For the
perpetration of similar enormities, a vile plebeian might claim and
abuse the sacred character of a member of the republic; but on the proof
or suspicion of guilt, the slave or the stranger was nailed to a cross:
and this strict and summary justice might be exercised without restraint
over the greatest part of the populace of Rome. Each family contained a
domestic tribunal, which was not confined, like that of the praetor, to
the cognizance of external actions; virtuous principles and habits were
inculcated by the discipline of education, and the Roman father was
accountable to the State for the manners of his children, since he
disposed, without appeal, of their life, their liberty, and their
inheritance. In some pressing emergencies the citizen was authorized to
avenge his private or public wrongs. The consent of the Jewish, the
Athenian, and the Roman laws approved the slaughter of the nocturnal
thief; though in open daylight 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; the most
bloody and wanton outrage was excused by the provocation; 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.
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