FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[165]"Adam Bede."[166]"Daniel Deronda."[167]"The Science of Ethics," pp. 238, 239. The italics are mine.[168]Ibid. pp. 242, 243.[169]As above, pp. 255, 256. The italics are mine.[170]Ibid. p. 443.[171]Ibid. p. 441. The italics are mine.[172]Ibid. p. 236. The italics are mine.[173]Ibid. p. 237.[174]Ibid. p. 239. The italics are here also mine.[175]"The Pathology of Mind," 102et seq.[176]In this general and limited sense, but only in this general and limited sense, does Spencer's assertion that more moral conduct shows a greater adjustment of means to ends, correspond to the facts.[177]See "The Science of Ethics," p. 62.[178]"The Science of Ethics," pp. 375, 376.[179]"The Science of Ethics," p. 300.[180]"The Science of Ethics," p. 301.[181]See Part I, this book, p. 117.[182]"The Science of Ethics," p. 310.

[165]"Adam Bede."

[166]"Daniel Deronda."

[167]"The Science of Ethics," pp. 238, 239. The italics are mine.

[168]Ibid. pp. 242, 243.

[169]As above, pp. 255, 256. The italics are mine.

[170]Ibid. p. 443.

[171]Ibid. p. 441. The italics are mine.

[172]Ibid. p. 236. The italics are mine.

[173]Ibid. p. 237.

[174]Ibid. p. 239. The italics are here also mine.

[175]"The Pathology of Mind," 102et seq.

[176]In this general and limited sense, but only in this general and limited sense, does Spencer's assertion that more moral conduct shows a greater adjustment of means to ends, correspond to the facts.

[177]See "The Science of Ethics," p. 62.

[178]"The Science of Ethics," pp. 375, 376.

[179]"The Science of Ethics," p. 300.

[180]"The Science of Ethics," p. 301.

[181]See Part I, this book, p. 117.

[182]"The Science of Ethics," p. 310.

The necessity of the constant assimilation of savage tribes, of the peopling of thinly inhabited areas, renders social evolution as a whole exceedingly slow. Nor can there be, even in isolated peoples, any sudden leap from savagery to civilization; in other words the term "civilization" is not of absolute but of comparative, progressive, import. Nor can we suppose the social evolution to have been only outward; we cannot suppose that our cave-dwelling, man-eating, rude ancestors, if they could have been suddenly transported, in infancy even, into the midst of modern civilization by means of a Carlylean wishing-cap, or by some method of projection in time similar to that by which men promise to "knock each other into the middle of next week," would have been able to equal modern men in mental and moral attainment. We may gain some idea of the gentle manners and moral character of our early progenitors from the customs of savage peoples of the present day; although a very large number of these stand upon a higher plane than did the ancient savages known to geology. I insert a few extracts from Lubbock:—

"Mr. Galbraith, who lived for many years, as Indian agent, among the Sioux (North America), thus describes them: 'They are bigoted, barbarous, and exceedingly superstitious. They regard most of the vices as virtues. Theft, arson, rape, and murder, are among them regarded as the means of distinction; and the young Indian from childhood is taught to regard killing as the highest of virtues. In their dances and at their feasts, the warriors recite their deeds of theft, pillage, and slaughter, as precious things; and the highest, indeed the only, ambition of a young brave is to secure "the feather," which is but a record of his having murdered or participated in the murder, of some human being—whether man, woman, or child, it is immaterial; andafter he has secured his first "feather," appetite is whetted to increase the number in his cap, as an Indian brave is estimated by the number of his feathers.'"[183]

"'Conscience,' says Burton, 'does not exist in Eastern Africa, and "repentance" expresses regret for missed opportunities of mortal crime. Robbery constitutes an honorable man; murder—the more atrocious the midnight crime the better—makes the hero.'"[184]

"In Tahiti, the missionaries considered that 'not less than two-thirds of the children were murdered by their parents.' Mr. Ellis adds, 'I do not recollect having met with a female in the islands, during the whole period of my residence there, who had been a mother while idolatry prevailed, who had not imbrued her hands in the blood of her offspring.' Mr. Nott also makes the same assertion. Girls were more often killed than boys, because they were of less use in fishing and in war."[185]

"Williams tells us that 'offences, in Fijian estimation, are light or grave according to the rank of the offender. Murder by a chief is less heinous than a petty larceny committed by a man of low rank.'"[186]

"Among the Khonds of Central India, human sacrifices prevailed until quite lately. 'A stout stake is driven into the soil and to it the victim is fastened, seated, and anointed with ghee, oil, and turmeric, decorated with flowers, andworshippedduring the day by the assembly. At nightfall the licentious revelry is resumed, and on the third morning the victim gets some milk to drink, when the presiding priest implores the goddess to shower her blessings on the people. After the mock ceremony, nevertheless, the victim is taken to the grove where the sacrifice is to be carried out; and to prevent resistance, the bones of the arms and legs are broken, or the victim drugged with opium or datura, when the janni wounds his victim with the axe. This act is followed up by the crowd. A number now press forward to obtain a piece of his flesh, and in a moment he is stripped to the bones.'

"An almost identical custom prevails among the Marimos, a tribe of South Africa much resembling the Bechuanas.... Schoolcraft mentions a... sacrifice to the 'Spirit of Corn' among the Pawnees. The victim was first tortured by being suspendedover a fire. 'At a given signal, a hundred arrows were let fly, and her whole body was pierced. These were immediately withdrawn, and her flesh cut from her bones in small pieces which were put into baskets and carried into the cornfield, where the grain was being planted, and the blood squeezed out on each hill.'"[187]"Human sacrifices occurred in Guinea, and Burton saw 'at Benin City a young woman lashed to a scaffolding upon the summit of a tall blasted tree, and being devoured by the turkey-buzzards. The people declared it to be a "fetich" or charm for bringing rain.'...

