llat.]

[Footnote 163: In the conspiracy of Piso against Nero, Epicharis
(libertina mulier) was the only person tortured; the rest were intacti
tormentis. It would be superfluous to add a weaker, and it would be
difficult to find a stronger, example. Tacit. Annal. xv. 57.]

[Footnote 164: Dicendum... de Institutis Atheniensium, Rhodiorum,
doctissimorum hominum, apud quos etiam (id quod acerbissimum est)
liberi, civesque torquentur. Cicero, Partit. Orat. c. 34. We may learn
from the trial of Philotas the practice of the Macedonians. (Diodor.
Sicul. l. xvii. p. 604. Q. Curt. l. vi. c. 11.)]

[Footnote 165: Heineccius (Element. Jur. Civil. part vii. p. 81) has
collected these exemptions into one view.]

[Footnote 166: This definition of the sage Ulpian (Pandect. l. xlviii.
tit. iv.) seems to have been adapted to the court of Caracalla, rather
than to that of Alexander Severus. See the Codes of Theodosius and ad
leg. Juliam majestatis.]

[Footnote 167: Arcadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted to justify
the universal practice of torture in all cases of treason; but this
maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus with the most respectful
terror, is enforced by several laws of the successors of Constantine.
See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xxxv. majestatis crimine omnibus aequa est
conditio.]

These evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined to the
smaller number of Roman subjects, whose dangerous situation was in
some degree compensated by the enjoyment of those advantages, either of
nature or of fortune, which exposed them to the jealousy of the monarch.
The obscure millions of a great empire have much less to dread from
the cruelty than from the avarice of their masters, and their humble
happiness is principally affected by the grievance of excessive taxes,
which, gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated weight
on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious
philosopher [168] has calculated the universal measure of the public
impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and ventures to
assert, that, according to an invariable law of nature, it must always
increase with the former, and diminish in a just proportion to the
latter. But this reflection, which would tend to alleviate the miseries
of despotism, is contradicted at least by the history of the Roman
empire; which accuses the same princes of despoiling the senate of its
authority, and the provinces of