, iv. 42), and even from the practice of Augustus, who distinguished the treasonable frailties of his female kindred. 195 In cases of adultery, Severus confined to the husband the right of public accu- sation (Cod. Justinian, 1. ix. tit. ix. leg. 1). Nor is this privilege unjust — so different are the effects of male or female infidelity. i9B Timon [leg. Timseus] (1. i.) and Theopompus (1. xliii. apud Athenaeum, 1. xii. p. 517 [o. 14]) describe the luxury and lust of the Etruscans : irov /xIvtoi ye x a ^P 0V(Tl ffw6vTts rots irai<r ko. ro7s fieipaKtois. About the same period (a.u.c. 445), the Eoman youth studied in Etruria (Liv. ix. 36). 197 The Persians had been corrupted in the same school : an 'EWrivwv /xaBSvres iraiffX piayovrai (Herodot. 1. i. c. 135). A curious dissertation might be formed on the introduction of paederasty after the time of Homer, its progress among the Greeks of Asia and Europe, the vehemence of their passions, and the thin devioe of virtue and friendship which amused the philosophers of Athens. But, scelera os- tendi oportet dum puniuntur, abscondi nagitia. 198 The name, the date, and the provisions of this law are equally doubtful (Gravina, Opp. p. 432, 433. Heineccius, Hist. Jur. Eom. No. 108. Ernesti, Clav. Ciceron. in Indice Legum). But I will observe that the nefanda Venus of the honest German is styled aversa by the more polite Italian. 199 See the oration of JEschines against the catamite Timarchus (in Eeiske, Orator. Grsec. torn. iii. p. 21-184).