"Captain Cook describes human sacrifices as prevalent among the islanders of the Pacific, and especially in the Sandwich group.... War captives were frequently sacrificed in Brazil."[188]

"The lowest races have no institution of marriage. True love is almost unknown among them, and marriage in its lowest phases is by no means a matter of affection and companionship.... In North America, the Tinné Indians had no word for 'dear' and 'beloved'; and the Algonquin language is stated to have contained no verb meaning 'to love,' so that when the Bible was translated by the missionaries into that language it was necessary to invent a word for the purpose."[189]

"The position of women in Australia seems, indeed, to be wretched in the extreme. They are treated with the utmost brutality, beaten and speared in the limbs on the most trivial provocation. 'Few women,' says Eyre, 'will be found, upon examination, to be free from frightful scars upon the head or the marks of spear-wounds upon the body. I have seen a young woman who, from the number of these marks, appeared to have been almost riddled with spear-wounds.'"[190]

"Collins thus describes the manner in which the natives about Sydney used to procure wives: 'The poor wretch is stolen upon in the absence of her protectors. Being first stupefied with blows, inflicted with clubs or wooden swords, on the head, back, and shoulders, every one of which is followed by a stream of blood, she is then dragged through the woods by one arm, with a perseverance and violence that it might be supposed would displace it from its socket. This outrage is not resented by the relations of the female, who only retaliate by a similar outrage when they find an opportunity.'"[191]

"Indeed," says Lubbock, "I do not remember a single instance in which a savage is recorded as having shown any symptoms of remorse; and almost the only case I can call to mind, in which a man belonging to one of the lower races has accounted for an act by saying explicitly that it was right, was when Mr. Hunt asked a young Fijian why he had killed his mother."[192]

We have direct evidence, in many present or recent customs, of so-called civilized or half-civilized nations, that the barbarous customs described in "The Origin of Civilization," and in the books of many travellers, are not the original and special inventions of modern savages merely, but that similar customs prevailed among our progenitors. Lubbock notices many of these. The marriage ceremonies of many peoples are particularly suggestive of a time when violent capture was the means of obtaining a wife, and cruelty of treatment was her usual portion.[193]Human sacrifices were common among many peoples of ancient Europe; and the cancellation of responsibility for murder with fines (often nominal in the case of the murder of a man of lower rank) was a widely spread custom. "In Russia," writes Lubbock, "as in Scandinavia, human sacrifices continued down to the introduction of Christianity. In Mexico and Peru they seem to have been peculiarly numerous. Müller has suggested that this may have partly arisen from the fact that these nations were not softened by the possession of domestic animals.[194]Various estimates have been made of the number of human victims annually sacrificed in the Mexican temples. Müller thinks 2500 is a moderate estimate; and in one year it appears to have exceeded 100,000." "In Northern Europe, human sacrifices were not uncommon. The Yarl of the Orkneys is recorded to have sacrificed the son of the King of Norway to Odin in the year 893. In 993, Hakon Yarl sacrificed his own son to the gods. Donald, King of Sweden, was burnt by his people as a sacrifice to Odin, in consequence of a severe famine. At Upsala was a celebrated temple, round which an eye-witness assured Adam of Bremen that he had seen the corpses of seventy-two victims hanging up at one time."[195]

A peculiar confusion as to the definition of morality sometimes gives rise to such vagaries of theory as the defence of murder committed by savages, and other cruelties practised, on the ground that these things are not considered sins in the moral code of the peoples among which they are practised; murder is thus excused on the plea thatwrecking is also looked upon as permissible;[196]and Wallace thinks that savages live up to their "simple moral code" as well as civilized human beings to their elaborate one, so that they are, in reality, as moral as these latter. It should not be forgotten, however, that the moral code is itself the product of the tribe and represents its moral sentiment. Lubbock remarks that if a man's simple moral code permits him to rob and murder, the code is at least an unfortunate one for the victims.[197]On the other hand, Lubbock himself defends human sacrifice as the result of "deep and earnest religious feeling."[198]But if sympathy were strong, such sacrifices would be impossible, and the religious code would be altered just as the religious code of Christians is altered to keep up with social progress. Opinion and feeling are not two separable things, one of which may advance while the other remains behind; when feeling becomes strong enough, the opinion arises that this or that custom before practised is wrong. As long as man is cruel by nature, however, conscience will not torment him for cruelty, and it is possible for him to regard it as wholly justifiable.

But I am of the opinion that moral progress has been made not only since the time of our savage ancestors, but even also since the time of the great ancients, in spite of the obstacles to such advancement presented in the necessity of the moral assimilation of immense races of savages,—the leavening of the whole of Europe. I believe that modern civilization has caught up to and surpassed the ancient. The knowledge we have of ancient peoples is necessarily most imperfect; nevertheless, we may, I believe, discover considerable evidence of general moral inferiority to the present day. Any advance that has been made will be likely to be most observable in those general virtues which lie at the foundation of all social coöperation—truthfulness in word and honesty in act, and the gradual widening of concepts of justice from individual and class privilege and race prejudice, to the inclusion of mankind as a whole. And the growth of sympathywill be most noticeable in the treatment of those classes of beings which possess least physical means of compelling respect for their rights—animals, children, women, the poor, and ignorant, and sick, and aged.

We may begin with the children. The Lacedemonian custom of giving over the weak and defective children to destruction is familiar to us all. Before Solon, children were often sold by Athenian parents for debt; and even during the ages of greatest culture, the exposure of children seems to have been a common Athenian practice, regarded with little or no disapproval by the general public. Mahaffy writes: "The cool way in which Plato in his Republic speaks of exposing children, shows that, as we should expect, with the increase of luxury, and the decay of the means of satisfying it, the destruction of infants came more and more into the fashion. What can be more painfully affecting than the practice implied by Socrates, when he is comparing himself to a midwife (Theæt. 151 B.). 'And if I abstract and expose your first-born, because I discover that the conception you have formed is a vain shadow, do not quarrel with me,as the manner of women is, when their first children are taken from them. For I have actually known some men ready to bite me when first I have deprived them of a darling folly.'"[199]That the exposure of children is generally mentioned only incidentally by Greek writers, is perhaps the strongest argument of all that the custom was regarded with indifference by the majority. A considerable number of the exposed children seem to have been rescued to be brought up as prostitutes, but many must have perished miserably. We have reason for doubting whether the average Greek would have shown an equal sympathy to that of Mr. Stephen's modern pickpockets, in the supposed case of danger to a child on the race-course;[200]—unless, indeed, the child were an especially fine bit of animal flesh.

