XXXIII. (181) And any one may here fitly blame those who appoint that punishments, in nowise corresponding to the offences, are to be inflicted on the offenders, imposing pecuniary penalties for assaults, or stigma and infamy for wounds and mutilations, or a banishment beyond the borders of the land for intentional murders, and everlasting exile or imprisonment for thefts; for irregularity and inequality are enemies to a constitution which is eager for the truth. (182) And our law, being the interpreter and teacher of equality, commands that offenders should undergo a punishment similar to the offence which they have committed; that, for instance, they should suffer punishment in their property if they have injured their neighbour in his property; in their persons, if they have injured him in his body, or in his limbs, or the organs of his outward senses; and, if their evil designs have extended to his life, then the law commands that the punishment should affect the life of the malefactor. For to exact a different and wholly unequal punishment which has no connection with or resemblance to the offence, but which is wholly at variance with it in all its characteristics, is the conduct of those who violate the laws rather than of those who would establish them. (183) And when we say this, we mean provided no circumstances occur to give a different complexion to the affair; for it is not the same thing to inflict blows on one’s father and on a stranger, nor to speak ill of a ruler and of a private person, nor to do anything which is forbidden on common ground or in holy places, or at the time of a festival, or of a solemn assembly, or of a public sacrifice; or, again, on the days on which there is no holiday or sacred observance, or on those which are completely common and profane. And all other things of this kind one must examine with a view to judge of the propriety of increasing or diminishing the punishment. (184) Again. “If,” says the law, “any one strike out the eye of a servant or of a handmaiden, he shall let them depart Free.”{18}{#ex 21:26.} Because, as nature has assigned the chief position in the body to the head, having bestowed upon it a situation the most suitable to that pre-eminence, as it might give a citadel to a king (for having sent it forth to govern the body it has established it on a height, putting the whole composition of the body from the neck to the feet under it, as a pedestal might be placed under a statue), so also it has given the preeminence among the organs of the external senses to the eyes. At all events, it has assigned them a position above all the others, as if they were the chiefs, wishing to honour them not only by other things, but also by this most evident and conspicuous of all signs.
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