506
THE DECLINE AND FALL
sumed by the judges, and pæderasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed. A French philosopher[1] has dared to remark that whatever is secret must be doubtful, and that our natural horror of vice may be abused as an engine of tyranny. But the favourable persuasion of the same writer, that a legislator may confide in the taste and reason of mankind, is impeached by the unwelcome discovery of the antiquity and extent of the disease.[2]
Judgments of the people The free citizens of Athens and Rome enjoyed, in all criminal cases, the invaluable privilege of being tried by their country.[3] 1. The administration of justice is the most ancient office of a prince: it was exercised by the Roman kings, and abused by Tarquin; who alone, without law or council, pronounced his arbitrary judgments. The first consuls succeeded to this regal prerogative; but the sacred right of appeal soon abolished the jurisdiction of the magistrates, and all public causes were decided by the supreme tribunal of the people. But a wild democracy, superior to the forms, too often disdains the essential principles, of justice: the pride of despotism was envenomed by plebeian envy, and the heroes of Athens might sometimes applaud the happiness of the Persian, whose fate depended on the caprice of a single tyrant. Some salutary restraints, imposed by the people on their own passions, were at once the cause and effect of the gravity and temperance of the Romans. The right of accusation was confined to the magistrates. A vote of the thirty-five tribes could inflict a fine; but the cognizance of all capital crimes was reserved by a fundamental law to the assembly of the centuries, in which the weight of influence- ↑ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 6. That eloquent philosopher conciliates the rights of liberty and of nature, which should never be placed in opposition to each other.
- ↑ For the corruption of Palestine, 2000 years before the Christian æra, see the history and laws of Moses. Ancient Gaul is stigmatised by Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. v. p. 356 [c. 32]), China by the Mahometan and Christian travellers (Ancient Relations of India and China, p. 34), translated by Renaudot, and his bitter critic the Père Premare, Lettres Edifiantes (tom. xix. p. 435), and native America by the Spanish historians (Garcilasso de la Vega, l. iii. c. 13, Rycaut's translation; and Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. iii. p. 88). I believe, and hope, that the negroes, in their own country, were exempt from this moral pestilence.
- ↑ The important subject of the public questions and judgments at Rome is explained with much learning, and in a classic style, by Charles Sigonius (l. iii. de Judiciis, in Opp. tom. iii. 679-864); and a good abridgment may be found in the République Romaine of Beaufort (tom ii. l. v. p. 1-121). Those who wish for more abstruse law may study Noodt (de Jurisdictione et Imperio Libri duo, tom. i. p. 93-134), Heineccius (ad Pandect. l. i. et. ii. ad Institut. l. iv. tit. xvii. Element. ad Antiquitat.), and Gravina (Opp. 230-251).
