of advising concerning a good death. Nevertheless, the whole
nation laments and beseeches God that his anger may be ap-
peased, being in grief that it should, as it were, have to cut off
a rotten member of the State. Certain officers talk to and con-
vince the accused man by means of arguments until he him-
self acquiesces in the sentence of death passed upon him, or else
he does not die. But if a crime has been committed against
the liberty of the republic, or against God, or against the su-
preme magistrates, there is immediate censure without pity.
These only are punished with death. He who is about to
die is compelled to state in the presence of the people and with
religious scrupulousness the reasons for which he does not de-
serve death, and also the sins of the others who ought to die
instead of him, and further the mistakes of the magistrates.
If, moreover, it should seem right to the person thus asserting,
he must say why the accused ones are deserving of less punish-
ment than he. And if by his arguments he gains the victory he
is sent into exile, and appeases the State by means of prayers
and sacrifices and good life ensuing. They do not torture those
named by the accused person, but they warn them. Sins of
frailty and ignorance are punished only with blaming, and with
compulsory continuation as learners under the law and disci-
pline of those sciences or arts against which they have sinned.
And all these things they have mutually among themselves,
since they seem to be in very truth members of the same body,
and one of another.

This further I would have you know, that if a transgressor,
without waiting to be accused, goes of his own accord before
a magistrate, accusing himself and seeking to make amends,