[118] Justin has a similar thought concerning the Scythians: "Justice is cultivated by the dispositions of the people, not by the laws." (ii. 2.) How inefficacious the good laws here alluded to by Tacitus were in preventing enormities among the Romans, appears from the frequent complaints of the senators, and particularly of Minucius Felix; "I behold you, exposing your babes to the wild beasts and birds, or strangling the unhappy wretches with your own hands. Some of you, by means of drugs, extinguish the newly-formed man within your bowels, and thus commit parricide on your offspring before you bring them into the world." (Octavius, c. 30.) So familiar was this practice grown at Rome, that the virtuous Pliny apologises for it, alleging that "the great fertility of some women may require such a licence."--xxix. 4, 37. [119] _Nudi ac sordidi_ does not mean "in nakedness and filth," as most translators have supposed. Personal filth is inconsistent with the daily practice of bathing mentioned c. 22; and _nudus_ does not necessarily imply absolute nakedness (see note 4, p. 293). [120] This age appears at first to have been twelve years; for then a youth became liable to the penalties of law. Thus in the Salic law it is said, "If a child under twelve commit a fault, 'fred,' or a mulct, shall not be required of him." Afterwards the term was fifteen years of age. Thus in the Ripuary law, "A child under fifteen shall not be responsible." Again, "If a man die, or be killed, and leave a son; before he have completed his fifteenth year, he shall neither prosecute a cause, nor be called upon to answer in a suit: but at this term, he must either answer himself, or choose an advocate. In like manner with regard to the female sex." The Burgundian law provides to the same effect. This then was the term of majority, which in later times, when heavier armor was used, was still longer delayed. [121] This is illustrated by a passage in Caesar (Bell. Gall. vi. 21): "They who are the latest in proving their virility are most commended. By this delay they imagine the stature is increased, the strength improved, and the nerves fortified. To have knowledge of the other sex before twenty years of age, is accounted in the highest degree scandalous." [122] Equal not only in age and constitution, but in condition. Many of the German codes of law annex penalties to those of both sexes who marry persons of inferior rank. [123] Hence, in the history of the Merovingian kings of France, so many instances of regard to sisters and their children appear, and so many wars undertaken on their account. [124] The court paid at Rome to rich persons without children, by the Haeredipetae, or legacy-hunters, is a frequent subject of censure and ridicule with the Roman writers.