ws tore down the Roman eagle from the gate of
the temple. Herod caused forty-two of them to be burned.[511] Caligula
caused an atellan composer to be burned in the arena for a sarcasm on
the emperor.[512] Constantine ordered that if a free woman had
intercourse with a slave man, the man should be burned.[513] In all the
ancient and classical period, burning was reserved as a most painful
form of death for the most abominable criminals and the most extravagant
and rare crimes. By another law of Constantine it was ordered that if
Jews and heaven worshipers should stone those who were converted from
their sects to the Catholic faith, they should be burned.[514] In the
Theodosian Code, also, any slave who accused his master of any crime
except high treason was to be burned alive without investigation.[515]
Thus burning became the penalty for criminals of a despised class or
race.

+235. Burning in North American colonies.+ In the colonial laws of
Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia it was
provided that negroes should be executed by burning. Here we have a
recrudescence of the idea that great penalties are deterrent. Modern
penologists do not believe that that is true. It is, however, the belief
of the masses, which they have recently shown in methods of lynching. It
might have been believed ten years ago that it would be impossible to
get a crowd of Americans to burn a man at the stake, but there have
been many cases of it.[516]

+236. Solidarity of group in penalty incurred by one.+ In primitive
society any one who departed from the ways of ancestors was supposed to
offend their ghosts; furthermore, he was supposed to bring down their
avenging wrath on the whole group of which he was a member. This idea
has prevailed until modern times. It aroused the sentiment of vengeance
against the dissenter, and united all the rest in a common interest
against him. Especially, if any misfortune befell the group, they turned
against any one who had broken the taboos. Thus goblinism was united to
the other reasons for disliking dissenters and gave it definite
direction and motive. At Rome, "in the days of the republic, every
famine, pestilence, or drought was followed by a searching investigation
of the sacred rites, to ascertain what irregularity or neglect had
caused the divine anger, and two instances are recorded in which vestal
virgins were put to death because their unchastity was believed to have
p