XXXII. He corrected many ill practices, which, to the detriment of the
public, had either survived the licentious habits of the late civil wars,
or else originated in the long peace. Bands of robbers showed themselves
openly, completely armed, under colour of self-defence; and in different
parts of the country, travellers, freemen and slaves without distinction,
were forcibly carried off, and kept to work in the houses of correction
[168]. Several associations were formed under the specious (97) name of
a new college, which banded together for the perpetration of all kinds of
villany. The banditti he quelled by establishing posts of soldiers in
suitable stations for the purpose; the houses of correction were
subjected to a strict superintendence; all associations, those only
excepted which were of ancient standing, and recognised by the laws, were
dissolved. He burnt all the notes of those who had been a long time in
arrear with the treasury, as being the principal source of vexatious
suits and prosecutions. Places in the city claimed by the public, where
the right was doubtful, he adjudged to the actual possessors. He struck
out of the list of criminals the names of those over whom prosecutions
had been long impending, where nothing further was intended by the
informers than to gratify their own malice, by seeing their enemies
humiliated; laying it down as a rule, that if any one chose to renew a
prosecution, he should incur the risk of the punishment which he sought
to inflict. And that crimes might not escape punishment, nor business be
neglected by delay, he ordered the courts to sit during the thirty days
which were spent in celebrating honorary games. To the three classes of
judges then existing, he added a fourth, consisting of persons of
inferior order, who were called Ducenarii, and decided all litigations
about trifling sums. He chose judges from the age of thirty years and
upwards; that is five years younger than had been usual before. And a
great many declining the office, he was with much difficulty prevailed