all the head artificers are judges. They punish with exile, with
flogging, with blame, with deprivation of the common table,
with exclusion from the church and from the company of
women. When there is a case in which great injury has been
done, it is punished with death, and they repay an eye with an
eye, a nose for a nose, a tooth for a tooth, and so on, according
to the law of retaliation. If the offence is wilful the Council
decides. When there is strife and it takes place undesignedly,
the sentence is mitigated; nevertheless, not by the judge but by
the triumvirate, from whom even it may be referred to Hoh, not
on account of justice but of mercy, for Hoh is able to pardon.
They have no prisons, except one tower for shutting up rebel-
lious enemies, and there is no written statement of a case, which
we commonly call a lawsuit. But the accusation and witnesses
are produced in the presence of the judge and Power; the ac-
cused person makes his defence, and he is immediately acquit-
ted or condemned by the judge; and if he appeals to the trium-
virate, on the following day he is acquitted or condemned. On
the third day he is dismissed through the mercy and clemency
of Hoh, or receives the inviolable rigor of his sentence. An
accused person is reconciled to his accuser and to his witnesses,
as it were, with the medicine of his complaint, that is, with em-
bracing and kissing.

No one is killed or stoned unless by the hands of the people,
the accuser and the witnesses beginning first. For they have
no executioners and lictors, lest the State should sink into ruin.
The choice of death is given to the rest of the people, who en-
close the lifeless remains in little bags and burn them by the
application of fire, while exhorters are present for the purpose