In the old monarchies of America and Asia there was an obvious connection between the punishments prescribed by their laws and the religious-autocratic form of their governments. According to Garcilasso de la Vega, the Peruvians--among whom the most common punishment was death--maintained "that a culprit was not punished for the delinquencies he had committed, but for having broken the commandment of the Ynca, who was respected as God," and that, viewed in this light, the slightest offence merited to be punished with death.[192] In China the Emperor was regarded as the vicegerent of Heaven especially chosen to govern all nations, and was supreme in everything, holding at once the highest legislative and executive powers, without limit or control.[193] According {196} to ancient Japanese ideas, "the duty of a good Japanese consists in obeying the Mikado, without questioning whether his commands are right or wrong. The Mikado is god and vicar of all the gods, hence government and religion are the same."[194] In Rome the criminal law, which for a long time was characterised by great moderation,[195] gradually grew more severe according as absolutism made progress. Sylla, the dictator, not only put thousands of citizens to death by proscription without any form of trial, but fixed, in the Cornelian criminal code, for heinous offences the punishment called _aquæ et ignis interdictio_. Under the Emperors some new and cruel capital punishments were introduced, such as burning alive and exposing to wild beasts; whilst at the same time offences such as driving away horses or cattle were made capital.[196] In mediæval and modern Europe the increase of the royal power was accompanied by increasing severity of the penal codes. Every crime came to be regarded as a crime against the King. Indeed, breach of the King's peace became the foundation of the whole Criminal Law of England; the right of pardon, for instance, as a prerogative of the Crown, took its origin in the fact that the King was supposed to be injured by a crime, and could therefore waive his remedy.[197] And the King was not only regarded as the fountain of social justice, but as the earthly representative of the heavenly lawgiver and judge.[198] [Footnote 192: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 145.] [Footnote 193: Wells Williams, _op. cit._ i. 393.] [Footnote 194: Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 92. _Cf._ _Idem_, _Mikado's Empire_, p. 100.] [Footnote 195: _Cf._ Livy, x. 9; Polybius, vi. 14; Gibbon, _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, v. 318, 326.] [Footnote 196: Mackenzie, _Studies in Roman Law_, pp. 408, 409, 414. Gibbon, _op. cit._ v. 320. _Cf._ Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_, p. 943.] [Footnote 197: Cherry, _Growth of Criminal Law in Ancient Communities_, pp. 68, 105.]