The same narrow sort of expediency in morals which permitted the exposure of children is exhibited, again, in the lack of regard for the aged shown by the Athenians at all periods of their history;—in Sparta the old men were treated with some considerable respect. Says Mahaffy: "The strongest case against the Periclean Greeks, and one which marks their parentage most clearly from their Homeric ancestors, is the treatment of their old men. For here it is no inferior class, but their equals, nayeven those to whom they directly owed their greatness, whom they cast aside with contempt when their days of usefulness had passed by.... The Greek lawgivers were accordingly most explicit in enjoining upon children the nurture and support of aged parents who could otherwise expect little from the younger generation. The Attic law alone added a qualification, that the children were to be without responsibility if their parents had neglected to educate them." Aristophanes describes the treatment of the aged in his "Wasps,"—"where he declares that the only chance of respect or even safety is to retain the power of acting as a juryman, so extorting homage from the accused and supporting himself by his pay without depending on his children. When he comes home with his fee, they are glad to see him, in fact he is able to support a second wife and younger children, as the passage plainly implies, whereas otherwise the father must look towards his son and his son's steward to give him his daily bread, 'uttering imprecations and mutterings lest he knead me a deadly cake,' a dark insinuation which opens to us terrible suspicions."[201]

The women of Greece were comparatively well cared for, as might be expected in a nation and country peculiarly susceptible to the influence of grace and beauty; they were consequently of a comparatively admirable type. However, we are fond, I think, of indulging in this respect, our preference for believing the romantic; so that we usually select carefully the best instances and infer that the standard of all Greece was on this plane. The reasons for this are manifold. We have the habit of imagining, from Greek art, that all Greek women were beautiful; and it is unpleasant to associate moral inferiority with great beauty, or to imagine its being treated with unkindness or disrespect. Again, we are pleased at discovering examples of love and faithfulness even in the far-away ages, and the pleasure of the discovery exalts the few instances with which Greek literature provides us to a disproportionate importance and significance. Disappointed at not finding their perfect ideal in their own age and nation, men have pleased themselves with the imagination of perfection in an object belonging to another age, with regard to which no sordid reality of every-day relation and common, vulgar needs could intervene to check enthusiasm. Furthermore, it is safer to admire those distant from us in time and place, since we are secure from anydemand of faithfulness and self-sacrifice from their side. Poets and artists have assisted us in this license of agreeable fancy. So we dwell, with special emphasis, on the beauty of Penelope's character, which is not at all exceptionally faithful as measured by modern standards; we warm over the story of Antigone while we pass by, without special enthusiasm, a thousand instances as admirable in our own day and within our own observation; and we read, with delight, the tale of the Greek who encouraged his ignorant child-wife by gentle treatment until she overcame her timidity, became "tame and docile," and was persuaded to discard cosmetics and high-heeled shoes and devote herself to her household duties; though the most of us would regard the forced marriage of such a child, if it occurred in our own day, as no more than child-barter, and the conduct of the husband (doubtless not worsened by his representation of it) as but a moderate exhibition of common decency. Mahaffy says of the Greeks of the Homeric age: "There is ample evidence that the lower-class women, the slaves and even the free servants, were subjected to the hardest and most distressing sorts of work, the carrying of water, and the grinding of hand-mills; in fact we see them standing to men-servants nearly in the same relation that the North-American squaw stands to her husband—over-taxed, slave-driven, worn out even with field-work, while he is idling, or smoking, or sleeping."[202]The wives of Athens of all periods were little more than a higher class of household servants, with almost no share, by education, in either the science or the art that was the delight of their nation and made its superiority. The position of the hetairai was better in some respects; but the apparently widely spread preference of the Greeks of the cultured classes for what we term unnatural crime argues against any considerable degree of education even in their case. Women were sometimes found in the Greek schools of philosophy, but these were evidently isolated cases. The passage from the Theætetus above quoted shows us the unhappy and subservient position of Athenian women in one respect; and many other passages of Plato throw an unfavorable light upon their lot; though we have, perhaps, to remember that the central figure of the Dialogues had some personal reason for being a woman-hater. "The outcasts from society as we call them were not the immoral and the profligate, but the honorableand virtuous. Accordingly, when we consult the literature of the day, we find women treated either with contemptuous ridicule in comedy, or with still more contemptuous silence in history."[203]

Human sacrifices were not unknown to the earlier Greeks. Of the later days, of Athenian culture, Mahaffy says: "Plutarch tells us that Themistocles was forced by the acclamations of the army to sacrifice three Persian prisoners of distinction brought in just before the battle of Salamis, though he was greatly affected at the terrible nature of the sacrifice, so that it appears to have been then unusual. But Aristophanes, long after, makes allusions to what he calls φαρμακοι, as still remembered at Athens, if not still in use (Ran. 732), and which the scholiasts explain, chiefly from Hipponax, as a sort of human scapegoat, chosen for ugliness or deformity (a very Greek standpoint) and sacrificed for the expiation of the state in days of famine and pestilence, or of other public disaster. I think that Aristophanes alludes to the custom as bygone, though the scholiasts do not think so; but its very familiarity to his audience shows a disregard of human life strange enough in so advanced a legal system as that of democratic Athens."[204]

Mahaffy calls attention to the exceeding cruelty practised by the Greeks in the Peloponnesian war, and adds: "It was not merely among Corcyreans, or among Thracian mercenaries, but among the leaders of Greece that we find this disgusting feature. The Spartans put to death in cold blood 225 prisoners whom they took in Platæa after a long and heroic defence.... But this is a mere trifle when we hear from Plutarch that Lysander, after the battle of Ægospotami, put to death 3000 prisoners (Alcib.c. 37 cp. the details in hisLysander, c. 13),... Athenians, men of education and of culture.... The unfortunate Athenian general, according to Theophrastus (Plut.Lys.13), submits with dignified resignation to a fate which he confesses would have attended the Lacedemonians had they been vanquished.

"For the Athenians, with their boasted clemency and culture, were very nearly as cruel as their enemies. In the celebrated affair of the Mitylenæans, which Thucydides tells at length in his third book, the first decree of the Athenians was to massacre thewhole male population of the captured city. They repented of this decree, because Diodotus proved to them, not that it was inhuman, but that it was inexpedient." Mahaffy argues, in opposition to Grote, that there was no real sentiment of sympathy in the repentance of the Athenians in this affair, for "how could theimagined detailsof the massacre of 6000 men inLesboshave been a motive, when the Athenians did, at the same time, have the ringleaders executedat Athens, andthey were more than 1000 men(Thuc. III. 30)." These were "executed together, by the hands of Athenians, not with fire-arms but with swords and knives. A few years after, the inhabitants of Melos, many hundreds in number, were put to the sword, when conquered after a brave resistance (Thuc. V. 116), and here, I fear, merely for the purpose of making way for a colony of Athenian citizens, who went out to occupy the houses and lands of their victims."[205]

The practice of torturing witnesses in court was common in Periclean Athens. On this point, Mahaffy writes: "Our best authorities on this question are, of course, the early orators, especially Antiphon, in whose speeches on cases of homicide this feature constantly recurs. It is well known that in such cases the accused might offer his own slaves to be tortured, in order to challenge evidence against himself; and it was thought a weak point in his case if he refused to do so when challenged. It is also well known that the accusers were bound to make good any permanent injury, such as maiming, done to these slaves.

