532 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliv his private or public wrongs. The consent of the Jewish, the Athenian, and the Eornan laws, approved the slaughter of the nocturnal thief; though in open day-light a robber could not be slain without some previous evidence of danger and complaint. Whoever surprised an adulterer in his nuptial bed might freely exercise his revenge ; 184 the most bloody or wanton outrage was excused by the provocation ; 18 ° nor was it before the reign of Augustus that the husband was reduced to weigh the rank of the offender, or that the parent was condemned to sacrifice his daughter with her guilty seducer. After the expulsion of the kings, the ambitious Roman who should dare to assume their title or imitate their tyranny was devoted to the infernal gods ; each of his fellow-citizens was armed with a sword of justice; and the act of Brutus, however repugnant to gratitude or pru- dence, had been already sanctified by the judgment of his country. 186 The barbarous practice of wearing arms in the midst of peace, 187 and the bloody maxims of honour, were unknown to the Romans ; and, during the two purest ages, from the estab- lishment of equal freedom to the end of the Punic wars, the city was never disturbed by sedition, and rarely polluted with atroci- ous crimes. The failure of penal laws was more sensibly felt when every vice was inflamed by faction at home and dominion abroad. In the time of Cicero, each private citizen enjoyed the privilege of anarchy ; each minister of the republic was exalted to the temptations of regal power ; and their virtues are entitled to the warmest praise as the spontaneous fruits of nature or philo- sophy. After a triennial indulgence of lust, rapine, and cruelty, Verres, the tyrant of Sicily, could only be sued for the pecuniary 134 The first speech of Lysias (Reiske, Orator. Grsec. torn. v. p. 2-48) is in defence of an husband who had killed the adulterer. The right of husbands and fathers at Rome and Athens is discussed with much learning by Dr. Taylor (Lectiones Lysiacse, c. ix. in Reiske, torn. vi. p. 301-308). 185 See Casaubon ad Athenasuni, 1. i. c. 5, p. 19. Percurrent raphanique mugi- lesque (Catull. p. 41, 42, edit. Vossian. [15, 18]). Hunc mugilis intrat (Juvenal, Satir. x. 317). Hunc perminxere calones (Horat. 1. i. Satir. ii. 44) ; familise stuprandum dedit [leg. obiecit] . . . fraudi non fuit (Val. Maxim. 1. vi. c. 1, No. 13). 186 rpjjjg j aw i B no ticed by Livy (ii. 8), and Plutarch (in Publicola, torn. i. p. 187 [c. 12]) ; and it fully justifies the public opinion on the death of Caesar, which Suetonius could publish under the Imperial government. Jure csesus existimatur (in Julio, c. 76). Read the letters that passed between Cicero and Matius a few months after the ides of March (ad Fam. xi. 27, 28). 187 Tlp&Toi 5e 'A6i)va7oi t6v re vifypov ko.t46€vto. Thucydid. 1. i. c. 6. The historian who considers this circumstance as the test of civilization would disdain the barbarism of an European court.
