18. Draco, the first lawgiver of Athens, introduced laws of such extraordinary severity that they were said to be written in blood. He visited the most inconsiderable of fences with death ; and even things inanimate did not escape his terrific enactments ; a statue, for example, having bruised a citizen by its fall, was banished the city. Institutions so ridiculous and disproportioned to offences, could not long be enforced ; and accordingly they enjoyed not the same immortality to which the enactments of other early legislators were destined, being quickly superseded by the milder and more equitable institutions of Solon.
This celebrated lawgiver had no difficulty in cancelling the institutions of Draco, which had necessarily beCome al together unpopular. The law against murder was almost the only part of this sanguinary code which was retained ; and every punishment was proportioned to the crime to which it was annexed. He made no law against parricide, because such a clime, he said, was so horrible, that he would not, even by the mention of it, have his countrymen suppose human nature capable of it. They who died in the service of the state were ordered to be buried with great pomp, and their families were maintained at the public ex pense; and such as refused to bear arms in defence of their country were declared infamous. The institutions regard ing marriage were improved; the childless were permitted to dispose of their estates as they pleased ; and the adul terer was thought a fit object for capital punishment. The associate of lewdness and debauchery was prohibited from speaking in public ; " for," said Solon, " a man who has no shame is not capable to be entrusted with the people." Tu speak ill of the dead, as well as of the living, was de clared a crime ; nor was the character of the worthy, even after their decease, thought undeserving of the protection of the laws. It was the great purpose of Solon to protect the poorer citizens against the power and influence of the rich ; and by dividing the whole body of the Athenians into separate classes, the last of which, consisting of in ordi nary citizens, being permitted to speak and vote n the as semblies, though not to participate in the offices and hon ours of their superiors, he conferred upon them a privi lege which, considerable even from the first, came at last (what he probably did not intend) to control all the affairs of government, and rendered the people masters of the re public. He reformed also the Areopagus, increased the authority of the members, enjoined them in particular to inquire yearly how every citizen maintained himself, and to punish such as, living in idleness, were not serviceable to the state by the exercise of some honourable or lucra tive employment. These celebrated laws were engraved
011 public tablets, and that the Athenians might the better retain them on their memory, they were written in verse.
17. Romulus and Nunia Pompilius appear to have been the fitst legislators among the Romans who deserve any notice. And yet so rude and uninstructed was that people for a long period after their authentic history commences, that it was not till about the year 300 of the city, that they appear to have had any written laws. About that time, the discontents of the plebeians having risen to a great height on account of the arbitrary proceedings of their superiors, they justly conceived that a written body of law, duly pro mulgated, would be the surest means of controlling their oppressors, and securing their own protection. Accord ingly after long and violent struggles they succeeded : de puties were sent to Athens and ether Grecian states, to col lect the laws of Solon and of other renowned legislators, upon whose return ten persons, called Decemviri, were chosen front the senate to select and arrange the most ap propriate of the institutions thus collected. The celebrat ed law of the Twelve Tables was the result, of which Cice ro, De Orat. i. 44. observes, omnibus omnium philosopho rum bibliothecis antefionendam. .Nothing now remains of this collection of laws but fragments scattered in different ancient authors, and chiefly in the writings of Cicero, but there is little doubt that it served, if not as the root, at least as the stem from which that immense variety of Roman laws afterwards sprung, which was destined to become the rule of civil conduct to so many subject nations, and ulti mately to mingle itself, mote or less, with the municipal code of every nation of modern Europe.
It were idle to select here any part of so great a body of institutions as more curious and important than another, of which the whole has been properly denominated, a written collection of human reason applicable to almost all the re lations of civil life. We shall only observe, that under several successive emperors abridged digests were made of it, and particularly under Justinian, whose collection, known by the title of the Corpus Juris Cioilis, (See art. CIVIL LA•.) is the latest, and by far the fullest and most valu able, that has come down to modern times.