"But there were both restrictions and extensions of this practice as yet but little noticed. It was not the custom to torture slaves who gave evidence to a fact, but only if they denied any knowledge, or appeared to suppress it in the interest of their master (Antiphon, Tetral. A, γ). On the other hand,it was common enough to torture female slaves and also free men....

... "Almost all the orators speak of it as an infallible means of ascertaining the truth. Demosthenes says it has never been known to fail."[206]The restrictions on certain extremities of torture in court diminish in importance when we consider that the poor slave stood, in reality, in all cases, between two alternatives of suffering, that inflicted by the court and that likely to be inflicted by his master in case his evidence displeased the latter. That he wasa piece of property of some value was doubtless no more a safeguard to the Greek slave under the hands of his master than it has been in any modern slave-holding country; the Greek was doubtless at least as liable as the man of to-day to forget ultimate loss in the rage of present anger and the malevolent pleasure of revenge.

The condition of slaves among the Greeks furnishes us, indeed, with one of our strongest arguments against their moral code. We do not need to mention the Helots, whose name has become a synonym of degradation and misery. Slaves formed the greater part of the working population of Athens, and were much more numerous than the freemen. Nor were they necessarily even of inferior race or education. Not only did all prisoners taken in war become slaves, with their descendants forever, except as their masters chose to emancipate them (and the possession of such a superfluity sometimes rendered the Athenians generous in this respect), but, until the time of Solon, freemen might be sold into bondage for debt,—and not alone for a large debt, but also for a small one, and not merely until the debt was paid, but for all time. Nor have we reason to suppose that freemen were treated, even in the days of Athens' greatest culture, with great humanity. "At the opening of the Euthryphro there is a story told which is not intended to be anything exceptional, and which shows that the free laborer, or dependent, had not bettered his position since the days when Achilles cited him as the most miserable creature upon earth. 'Now the man who is dead,' says Euthryphro, 'was a poor dependent of mine who worked for us as a [free] field-laborer at Naxos, and one day, in a fit of drunken passion, he got into a quarrel with one of our domestic servants [slaves] and slew him. My father bound him hand and foot and threw him into a ditch, and then sent to Athens to ask of a diviner what he should do with him. Meantime, he had no care or thought of him, deeming him a murderer, and that even if he did die, there would be no great harm. And this was just what happened.For such was the effect of cold and hunger and chains upon himthat before the messenger returned from the diviner he was dead. And my father and family are angry with me for taking the part of the murderer and prosecuting my father.'"[207]

We have not much evidence as to the treatment of animals in ancient Greece. Race-horses are likely to have been well caredfor,—as long as they were young and swift or beautiful. But it does not appear probable, from what we know of the Greek attitude towards slaves and dependents, women and children, that a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would have flourished in Greece.

When we come to inquire as to the moral status of the Greeks with regard to honesty, truthfulness, and reliability in general, we find them particularly lacking. Their failure to come up with modern standards in this respect "every schoolboy knows." Ulysses is called the "man of many wiles," with evident intent to compliment. In the poems of Theognis, favorites with the Greek nobility, "it was openly recommended to fawn upon your enemy, to deceive him till he was in your power, and then wreak vengeance upon him. It is usual, among critics, to speak of this as the attitude of Theognis, and of the special aristocracy to which he belonged. They forget that we find the same attitude in the moral Pindar (Pyth.ii. 84). It is expounded by Hesiod as proximate (*Εργ. 165 sqq.), by Thucydides as universal, at a later epoch."[208]Mahaffy says of the Greeks up to the time of Thucydides, that they "had been often treacherous and cruel, generally dishonest and selfish; but, withal, often generous and gentlemanly, always clever and agreeable, and always carried away by a love of beauty more than by a respect for truth."[209]At the time of Darius, the Milesians, who had involved that king in a bloody and expensive war, and burned his Lydian capital, were yet treated kindly by him when taken prisoners, and settled in his own country. In return they were always trying to beg or embezzle the treasure of the king at Susa. "There was, indeed, a single exception, Scythes, tyrant of Zancle—who asked leave to visit Sicily, and returned to die in Persia. 'Him Darius considered to be the most righteous of all those who had gone up to him from Greece, in that he kept his promise to the great king.'"

"What an evidence of Greek dishonesty. We can well fancy the Aryan barons of Darius' court speaking in the tone of the Roman Juvenal. To them, too, theGræculus esurienswas but too well known,—with his fascination, his cleverness, and, withal, his mean and selfish knavery. I need hardly remind the Greek scholar," continues Mahaffy, "that all through the Ionicrevolt, and through the Persian wars, this treachery and this selfishness were the mainstays of the Persians; in fact, had they depended upon these more completely, the subjugation of Greece would have been a mere question of time."[210]

"There was a certain Glaucus at Sparta, celebrated for justice, as well as in other respects, to whom a Milesian, who had heard of his fame, came and entrusted a treasure, wishing as he said, to get the benefit of his justice, since Ionia was disturbed. Of course, such a temptation was too much even for this paragon of Greek honesty. When the heirs of the Milesian came with their tokens and claimed the treasure, he professed to know nothing of the affair," though when they had gone away, he consulted the oracle as to whether he might spend the money, and was so strongly rebuked, that he finally gave it back.[211]This Mahaffy mentions as an instance where the influence of the oracle was a moral one.

There remains one general and especially significant criticism to be made on Greek morals as a whole; the great mass of the people were little cared for and in a state of unfreedom. Professor Robiou of Rennes aptly remarks that the democracy of ancient times, and that of Athens in particular, had little in common with modern democracy. "The very large majority of the working population were slaves, and had, consequently, no rights of any sort, so that the 'laborers,' at whose political rights Xenophon and Aristophanes jest, were generally what we callpatrons....

