Kitap 20
1
"Then later, unless they had paid the debt, they were summoned before the praetor and were by him made over to those to whom they had been adjudged; and they were also fastened in the stocks or in fetters. For that, I think, is the meaning of these words: iii. 1–4. For a confessed debt and for judgment duly pronounced let thirty days be the legitimate time. Then let there be a laying on of hands, bring him to court. If he does not satisfy the judgment, or unless someone in the presence of the magistrate intervenes as a surety, let the creditor take him home and fasten him in stocks or in fetters. Let him fasten him with not less than fifteen pounds weight, or if he wish, with more. F. D. Allen, Remnants of Early Latin, p. 86, suggested that minore and maiore probably ought to change places. If the prisoner wishes, he may live at his own expense. If he does not, the creditor shall give him a pound of meal each day. If he wishes, he may give more.' In the meantime the right of compromising the case was allowed, iii. 5. and if they did not compromise it, debtors were confined for sixty days. During that time on three successive market-days The nundinae, or market days, came on every ninth day, reckoned in the Roman fashion. The time between two market days was the French huit jours and our week. Terliis nundinis, counting the one at the beginning of the period (in the Roman fashion), would be about two weeks (actually seventeen days). they were brought before the praetor and the amount of the judgment against them was announced. But on the third day iii. 6. they were capitally condemned or sent across the Tiber to be sold abroad. But they made this capital punishment horrible by a show of cruelty and fearful by unusual terrors, for the sake, as I have said, of making faith sacred. For if there were several, to whom the debtor had been adjudged, the laws allowed them to cut the man who had been made over to them in pieces, if they wished, and share his body. And indeed I will quote the very words of the law, less haply you should think that I shrink from their odium: iii. 6. 'On the third market day,' it says, 'let them cut him up; if they have cut more or less, let them not be held accountable.' Nothing surely is more merciless, nothing less humane, unless, as is evident on the face of it, such a cruel punishment was threatened in order that they might never have to resort to it. For nowadays we see many condemned and bound, because worthless men despise the punishment of bondage; but I have never read or heard of anyone having been cut up in ancient days, since the severity of that law could not be scorned. Or do you suppose, Favorinus, that if the penalty provided by the Twelve Tables viii. 23. for false witness had not become obsolete, and if now, as formerly, one who was convicted of giving false witness was hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, that we should see so many guilty of lying on the witness stand? Severity in punishing crime is often the cause of upright and careful living. The story of the Alban Mettius Fufetius He was the ruler of Alba Longa in the time of Tullus Hostilius, the third king of Rome (673–641 B.C.). is not unknown even to me, although I read few books of that kind. Since he had treacherously broken a pact and agreement made with the king of the Roman people, he was bound to two four-horse teams and torn asunder as the horses rushed in opposite directions. Who denies that this is an unusual and cruel punishment? but see what the most refined of poets says: Virg. Aen. viii. 643.
