So the Vasishtha Dharmasastra is equally ignorant of ordeals and even more immoral in its teaching—“Men may speak an untruth when their lives are in danger or the loss of their whole property is imminent”—Vasishtha XVI. 10, 35 (Bühler’s Translation).
[860] See Halhed’s Gentoo Code, chap. iii. §§ 5, 6, 9, 10; chap. xviii. (E. I. Company, London, 1776).—Ayeen Akbery, or Institutes of Akbar (Gladwin’s Translation, London, 1800), vol. II. pp. 496, sqq. Also a paper by Ali Ibrahim Khan, chief magistrate of Benares, communicated by Warren Hastings to the Asiatic Society in 1784 (Asiatic Researches, I. 389).
[861] Duclos, Mém. sur les Épreuves.
[862] Smith’s Dict. of Antiq. s. v. Marlyria.
[863] Pausan. VII. xxv. 8.
[864] Festus s. v. Lapidem.—Liv. I. 24; XXI. 45.—Polyb. III. xxv. 6-9.—Aul. Gell. I. 21.
[865] Liv. XXII. 53. Cf. Fest. s. v. Præjurationes. See an example of a similar oath taken by a whole army, Liv. ii. 45.
[866] Val. Maxim. I. i. 7; VIII. i. 5.—Ovid. Fastor. IV. 305 sqq.
[867] A scholiast on Horace, dating probably from the fifth century of our era, describes an ordeal equivalent to the judicium offæ. When slaves, he says, were suspected of theft they were taken before a priest who administered to each a piece of bread over which certain conjurations had been uttered and he who was unable to swallow it was adjudged guilty (Patetta, I.e Ordalie, p. 140). Not only the date of this deprives it of value as evidence of Roman custom, but also the fact that Romans might well employ such means of influencing the imagination of Barbarian or ignorant slaves.
[868] Senchus Mor. I. 25, 195. Comp. Gloss, p. 199.