"As for the laborers and the inhabitants of the environs and villages, since political rights could be exercised only at the Athenian Pnyx and there was no idea of a representative system, it is clear that the presence of many of them in the assembly could be only an exception, in spite of the modest indemnity which was offered them; among the country people the large and middle-class proprietors alone were in a condition to take part regularly. That is to say, one has no difficulty in concluding that, in comparison with other times and other countries,the Athenian democracy was an aristocracy."[212]And we may add that, all things considered, the great mass of the people had less of liberty and privilege, were far more subject to the despotismand caprice of the few, than in most modern monarchies. In what modern country not inhabited by savages would a man be permitted, at the present day, to throw even a murderer into a ditch and leave him to perish of hunger and cold? The carelessness of the Greeks in regard to the inner spirit of morals is often excused on the ground that it was at least combined with a large degree of tolerance; but this tolerance appears to be, to a great extent, mythical. The politics of Athens ostracized men whose opinion was feared by the state, or rather by a certain number of citizens, and the Greek religion stained its records with the death of Socrates and the persecution of other philosophers. Stilpo was exiled for doubting whether the Athene of Phidias was a goddess and the books of Anaxagoras and Protagoras were publicly burned. There was, moreover, an inquisitorial bureau at Athens.[213]However, it is true that the Greeks were, as a people, too little in earnest and too superstitious to fall into doubt of the national mythology.

We have less difficulty in showing the superiority of modern to Roman civilization, and for the reason, partly, that we know more about Roman, than we do about Greek civilization.

The Romans were, from the beginning, a robust and warlike people, and the military discipline which made them conquerors extended into their social relations and even into their family life. The exposure of children appears to have been a common practice, and looked upon leniently even after direct infanticide was visited with some degree of general disapproval. Parents were the absolute masters of their children, having the power to put them to death, or to sell them as slaves; and this was not only true of children in their younger years, but during the whole life of the father. Livy and Valerius Maximus give numerous instances of parents who had put their children to death. It is recorded, however, that Hadrian banished a man who had killed his son, and decreed that whatever a son might earn in military service should belong to himself; while Alexander Severus forbade the killing of adult sons, and Diocletian rendered the sale of children illegal.[214]Lecky however remarks that "the sale of children in case of great necessity, though denounced by the Fathers, continued long after the time of Theodosius, nor doesany Christian emperor appear to have enforced the humane enactments of Diocletian."[215]

Human sacrifices occurred among the Romans far more frequently than among the Greeks, and continued even down to a late date, says Mahaffy. "In the year 46b.c., Cæsar sacrificed two soldiers on the altar in the Campus Martius. Augustus is said to have sacrificed a maiden named Gregoria. Even Trajan, when Antioch was rebuilt, sacrificed Calliope, and placed her statue in the theatre. Under Commodus, and later emperors, human sacrifices appear to have been more common; and a gladiator appears to have been sacrificed to Jupiter Latialis even in the time of Constantine. Yet these awful rites had been expressly forbiddenb.c.95; and Pliny asserts that in his time they were never openly solemnized."[216]

If, however, the direct sacrifice of human victims came in time to be forbidden, there grew out of it, at a comparatively early period, a custom very nearly if not quite as barbarous, which was practised on an immense scale and down to a late date; namely, the gladiatorial contests. The men who took part in these contests were either slaves, criminals, military captives, or men especially trained for the "profession." Many of these last were exposed children who had been rescued for the purpose; their number being also recruited from other ranks. Lecky seems to excuse the condemnation of military captives to these shows, saying that their fate "could not strike the early Romans with the horror it would now inspire, for the right of the conquerors to massacre their prisoners was almost universally admitted."[217]The argument is similar to that noticed and criticised above—one bad principle cannot be an excuse for another, though the two are, doubtless, in this case, coördinate. Every criminal can give us a reason for his crime out of the uniformity of his own character. The question is, simply, whether we are considering the facts from a purely indifferent standpoint, as historical, or from an ethical standpoint; and if from the latter, then we must have some standard of measurement. We may choose to make this, in all cases, the average of the period and nation; though there will be, in that case, considerabledifficulty in determining the average. Or we may use some ideal standard, which, as ideal, does not vary with all variations of the society considered, but is constant. But we have no logical right, having assumed the one standard, to confuse it with the other, treating the two as interchangeable. The standard of any age by which men judged their deeds is also part of the morality of the age, by which we may judge it. As for the criminals who fought in the arena, they were sometimes pardoned, when victorious, so that society received back again its most muscular, or skilful and alert criminals. Of all Roman authors and rulers, Lecky mentions only Seneca, Plutarch, Petronius, Junius Mauricus, and Marcus Aurelius, who condemn the games.[218]Cicero is undecided on the subject; rather in favor of them. The great satirist, Juvenal, though he repeatedly mentions, does not condemn them. And "of all the great historians who recorded them not one seems to have been conscious that he was recording a barbarity, not one appears to have seen in them any greater evils than an increasing tendency to pleasure and an excessive multiplication of a dangerous class." On the other hand, the attempt to introduce them into Athens was unsuccessful.[219]

