In the Jurisprudence of the Romans the deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal _quæstion_, as it is emphatically styled, was admitted, rather than approved. The Roman government applied this sanguinary mode of examination only to servile bodies, whose sufferings were seldom weighed by those haughty Republicans in the scale of justice or humanity; but they would never consent to violate the sacred person of a citizen, till they possessed the clearest evidence of his guilt.[29] The annals of tyranny, from the reign of Tiberius to that of Domitian, circumstantially relate the executions of many innocent victims; but as long as the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the national freedom and honour, the last hours of a Roman were secure from the danger of ignominious torture. The conduct of the provincial magistrates was not, however, regulated by the practice of the city, or the strict maxims of the Civilians. They found the use of torture established not only among the slaves of oriental despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and adorned the dignity of human nature.[30] The acquiescence of the people in the provinces encouraged their governors to acquire or perhaps to usurp, a discretionary power of employing the Rack, to extort from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinctions of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The apprehensions of the subjects urged them to solicit, and the interest of the Sovereign engaged him to grant, a variety of special exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even authorized, the general use of torture. They protected all persons of illustrious or honourable rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families, municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation, and all children under the age of puberty. But a fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the Empire, that in the case of treason, which included every offence that the subtlety of lawyers could derive from an _hostile intention_ towards the prince or republic, all privileges were suspended and all conditions were reduced to the same ignominious level. As the safety of the Emperor was avowedly preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the dignity of age, and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of a malicious information, which might select them as the accomplices, or even as the witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.[31] Footnote 17: _Vide_ Serjeant Heywood’s Vindication of Mr. Fox’s History of James the Second, p. 397. Footnote 18: Fuller’s Worthies, p. 317. Footnote 19: