Of all the crimes falling under the description of capital, treason was visited with the greatest severity. The term perduellio fell into disuse, and the offences corresponding to treason in English law were comprehended under the crimen læsæ majestatis, the penalty of which was death with confiscation of goods, while the memory of the offender was declared infamous. Under the empire, the law was extended not only to all attempts on the life of the reigning prince, but to all acts and words which might appear to be disrespectful to him, so that any indignity offered to a statue of the emperor could be punished as severely as an offence against his person. Every reader of Roman history knows how fearfully this engine of oppression was worked by Tiberius and some of his successors. treason after One striking peculiarity of the Roman law of treason was Trials for that the criminal might be tried even after his death, in order death. that his memory might be declared infamous and his property confiscated to the state. This barbarous practice, so contrary to the rules of law and the dictates of humanity, was introduced during the despotism of imperial Rome; and, strange to say, was adopted both in France and Scotland at a period so recent as the beginning of the seventeenth century. Nicolas l'Hôte, a clerk of the Secretary of State, having betrayed Henry IV. of France by giving information to the King of Spain of all the deliberations of the French Council, was warned that his crime had been discovered, and in attempting to escape from his pursuers was drowned in the Marne. His dead body was taken to Paris, where he was convicted of high treason on 15th May 1604, and sentenced to have his body drawn on a hurdle, and dismembered by four horses, and the quarters exposed on the four principal avenues of the city. Dismemberment by four horses was then the ordinary punishment for treason in France, but it was sometimes aggravated by the most cruel torments, as shown by the sentences against the regicides Ravaillac and Damiens; and it is remarkable that in both of these cases 2 C. 9. 8. 6. 1 I. 4. 18. 3. D. 48. 4. C. 9. 8. the houses in which the criminals were born were ordered to be razed to the ground according to the Roman custom, the proprietor being indemnified for the loss.1 Several trials for treason after the death of the criminals took place in Scotland during the reign of James VI., who piqued himself on a strict adherence to the classical standards of antiquity, though he frequently selected the worst models for imitation. In January 1603, Francis Mowbray, who was accused of "most high, horrible, and detestable points of treason," was killed in his attempt to escape from Edinburgh Castle. By a royal warrant his dead body was brought to the bar of the Court of Justiciary, which, without any evidence, and without the verdict of a jury, sentenced him "to be dismembered as a traitor, his body to be hanged on a gibbet, and afterwards quartered; his head and limbs stuck up on conspicuous places in the city of Edinburgh, and his whole estate to be forfeited." In Robert Lesly's case, and in that of Logan of Restalrig, the bones of the deceased were raised from the grave and presented at the bar, as if to mock the very forms of justice.3 During the same reign, Archibald Cornwall, town-officer in Edinburgh, was convicted of treason for the foolish jest of attempting to hang up the king's picture on the gallows. The prisoner was charged with "the ignominiously dishonouring and defaming of his majesty, in taking of his portrait, and laying of the same and setting thereof to the stoops and upbearers of the gibbet." For this offence Cornwall was condemned to be hanged on the same gibbet till he was dead, and to remain on the gibbet "by the space of twentyfour hours, with a paper on his forehead containing that vile crime committed by him, which was pronounced for doom."4 Blackstone mentions two instances in the reign of Edward IV. of England, of persons executed for treasonable words,the one a citizen of London, who said he would make his son heir of the crown, being the sign of the tavern in which 1 Encyclopédie de Jurisprudence, voce Lèse-Majesté, Paris, 1785, vol. v. p. 440-1. Arnot's Criminal Trials, p. 65. 31 Hume's Criminal Law, p. 540. Aruot's Criminal Trials, p. 63. he lived; the other, a gentleman whose favourite buck the king killed in hunting, whereupon he wished it, horns and all, in the king's belly. In the last case, we are told, ChiefJustice Markham rather chose to leave his place than assent to the judgment.1 It has now, however, been long settled, that words spoken are not treasonable, though they may amount to a high misdemeanour. Vis Publica et Privata. Public force was a breach of the peace committed by bodies Public and private of men in arms organised for purposes of sedition, or obstruct- force. ing the constituted authorities in the performance of their duty. In the last century of the Roman republic, violent riots by hired mobs became frequent, and persons convicted of this offence were banished. Private force was an illegal act of violence perpetrated on private account without arms; and this was punished by confiscation of one-third of the offender's estate. 