ters
are present for the purpose of advising concerning a good death.
Nevertheless, the whole nation laments and beseeches God that his anger
may be appeased, being in grief that it should, as it were, have to cut
off a rotten member of the State. Certain officers talk to and convince
the accused man by means of arguments until he himself acquiesces in
the sentence of death passed upon him, or else he does not die. But if a
crime has been committed against the liberty of the republic, or against
God, or against the supreme magistrates, there is immediate censure
without pity. These only are punished with death. He who is about to die
is compelled to state in the presence of the people and with religious
scrupulousness the reasons for which he does not deserve death, and also
the sins of the others who ought to die instead of him, and further the
mistakes of the magistrates. If, moreover, it should seem right to the
person thus asserting, he must say why the accused ones are deserving of
less punishment than he. And if by his arguments he gains the victory
he is sent into exile, and appeases the State by means of prayers and
sacrifices and good life ensuing. They do not torture those named by the
accused person, but they warn them. Sins of frailty and ignorance are
punished only with blaming, and with compulsory continuation as learners
under the law and discipline of those sciences or arts against which
they have sinned. And all these things they have mutually among
themselves, since they seem to be in very truth members of the same
body, and one of another.

This further I would have you know, that if a transgressor, without
waiting to be accused, goes of his own accord before a magistrate,
accusing himself and seeking to make amends, that one is liberated from
the punishment of a secret crime, and since he has not been accused of
such a crime, his punishment is changed into another. They take special
care that no one should invent slander, and if this should happen they
meet the offence with the punishment of retaliation. Since they always
walk about and work in crowds, five witnesses are required for the
conviction of a transgressor. If the case is otherwise, after having
threatened him, he is released after he has sworn an oath as the
warrant of good conduct. Or if he is accused a second or third time, his
increased punishment rests on the testimony of three or two witnesses.
They have but few laws, and these short