However, if the accused are men who have been led into crime by insolence, ambition, avarice, or selfishness, the dooms ought to be severe, though justice and the law of the land must be observed in every instance. And in cases like those to which we have just referred the sentence should be as severe as the law permits; while in the cases mentioned earlier the law should be applied with due allowance for the difficulties that were at hand. If the distress that led to the trouble is considered great, the judgment should be tempered accordingly. But if a king or any ruler who is a judge and has power to punish, takes life as a punishment, he should always do it with great reluctance, in his heart lamenting the death and ill-fortune of the offender. He must take heed, however, lest he slay out of his own cruelty or in anger and hatred for the one who is to die. Let him slay him in just punishment and out of love for those who live after; because he believes that they will live in greater security and lead better lives after having seen the death and troubles of such a one; and because he intends that the fear and terror which the misfortunes of another have brought upon him shall guide those to rectitude and good morals, whom nature is unable to guide because of their excessive ambition or stupidity. A famous man, an upright and excellent emperor, once ordained respecting the decrees of kings, that if a king should become so angry with any one that he planned his death, and if his guilt were not so evident that he could with justice be condemned at once to an immediate death, that man should be kept in the king’s garth or in custody forty days before his case should be finally determined.[314] And it would be well if every king would observe this enactment, in order that he might frame his decisions with regard for reason and justice and not in sudden anger. If a man is convicted of an offence for which law and justice impose a fine but not death, the king, or the lord who governs the land, shall seize his wealth, not because he loves and covets the money, but because a just penalty and the laws of the land demand it. If all these things which we have now set forth are carefully observed, I believe that those who are appointed to be judges will suffer no great reproaches from God. Footnote 314: This is probably an allusion to the edict of Theodosius II “which interposes a salutary interval of thirty days between the sentence and the execution.” Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, III, 176; Mommsen and Meyer (editors), _Theodosiani Libri_ XVI, I, part 2, 503 (viii, 40:13). The edict was probably a part of the penance exacted from the Emperor after his massacre of the Thessalonians. See _Ambrosius Saga_ in _Heilagra Manna Sögur_, I, 40. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LX THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED