[37]
The first imperfect attempt to restore the proportion of crimes and
punishments was made by the dictator Sylla, who, in the midst of his
sanguinary triumph, aspired to restrain the license rather than to
oppress the liberty of the Romans. He gloried in the arbitrary
proscription of four thousand seven hundred citizens. But in the
character of a legislator he respected the prejudices of the times; and
instead of pronouncing a sentence of death against the robber or
assassin, the general who betrayed an army, or the magistrate who ruined
a province, Sylla was content to aggravate the pecuniary damages by the
penalty of exile, or, in more constitutional language, by the
interdiction of fire and water. The Cornelian and afterward the Pompeian
and Julian laws introduced a new system of criminal jurisprudence; and
the emperors, from Augustus to Justinian, disguised their increasing
rigor under the names of the original authors.
But the invention and frequent use of _extraordinary pains_ proceeded
from the desire to extend and conceal the progress of despotism.
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