Legal penalties are praiseworthy because they correct disorder and evil inclinations, and prevent persons from indulging in them by restraining them against their will. These things, I say, are praiseworthy, when he who imposes them observes that clemency which is becoming to the law, and does not exceed it, nor show himself to be cruel under the pretext of administering punishment. For a father who chastises his son with moderation deserves to have his wisdom lauded at the same time as his severity, but no one will approve of the cruelty of a parent who, abandoning all paternal feeling, instead of correcting his son as a father ought to do, inflicts an atrocious castigation upon him. And, indeed, if the laws are the parents of the State, which is true, it is proper for them to prescribe penalties in proportion to crimes, and by no means to inflict punishment of extreme severity, which is much greater than the nature of the offence deserves. For where anyone who is not convicted of having caused death is punished capitally, can this be considered a proper remedy, and one adapted to the purpose? Physicians do not order a sound limb to be amputated, and as the law has much more consideration for Our misfortunes than physicians have (for the benefits of medicine are only intended for the body, but those of the law are prescribed for the mind as well as the body), shall it display such harshness towards those whom it desires to cure ? Having these things in view, We have decreed that the law imposing the death penalty upon a magistrate convicted of having despoiled the Treasury, as well as against his accomplices, shall no longer be included in the number of Our laws, and shall not even be cited, but must be banished from the Empire as being superfluous, and foreign to human reason and the spirit of judicious legislation. Hereafter, when magistrates are convicted of having robbed the Treasury, they shall be deprived of office, and pay double the amount which they have appropriated. So far as their accomplices are concerned, if they are wealthy, they shall undergo the same penalty, and if they are poor, they shall be scourged ignominiously, shaved, and sent into exile.