An immense increase of gladiators and gladiatorial shows took place in the earlier days of the empire, when the increase of slavery freed a large portion of the Roman population from the necessity of labor, and men came to occupy themselves with amusements, on the one hand as a profession, on the other as means of passing the time. In the days of the Republic, the slaves were comparatively few in number and probably treated with more care, though scarcely with much consideration; all things were permitted the master by law, says Lecky, though probably the censor might interfere in extreme cases. "The elder Cato speaks of slaves simply as instruments for obtaining wealth, and he encouraged masters, both by his precept and his example, to sell them as useless when aged and infirm."[220]Under Titus and Trajan probably occurred the greatest number of shows that "were compressed into a short time,... and no Roman seems to have imagined that the fact of 3000 men having been compelled to fight under the one, and 10,000 under theother, cast the faintest shadow upon their characters."[221]Moreover, "the mere desire for novelty impelled the people to every excess or refinement of barbarity. The simple combat became at last insipid, and every variety of atrocity was devised to stimulate the flagging interest. At one time a bear and a bull, chained together, rolled in fierce contest along the sand; at another, criminals dressed in the skins of wild beasts were thrown to bulls, which were maddened by red-hot irons, or by darts tipped with burning pitch. Four hundred bears were killed on a single day under Caligula; three hundred on another day under Claudius. Under Nero, four hundred tigers fought with bulls and elephants; four hundred bears and three hundred lions were slaughtered by his soldiers. In a single day, at the dedication of the Colosseum by Titus, five thousand animals perished.... Lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, giraffes, bulls, stags, even crocodiles and serpents, were employed to give novelty to the spectacle. Nor was any form of human suffering wanting. The first Gordian, when edile, gave twelve spectacles, in each of which from one hundred and fifty to five hundred pair of gladiators appeared. Eight hundred pair fought at the triumph of Aurelian. Ten thousand men fought during the games of Trajan.... Under Domitian, an army of feeble dwarfs was compelled to fight, and more than once female gladiators descended to fight in the arena. A criminal personating a fictitious character was nailed to a cross, and there torn by a bear. Another, representing Scævola, was compelled to hold his hand in a real flame. A third, as Hercules, was burnt alive upon the pile. So intense was the craving for blood, that a prince was less unpopular if he neglected the distribution of corn than if he neglected the games; and Nero himself, on account of his munificence in this respect, was probably the sovereign who was most beloved by the Roman multitude. Heliogabalus and Galerius are reported, when dining, to have regaled themselves with the sight of criminals torn by wild beasts. It was said of the latter that 'he never supped without human blood.'" Moreover, the prince was most popular who, at the show of thumbs, "permitted no consideration of economy to make him hesitate to sanction the popular award."[222]"Even in the closing years of the fourth century, the prefect Symmachus, who was regarded as one of the most estimable pagans of his age, collected some Saxon prisoners to fight in honor of his son. They strangled themselves in prison, and Symmachus lamented the misfortune that had befallen him from their 'impious hands,' but endeavored to calm his feelings by recalling the patience of Socrates and the precepts of philosophy."[223]

The conquest of Greece is alleged to have bettered somewhat the position of Roman slaves, since it involved the introduction of many slaves who were the intellectual superiors of their masters. But whatever good this may have effected seems to have been counteracted by the increase in number of the slaves and the consequent diminution in value of the individual slave as a piece of property. On the whole, the position of the slaves of North America, before the war of emancipation, bad as it was in some cases, seems to have been, on the average, quite paradisiacal when compared with that of their Roman forerunners. It has already been mentioned that Cato urged his compatriots to sell their aged slaves. Old and infirm slaves were constantly exposed to perish on an island in the Tiber. It was also customary, in case of the murder of the master, to put all the slaves of the household to death who were not in chains or helpless at the time of the murder. The testimony of the slave was generally received only under torture; he might be tortured in the attempt to compel evidence against his master; but, if he, of his own free will, accused his master of any crime, except treason, he was condemned to the arena. There were different punishments for slaves and for men of rank. "Numerous acts of the most odious barbarity were committed. The well-known anecdotes of Flaminius ordering a slave to be killed to gratify, by the spectacle, the curiosity of a guest; of Vedius Pollio feeding his fish on the flesh of slaves; and of Augustus sentencing a slave who had killed and eaten a favorite quail, to crucifixion, are the extreme examples that are recorded; for we need [!] not regard as an historical fact the famous picture in Juvenal of a Roman lady in a moment of caprice, ordering her unoffending servant to be crucified. We have, however, many other very horrible glimpses of slave life at the close of the Republic andin the early days of the Empire. The marriage of slaves was entirely unrecognized by law, and, in their case, the words adultery, incest, or polygamy had no legal meaning.... When executed for a crime, their deaths were of a most hideous kind. The ergastula, or private prisons of the masters, were frequently their only sleeping places.... We read of slaves chained as porters to the doors, and cultivating the fields in chains. Ovid and Juvenal describe the fierce Roman ladies tearing their servants' faces, and thrusting the long pins of their brooches into their flesh. The master, at the close of the Republic, had full power to sell his slave as a gladiator or as a combatant with wild beasts."[224]

Lecky admonishes us that we should not judge the whole institution of Roman slavery by this one side of the picture. He calls attention to the respect in which learned Greek slaves were often held, as showing a better phase of the system; but it is quite possible that certain slaves or classes of slaves should be held in respect and that the rest of the slaves should be treated, nevertheless, with anything but respect or kindness. The great wonder to the modern mind is that the Romans felt at liberty to hold learned Greeks slaves at all. Lecky points out that slaves were emancipated in great numbers; but we must remember, first, that slaves were very plentiful, further, that freedmen and their descendants remained bound, by a sort of feudal tie, to their former masters until the third generation, and moreover that it was considered an honor to have many freedmen in one's following; so that the advantage of manumission was often, as Lecky himself says, on the side of the master. Slaves were sometimes emancipated to prevent their revealing crimes of their masters under torture, and many slaves were given their liberty especially in order that they might make a show in the funeral train. Augustus, indeed, found it necessary to restrict emancipation by will toone hundred slaves.[225]Seneca mentions that masters who ill-treated their slaves were the object of public odium; but then it may occur to us to inquire what the Romans considered ill-treatment; some of the laws which Lecky cites in evidence of the improvement of the slave's position in the third or last of the periods under which he considers this position may appear to his readers as much evidence against, as in favorof, kindness on the part of the masters. "The Petronian law," he says, "which was issued by Augustus, or more probably by Nero, forbade the master to condemn his slave to combat with wild beasts without a sentence from a judge." We may inquire as to how difficult it was to obtain such a sentence. "Under Claudius some citizens exposed their sick slaves on the island of Æsculapius in the Tiber to avoid the trouble of tending them, and the emperor decreed that if [!] the slave so exposed recovered from his sickness, he should become free, and also that masters who killed their slavesinstead of exposing themshould be punished as murderers.... Under Nero, a judge was appointed to hear their complaints, and was instructed to punish masters who treated them with barbarity, made them the instruments of lust, or withheld from them a sufficient quantity of the necessaries of life.... Domitian made a law, which was afterwards reiterated, forbidding the Oriental custom of mutilating slaves for sensual purposes, and the reforms were renewed with great energy in the period of the Antonines.[226]Hadrian and his two successors formally deprived masters of the right of killing their slaves; forbade them to sell slaves to the lanistæ or speculators in gladiators; destroyed the ergastula or private prisons; ordered that, when a master was murdered, those slaves only should be tortured who were within hearing; appointed officers through all the provinces to hear the complaints of slaves; enjoined that no master should treat slaves with excessive [?] severity; and commanded that, when such severity was proved, the master should be compelled to sell the slave he had ill-treated."[227]The humanity of the last law is open to dispute. Moreover, Lecky does not notice, here, that Constantine nevertheless felt it necessary to limit the punishment of slaves by prohibiting its administration with a cudgel, though not with the lash, and forbidding poison, mortal wounds, various kinds of torture, stoning, hanging, mutilation, or throwing from a height.[228]Buthe mentions two facts which indicate some degree of humanity in certain directions, and namely: that, though the law did not recognize the marriage of a slave, "it appears not to have been common to separate his family;" also, that the private property of slaves was recognized by their masters, though part or all of it usually reverted to the master on the death of the slave. The great mass of evidence goes to show, however, that what the Romans termed humanity to slaves would have been, in the eyes of modern "civilized" peoples, extreme barbarity.

