Candidates for office wore a white robe, rendered shining by the art of the fuller. They did not wear tunics, or waist-coats, either that they might appear more humble, or might more easily show the scars they had received on the breast.
For a long time before the election, they endeavored to gain the favor of the people, by every popular art, by going to their houses, by shaking hands with those they met, by addressing them in a kindly manner, and calling them by name, on which occasion they commonly had with them a monitor, who whispered in their ears every body's name.
Criminal law was in many instances more severe than it is at the present day. Thus adultery, which now only subjects the offender to a civil suit, was by the Romans, as well as the ancient Jews, punished corporally.
Forgery was not punished with death, unless the culprit was a slave; but freemen guilty of that crime were subject to banishment, which deprived them of their property and privileges; and false testimony, coining, and those offences which we term misdemeanors, exposed them to an interdiction from fire and water, or in fact an excommunication from society, which necessarily drove them into banishment.
The punishments inflicted among the Romans, were—fine, (damnum,) bonds, (vincula,) stripes, (verbera,) retaliation, (talio,) infamy, (ignominia,) banishment, (exilium,) slavery, (servitus,) and death.
The methods of inflicting death were various; the chief were—beheading (percussio securi), strangling in prison (strangulatio), throwing a criminal from that part of the prison called Robur (precipitatio de robore), throwing a criminal from the Tarpeian rock (dejectio e rupe Tarpeia), crucifixion (in crucem actio), and throwing into the river (projectio in profluentem).
The last-mentioned punishment was inflicted upon parricides, or the murderers of any relation. So soon as any one was convicted of such crimes, he was immediately blindfolded as unworthy of the light, and in the next place whipped with rods. He was then sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the sea. In after times, to add to the punishment, a serpent was put in the sack; and still later, an ape, a dog, and a cock. The sack which held the malefactor was called Culeus, on which account the punishment itself is often signified by the same name.
In the time of Nero, the punishment for treason was, to be stripped stark naked, and with the head held up by a fork to be whipped to death.