Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/128

 122 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. Livy relates that the senate, wishing to extirpate the worship of Bacchus from Rome, decreed the pun- ishment of death against all who had taken part in it. The decree was easily executed upon the citizens, but when it came to the women, who were not the least guilty, a grave difficulty presented itself; the Avomen were not answerable to the state; the family alone had the right to judge them. The senate respected this old principle, and left to the fathers and husbands the duty of pronouncing the sentence of death against the women. This judicial authority, which the chief of the family exercised in his house, was complete and without aj^tpeal. He could condemn to death like the magistrate in the city, and no authority could modify his sentence. " The husband," says Cato the Elder, "is the judge of his wife; his power has no limit; he can do what he wishes. If she has committed a fault, he ])unishes her; if she has drank wine, he condemns her; if she has been guilty of adultery, he kills her." The right was the same in regard to children. Valerius Maximus cites a certain Atilius who killed his daughter as guilty of unchastity, and everybody will recall the father who put his son, an accomplice of Catiline, to death. Facts of this nature are numerous in Roman history. It would be a false idea to suppose that the father had an absolute right to kill his wife and children. He was their judge. If ho put them to death, it was only by virtue of his right as judge. As the father of the family was alone subject to the judgment of the city, the wife and the son could have no other judge than him. Within his family he was the only magistrate. We must also remark that the paternal authority was not an arbitrary power, like that which would be