If men were always willing to tread the path of equity, there would be much greater happiness and prosperity everywhere, as there would be no need for legislators to manifest such severity, and the avenging laws would not expose anyone to difficulty and danger. For although the path of equity is convenient and salutary, most persons are not willing to follow it, but avoid it as being laborious and rough, and offering great hardships to travellers. For there are those, who, I say, delight in everything that is most wicked, who avoid the way of justice, and with alacrity and eagerness betake themselves to that of iniquity, although it is covered with thorns, and by it travellers are conducted to perdition. The ancient legislators, also, thinking that it was necessary for the rashness of such persons to be restrained, attempted to prohibit it by law, as by the use of a bridle. But what means did they employ to repress iniquity, and, on the other hand, inculcate the practice of justice; and who, I ask, will not approve what We have undertaken? We, however, refuse to confirm a decree by which punishment is inflicted upon delinquents, without taking into consideration the seriousness of the offence. For a law is just when the penalty which it imposes is in proportion to the crime which it is intended to chastise; but when too much severity is used it is much more unjust than equitable. Wherefore, We refuse to sanction the law which the ancients promulgated, and by which they impose an excessive penalty, that is death, upon those who are appointed to collect the public taxes (who were ordinarily designated "managers"), when they attempted to collect more than they had a right to do; for We think that, by all means, they should not be subjected to such severe punishment; hence We decree that anyone who is convicted of this crime, provided he has only perpetrated it once, shall pay double the amount of the surplus which he exacted; and if he does this again, he shall reimburse fourfold the person who suffered the injury, and be ignominiously deprived of his office. This penalty shall hereafter be inflicted for this offence, and a fraudulent act of this kind shall never subject the person who commits it to the risk of losing his life.