Women, among the Romans, were, like their children, under the control of the head of the family—father or husband. "The father disposed absolutely of the hand of his daughter and sometimes even possessed the power of breaking off marriages that had been actually contracted. In the forms of marriage, however, which were usual in the earlier periods of Rome, the absolute power passed into the hands of the husband, and he had the right, in some cases, of putting her to death." "The power appears to have become quite obsolete during the Empire; but the first legal act (which was rather of the nature of an exhortation than of a command) against it was issued by Antoninus Pius, and it was only definitely abolished under Diocletian."[229]Roman women had, at first, no share by law in the heritage of their fathers; but public opinion revolted, in some cases, from the law, and gradually this was considerably altered. When marriage became, under the Empire, a mere matter of mutual consent, divorce a mere matter of repudiation, the daughter, though married, often remained in her father's house, having full control over her own property. Practically, if not always legally, the position of women among the Romans seems to have been considerably better than among the Greeks; Roman wives became, gradually, far more nearly the equals of their husbands than Greek wives ever were, and appear to have received a proportionately greater degree of love. Their position, however, falls far behind that of even German women at the present day, and certainly much behind that of every other civilized nation.

After recording the use of animals in the public games, there is little need of considering the subject of their treatment specially; there can be no doubt as to its probable nature; though certain famous Romans had their brute favorites.

It is sometimes argued that, though we are morally superior to the Greeks and Romans in some respects, we fall short of their standard in other respects. Doubtless new forms of evil may arise in later periods, which were impossible under old forms of government and the social relations of earlier peoples. Each period and nation will, according to its circumstances, have its own peculiar forms of vice and misery. But the question which we are considering is not whether or not we have some forms of evil which the ancients did not possess, but whether the particular forms which prevail among us are or are not worse than those which prevailed in Greece and Rome, and, in general, whether the average of sympathy and altruistic action in modern times and among the foremost peoples is greater than the average among the Greeks and Romans. And it must be recollected, moreover, in considering the question, that while the evil in our midst is brought very vividly before our eyes through the medium of our many methods of news-carrying and of wide personal observation,—through our railways, our telegraphs, our many newspapers and periodicals,—we have, in reality, when all is told, very scanty knowledge of the daily life of the common people, of the ordinary, every-day miseries and sufferings, among the Greeks and Romans. But there are some features of these facts that tell in favor of modern times; for the ancients were but little impressed by the miseries of the poorer classes; and just the spirit that notes and makes much of our modern inhumanity is evidence of a broader sympathy peculiar to our later times.

Of Europe as a whole in the centuries after Rome's decline and its loss of power, it is not necessary to say much, in order to prove the moral superiority of modern times. We are all acquainted with the fierce contests between Christianity and its opponents, with the mutual persecutions, the martyrdoms of Christians and the retaliation of Christians upon "heretics," with the license and bigotry of the clergy, the robbery and oppression of the poor and dependent by these as well as by the titled castle-owners, the burning of "witches," the general intellectual and moral darkness which spread and covered even the lands of former comparative civilization and was lifted only as Europe as a whole advanced to a higher stage.

But without entering into any extended discussion of thiscomplicated process of development as a whole, after the disturbance of the old equilibrium, it may not be undesirable to note the general course of events in some one country as typical, not in its special features, but in its general moral import, of the course of development in the other countries of Europe also.

The manner of the growth of state and social recompense for evil out of individual and tribal vengeance has already been touched upon. The enemy within, and the enemy without the tribe, the foe of the battle-field and the criminal were regarded, at many stages, with much the same feeling of animosity, the advantage being rather in favor of the criminal. To the Greek all those who were not Greeks were barbarians, against whom but little justice or mercy was necessary; and, as we have seen, the Romans condemned to the arena their war-captives equally with their criminals, together with slaves who were also, originally, war-captives. Crime is, in ruder societies, hardly distinguished from other forms of aggression that are, later, not included under this head. The definition of crime differs greatly in different periods of a people's history, changing as the conceptions of morality as duty to society as a whole emerge from the crude conceptions of individual and tribal constraint through revenge. It is for this reason that the history of criminal law and the administration of "justice" constitute, in reality, a history of moral evolution. There is nothing that is a clearer index of the moral status of a people than its treatment of those considered to be malefactors.

Cæsar and Tacitus both mention human sacrifices as taking place in England before the Roman conquest; but little is known certainly on the subject. The Romans, of course, introduced their own laws and customs, which existed side by side with many ancient ones not wholly abolished. The torture and burning of slaves for various offences was customary. These penalties were gradually mitigated. But the invasion of the Teutonic tribes seems to have introduced many new barbarities. In the first half of the tenth century, for instance, appears a law which condemned to the stake female slaves who had stolen from any but their masters, the wood to be piled about them by eighty other slaves of their own sex; this last office being designed, doubtless, to impress the lesson upon the minds of the eighty attendants. Later, many heretics were burned, and the writ forthe burning of heretics was not abolished until the reign of Charles II., though it was practically annulled by the laws of 1648. However, in 1649, a number of women were burned for witchcraft in Berwickshire, and burning continued to be practised, much later, in cases of heresy and witchcraft; still later in cases of high and petty treason, and up to the time of George III., for murder. In the thirtieth year of the latter's reign, a statute was passed substituting hanging for burning. In 1784, a woman was burnt at Portsmouth for the murder of her husband. During the last years, however, in which the sentence was carried out, it seems to have been customary for the executioner to wring the malefactor's neck before the burning. But comparatively trivial offences, among these false coining, were classed as treason, and it is noticeable also that the stake seems to have been a favorite punishment in the case of women-offenders, even in later days.[230]In the year 1530, two persons of the household of the Bishop of Rochester having died from poison thrown into some porridge by the cook, an "Act of Poisoning" was passed, according to which offenders coming under its definition were to be boiled to death. The statute was shortly afterwards repealed, but the bishop's cook was publicly executed in accordance with its provision.[231]