2 Milo accused Clodius of having opposed by an armed force the decree by which Cicero was recalled from exile; but Clodius escaped from this prosecution by getting himself appointed to the office of edile. He then brought a similar accusation against Milo for having employed force in dispersing Clodius and his satellites when the law for Cicero's recall was passed. Crimen Repetundarum. These expressions were used to denote a charge against Extortion. governors, magistrates, or other public functionaries, of extortion or other corrupt practices, such as accepting bribes to pervert the course of justice. In the early ages of Rome there are few traces of this offence; but after the corruption of manners it became extremely common, especially in the provinces. If Cicero's orations can be relied on, they present 1 Black. Com., book 4, ch. 6. 2 Lex Julia de Vi, D. 48. t. 6 and 7. C. 9. 12. 3 D. 48. 11. C. 9. 27. a vivid picture of the extortions of Verres during his three years' rule as proprætor in Sicily. No class of the inhabitants was exempted from his avarice and cruelty. Both the producers and farmers of the revenue were laid under contribution; the industrious classes were made to pay heavy imposts; and the wealthy were forced to yield up their money and their works of art, among which were the beautiful statues and Corinthian vases, the possession of which by Verres, after his return from exile, is supposed to have led Mark Antony during the second triumvirate to place his name on the list of the proscribed.1 The crimen repetundarum (pecuniarum) was punished by restitution of what was wrongfully taken, and pecuniary penalties to the extent of double and sometimes quadruple the value. Under the empire, the offender generally suffered degradation, by loss of rank or office; and he was sometimes condemned to exile. Embezzle ment of Peculatus. By this is meant the theft or embezzlement of property public pro- belonging to the state. In early times it was punished by perty. Sacrilege. the interdiction of fire and water; afterwards, when the offence was committed by public officers during their administration, the punishment was death; and private persons suffered deportation. Of the same nature was the Lex de Residuis, which applied to those who had received public money for public purposes and retained it. They were compelled to restore what they had appropriated, and to pay one-third more by way of penalty. Sacrilege is the stealing of sacred or religious things consecrated to the service of God. It was comprised in the Lex Julia de Peculatu.2 The punishment was death, but sometimes a lighter penalty was inflicted. It was not unusual for private persons to deposit their money in temples for security; but the stealing of such money appears to have been regarded as theft, not sacrilege. 1 Plin. Hist. Nat., xxxiv. 3. 2 D. 48. 13. C. 9. 28. 29. Ambitus. During the republic, severe laws were passed to repress Bribery. bribery by candidates in their canvass for election to public offices, not only while the voting was open, but also after the ballot was introduced by the Gabinian law (B.C. 139). Only the briber and his agents appear to have been punished, not the persons bribed. The penalty was sometimes exile, and sometimes a pecuniary fine, exclusion from the senate, and incapacity to hold office. By the Lex Tullia, passed in the consulship of Cicero (B.C. 63), the punishment of bribery was ten years' exile. This law forbade any person to exhibit public shows for two years before he was a candidate; and prohibited the practice of hiring gladiators and armed men to attend the competitors at the popular elections. Notwithstanding the severity of these enactments, the temptation to purchase the suffrages of the people was too strong to be resisted, and bribery, reduced to a regular system, went on increasing till the close of the republic. Marius, Sylla, Pompey, Julius Cæsar, all lavished money among the venal citizens to procure dignities for themselves and their friends or adherents. The trials for bribery were numerous in the republican period. When Emilius Scaurus was elected consul, he was accused of bribery by Rutilius, who had been his competitor for that office. Scaurus was acquitted, and immediately afterwards he impeached Rutilius for the same offence, and obtained a conviction. Cicero defended Murena and Plancius when accused of bribery, and his orations have come down to us. The popular forms of election ceased under Tiberius. The choice of magistrates was then transferred to the senate; but the emperors abolished by degrees the vestiges of republican government, and appointed the magistrates themselves, so that the laws against bribery, as Modestinus observes, became obsolete at Rome. They subsisted only in municipal towns and colonies, where the people continued to enjoy the freedom of elections; and, by a decree of the senate, persons |