[MARCIANUS libro secundo de publicis iudiciis. ] §48.19.11.prPerspiciendum est iudicanti, ne quid aut durius aut remissius constituatur, quam causa deposcit: nec enim aut seueritatis aut clementiae gloria affectanda est, sed perpenso iudicio, prout quaeque res expostulat, statuendum est.
[MARCIANUS, from the second book on Public Judgments.] The judge must see to it that nothing is determined more harshly or more leniently than the case demands; for the glory of either severity or clemency must not be sought after, but it must be decided with carefully weighed judgment, just as each matter requires.
plane in leuioribus causis proniores ad lenitatem iudices esse debent, in grauioribus poenis seueritatem legum cum aliquo temperamento benignitatis subsequi.
Obviously, in lighter cases, judges ought to be more inclined to leniency, and in more severe punishments, to follow the severity of the laws with some tempering of kindness.
§48.19.11.1Furta domestica si uiliora sunt, publice uindicanda non sunt, nec admittenda est huiusmodi accusatio, cum seruus a domino uel libertus a patrono, in cuius domo moratur, uel mercennarius ab eo, cui operas suas locauerat, offeratur quaestioni: nam domestica furta uocantur, quae serui dominis uel liberti patronis uel mercennarii apud quos degunt subripiunt.
Domestic thefts, if they are of lesser value, are not to be punished publicly, nor is an accusation of this kind to be admitted when a slave is offered for interrogation under torture by his master, or a freedman by his patron in whose house he resides, or a hireling by the one to whom he had leased his services; for those are called domestic thefts which slaves steal from their masters, or freedmen from their patrons, or hirelings from those with whom they live.
§48.19.11.2Delinquitur autem aut proposito aut impetu aut casu.
Offenses are committed either by design, by impulse, or by accident.
proposito delinquunt latrones, qui factionem habent: impetu autem, cum per ebrietatem ad manus aut ad ferrum uenitur: casu uero, cum in uenando telum in feram missum hominem interfecit.
By design, robbers who have a gang commit offenses; by impulse, however, when through drunkenness people come to blows or to weapons; by accident, indeed, when in hunting a weapon thrown at a wild beast killed a man.
§48.19.11.3Capitis poena est bestiis obici uel alias similes poenas pati uel animaduerti.
Capital punishment is to be thrown to wild beasts, or to suffer other similar punishments, or to be executed.