Export a Citation 
Print View
hide main text 
show main text 
hide table of contents
show table of contents
previous
CHAP. IX.: The same Subject continued.
PAULINUS having written to the emperor Alexander, that “he was preparing to prosecute, for high-treason, a judge who had decided contrary to his edict,” the emperor answered, “that under his reign there was no such thing as indirect high-treason†411.”
Faustinian wrote to the same emperor, that, as he had sworn by the prince’s life never to pardon his slave, he found himself thereby obliged to perpetuate his wrath, lest he should incur the guilt of læsa majestas; upon which the emperor made answer, “Your fears are groundless†412, and you are a stranger to my principles.”
It was determined, by a senatus-consultum†413, that whosoever melted down any of the emperor’s statues, which happened to be rejected, should not be deemed guilty of high-treason. The emperors, Severus and Antoninus, wrote to Pontius†414, that those who sold unconsecrated statues of the emperor should not be charged with high-treason. The same princes wrote to Julius Cassianus, that, if a person, in flinging a stone, should by chance strike one of the emperor’s statues, he should not be liable to a prosecution for high-treason†415. The Julian law requires this sort of limitations; for, in virtue
of this law, the crime of high-treason was charged, not only upon those who melted down the emperor’s statues, but likewise on those who committed any such like action†416, which made it an arbitrary crime. When a number of crimes of læsa majestas had been established, they were obliged to distinguish the several sorts. Hence Ulpian, the civilian, after saying that the accusation of læsa majestas did not die with the criminal, adds, that this does not relate to†417 all the treasonable acts established by the Julian law, but only to that which implies an attempt against the empire or against the emperor’s life.