540 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliv voluntary A Roman accused of any capital crime might prevent the death sentence of the law by voluntary exile, or death. Till his guilt had been legally proved, his innocence was presumed, and his person was free : till the votes of the last century had been counted and declared, he might peaceably secede to any of the allied cities of Italy, or Greece, or Asia. 210 His fame and fortunes were preserved, at least to his children, by this civil death; and he might still be happy in every rational and sensual enjoyment, if a mind accustomed to the ambitious tumult of Rome could support the uniformity and silence of Rhodes or Athens. A bolder effort was required to escape from the tyranny of the Caesars ; but this effort was rendered familiar by the maxims of the Stoics, the example of the bravest Romans, and the legal encouragements of suicide. The bodies of condemned criminals were exposed to public ignominy, and their children, a more serious evil, were reduced to poverty by the confiscation of their fortunes. But, if the victims of Tiberius and Nero anticipated the decree of the prince or senate, their courage and despatch were recompensed by the applause of the public, the decent honours of burial, and the validity of their testaments. 211 The exquisite avarice and cruelty of Domitian appears to have deprived the unfortunate of this last consolation, and it was still denied even by the clemency of the Antonines. A voluntary death, which, in the case of a capital offence, intervened between the accusation and the sentence, was admitted as a confession of guilt, and the spoils of the deceased were seized by the inhuman claims of the treasury. 212 Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life ; and the post- humous disgrace invented by Tarquin 213 to check the despair of his subjects was never revived or imitated by succeeding tyrants. The powers of this world have indeed lost their dominion over 210 Polyb. 1. vi. p. 643 [c. 14]. The extension of the empire and city of Home obliged the exile to seek a more distant place of retirement. 211 Qui de Be statuebant, humabantur corpora, manebant testamenta ; pretium fe6tinandi. Tacit. Annal. vi. 25 [leg. 29], with the notes of Lipsius. 212 Julius Paulus (Sentent. Eecept. 1. v. tit. xii. p. 476), the Pandects (1. xlviii. tit. xxi.), the Code (1. ix. tit. l), Bynkershoek (torn. i. p. 59. Observat. J. C. E. iv. 4), and Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, 1. xxix. c. 9) define the civil limitations of the liberty and privileges of suicide. The criminal penalties are the production of a later and darker age. 213 Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24. When he fatigued his subjects in building the Capitol, many of the labourers were provoked to dispatch themselves ; he nailed their dead bodies to crosses.
