There were some general limitations imposed on the application of torture, but they were hardly such as to prevent its abuse at the hands of cruel or unscrupulous judges. Antoninus Pius set an example, which modern jurists might well have imitated, when he directed that no one should be tortured after confession to implicate others;[1437] and a rescript of the same enlightened emperor fixes at fourteen the minimum limit of age liable to torture, except in cases of _majestas_, when, as we have seen, the law spared no one, for in the imperial jurisprudence the safety of the monarch overrode all other considerations.[1438] Women were spared during pregnancy.[1439] Moderation was enjoined upon the judges, who were to inflict only such torture as the occasion rendered necessary, and were not to proceed further at the will of the accuser.[1440] No one was to be tortured without the inscription of a formal accuser, who rendered himself liable to the _lex talionis_, unless there were violent suspicions to justify it;[1441] and Adrian reminded his magistrates that it should be used for the investigation of truth, and not for the infliction of punishment.[1442] Adrian further directed, in the same spirit, that the torture of slave witnesses should only be resorted to when the accused was so nearly convicted that it alone was required to confirm his guilt.[1443] Diocletian ordered that proceedings should never be commenced with torture, but that it might be employed when requisite to complete the proof, if other evidence afforded rational belief in the guilt of the accused.[1444]