But simple burning or hanging was, for the most part, considered much too good for the man who had committed high treason; he was given the mere mockery of a trial, and, if convicted, was hanged, was taken down while yet alive, disembowelled, and his entrails burnt, was beheaded, and quartered. Law modifying this penalty first comes into prominence in the reign of William III.[232]When Richard I. sailed with his army for the Holy Land, it was ordained that whoever killed a man on board ship was to be tied to the corpse and thrown into the sea, whosoever killed a man on shore was to be burnt alive with the corpse, while simply drawing blood with a knife was to be punished with the loss of a hand, and a thief was to be shaved, treated to a head-bath of boiling pitch and feathers, and put ashore at the first place the vessel touched at.[233]

The payment of blood-money was a common custom among the Teutons, and so little distinction was made between greater and lesser crime that, while a murderer could commonly buy off the relatives of his victim, the petty thief often suffered death or mutilation for his offence. Pike says of these punishments in the early history of Britain: "It was for the free man of low estate, for the slave, and for women, that the greatest atrocities were reserved. Men branded on the forehead, without hands, without feet, without tongues, lived as an example of the danger which attended the commission of petty crimes, and as a warning to all who had the misfortune of holding no higher position than that of a churl. The horrors of the Danish invasions had no tendency to mitigate these severities; and those who were chastised with whips before were chastised with scorpions afterwards. New ingenuity was brought to bear upon the art of mutilation, which was practised in every form. The eyes were plucked out; the nose, the ears, and the upper lip were cut off; the scalp was torn away; and sometimes even, there is reason to believe, the whole body was flayed alive."[234]The law of the tenth century, according to which a female slave who had committed theft was burnt alive by eighty women-executioners, has already been mentioned; parallel to this law was the law that a male slave who was a thief was to be stoned to death by eighty slaves, any one of whom, who missed the mark three times, was to be whipped three times. "If a thief was a free woman, she was to be thrown down a precipice or drowned."[235]The law did not favor women.

The dividing line between mutilation and torture is a difficult one to draw. One of the earlier forms of "trial" was by ordeal. The accused, with his hand bound in cloth, was compelled to snatch a stone from elbow or wrist-depth in a caldron of boiling water, or to lift a weight of heated metal. If, at the end of three days, when the cloth which bound the arm was removed, no scald or burn was visible, the accused was pronounced innocent. These ordeals took place in the church with much sprinkling of holy water and other ceremony. The clergy themselves seem to have had less trying substitutes for these ordeals, often being compelled only to take oath on the sacrament, or to partake of consecrated bread or cheese which was supposed toproduce evil results in case of guilt. As Pike suggests, it is quite possible that, as priests had the preparing of this bread or cheese, it may sometimes have come up to expectations in this respect; as it is also possible that the cloths bound on the arm of the layman who was to undergo the ordeal of fire or water may have been differently arranged in different cases.[236]As late as the reign of King John, trial was made by ordeal, and mention is also made of it in the reign of Henry II. It was not formally abolished until the year 1219.[237]For remaining mute before accusers in court, the dire penalty of imprisonment with starvation was inflicted, in the reign of Edward I., and to this punishment was added, about the time of Henry IV., torture by the press.[238]In 1570, a man found guilty of forging warrants for the arrest of two persons was sentenced to the pillory for two days, on the first of which one ear, on the second the other, was to be nailed to the pillory in such a manner that he must "by his own proper motion" tear it away.[239]The rack is supposed to have been introduced into England in the reign of Henry VI., and in the reign of Henry VIII. was added "Skevington's Daughter," an instrument by which offenders were compressed rather than extended until "the miserable human being lost all form but that of a globe." Blood was forced from fingers, toes, nostrils, and mouth, and ribs and breast-bone were commonly broken in. The thumb-screw was also in use, and there was a "Dungeon among Rats," and a chamber in the Tower called "Little Ease," in which it was impossible either to stand upright or to lie at full length.[240]The press was not abolished until the reign of George III.[241]It is recorded of the case of Burnworth, tried for murder in 1726, that he bore pressure of nearly four hundred weight, for an hour and three-quarters, before begging for mercy and pleading Not Guilty. He was, however, found guilty and hanged.[242]In 1630, Alexander Leighton was punished for "framing, publishing, and dispensing a scandalous book against kings, peers, and prelates," in the following manner: he was whipped, put in the pillory, had one of his ears cut off and one side of his nose slit, was branded on one cheek with a red-hotiron, was afterwards returned to the Fleet to be kept in close custody, and seven days later was whipped again at the pillory, had the other ear cut off, his other nostril slit, and his other cheek branded.[243]As late as 1734, John Durant, who "either was, or pretended to be, deaf and unable to read," had his thumbs tied and the knot drawn hard because he did not answer the accusation of the court; he was also threatened with the press.[244]Excepting in cases where the press was used, torture was not, according to Pike, practised in England after the first part of the seventeenth century; but the case just cited is a contradiction of so broad an assertion.

The introductions of customs of penance did much towards rendering the differences in the punishment and general treatment of the poor and rich, the humble and noble, more conspicuous. As for the clergy, they had special benefits given them, and were accustomed, in the early days of Britain, to murder, rob, and indulge their passions very nearly as they chose, without interference from the state.[245]But the Benefit of Clergy, which rendered any one subject to it, "practically exempt from the ordinary punishments for most of the greater crimes," was applicable, in later centuries, not only to clergymen proper, but also to all clerks, the term including every one who had been married and could read.[246]The position of the slave after the Teutonic invasion has been noticed. The position of the churl was nearly as bad. "The infliction of a penalty which he could not pay, and which none would pay for him, rendered him utterly bankrupt in freedom.... If he left the place assigned to him it was held that he had stolen his own body. He could be summarily hanged when caught, and his life was worth nothing to his lord, or even to his kindred, unless they redeemed him. This was the fate which was continually impending over the free man of low estate if he had the misfortune to make enemies among those who had the power to save or condemn him."[247]In the reign of Edward I., "a statute was passed which made it a grave offence to devise or tell any false news of prelates, dukes, earls, barons, or nobles of the realm. Others, too, were enumerated as being within the meaning of the act—the Chancellor, theJustices of either Bench, and all the great officers of state." Under Richard II., the statute was reënacted and made more stringent.[248]

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