(M274) Death by drowning was inflicted on a beer-seller for selling beer
too cheaply; on a woman for adultery, for being a bad wife, for incest, or
for desertion of her husband’s house. In every case the victim was a
woman. When men were drowned they shared a woman’s fate. In two cases,
adultery and incest, we read of the criminals being bound. In the latter,
§ 155, it seems that the man was “bound” and the woman drowned. In the
former, § 129, both were “bound” and both drowned. It is hardly likely
that “bound” can mean merely tied up, or imprisoned, in the case of the
man who committed incest. I would suggest that in both cases it means
“strangled.” The alternative would be that the confusion in § 155 is due
to the scribe.
(M275) Death by fire is directly ordered for a votary who opens or enters
a beer-shop, for a man and his mother in incest, and indirectly for a
thief at a fire.
(M276) Impalement on a stake is ordered for a wife procuring her husband’s
death.
(M277) Indirectly the death-penalty would often be the consequence of an
appeal to the ordeal by water, in §§ 2, 132.
(M278) The various sorts of mutilation named are of two types: (1)
retaliation for bodily disfigurement, (2) symbolical of the offence
itself. Thus eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb, are pure
retaliations. But the hands cut off mark the sin of the hands in striking
a father, in unlawful surgery, or in branding. The eye torn out was the
punishing of unlawful curiosity. The ear cut off marked the sin of the
organ of hearing and obedience. The tongue was cut out for the ingratitude
evidenced in speech.
(M279) Scourging is the only other form of corporal punishment. It was
done with an ox-hide scourge, or thong, and sixty strokes were ordered to
be publicly inflicted for a gross assault on a superior.
(M280) Banishment from the city was the penalty for incest.(156)
(M281) Restitution may, perhaps, hardly be regarded as a penalty. Thus a
man who was found in possession of lost property had to restore it. In
case of loss caused by neglect or ill-treatment of hired property, or of
goods deposited or intrusted, or by want of care in treating diseased
limbs, restitution, goods for goods, ox for ox, ass for ass, _et cetera_,
was ordered.(157)
(M282) But restitution of many times the damage inflicted is a distinct
penalty. The Code orders threefold for cheating a principal,(158) fivefold
for loss or theft of goods by carrier,(159) sixfold for defrauding an
agent,(160) tenfold for theft by a poor man, or for careless loss by
shepherd or herdsman,(161) twelvefold for a false sentence by a
judge,(162) thirtyfold for theft on the part of a gentleman.
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