In order that all doubt may be removed concerning the value of slaves in dispute, no statement of artificial or fraudulent value of the same shall be accepted; but information of their age and usefulness shall be obtained by personal examination of the slaves themselves; and if he who was disabled was skilled in any trade, and he who injured him when he was innocent possesses no slave proficient in the same trade, he shall be forced to give to the master a slave skilled in some other trade; but if he should not have such a skilled artisan, and he whose slave was injured by the torture should not be willing to accept another in his stead, then the accuser shall pay to the master the value of the slave that was injured, according to a reasonable estimate made by the judge, or by men of respectability and established character. It must, however, be observed, that no one shall presume to subject any freeborn person or slave to torture, unless he shall make oath in the presence of a judge, or his representative, the master of the slave or his agent being also present, that through no artifice, fraud, or malice, he is inflicting torture upon an innocent person. And if, after having been put to the question he should die, and his accuser should not have the means to make the reparation required by law, he himself shall be reduced to slavery, for the reason that he was the cause of the death of an innocent man. And if anyone, through treachery, should attempt to subject the slave of another to torture, and the master of said slave should prove that he was innocent of crime, the accuser shall be compelled to give to the master of the accused slave another of equal value, and to reimburse said master for any reasonable expense that he has incurred in defence of his slave, until, in the opinion of the judge, full satisfaction has been rendered by the unjust accuser to the master of the innocent slave. In case a slave is found guilty of a minor offence, the master, if he chooses to do so, shall have a right to compound the same; but every thief shall be scourged according to the degree of his guilt. Where a master is not willing to give satisfaction for graver offences, he must immediately surrender the slave to justice. Any freeborn person who desires to subject a respectable freedman to the torture, in the case of a capital crime, or of offences of less gravity, shall not be permitted to do so, unless the value of the property involved in the accusation amounts to at least two hundred and fifty _solidi_. But if said freeborn person should be of inferior rank, and a boar, he may be tortured, if the value of the property amounts to a hundred _solidi_.