The lesser punishments, not capital, in use among the Hebrews, are chiefly four. 1. Imprisonment, 2. Restitution, 3. Talio, 4. Scourging.
Imprisonment. Under this are comprehended the Prison, Stocks, Pillory, Chains, Fetters, and the like: all which sorts of punishment, seeing they differ very little or nothing at all from those which are now in common use with us, they need no explication.
The keepers of the Prison, if they let any committed unto them escape, were liable to the same punishment which should have been inflicted on the party escaped. This is gatherable from that, 1 Kings 20. 39. Keep this man, if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life.
Concerning that Liberia Custodia, which Drusius[576] proveth to have been in use among the Romans, I much doubt whether any such custome were in use among the Hebrews. That some kind of prisoners at Rome did go abroad with a lesser kind of fetters in the day time to their work, and so return at night to their prison, hath elsewhere been observed by me. And[577] Eadem catena & custodiam & militem copulabat, The same chain tyed both the prisoner and the keeper. Observe the unusual significations of these two words, Custodia a prisoner, and Miles a keeper. So that Drusius delivered Seneca his meaning, but not his words, when he repeats them thus: Eadem catena tam reum quam militem tenet. Observe further, that the prisoner was tyed by his right arm, and the keeper by the left, because the right arm is the stronger, and therefore justly remaineth free rather to the keeper, than to the prisoners. Hence is that,[578] Tu forte leviorem in sinistra putas catenam; because the keeper tyed himself unto the same chain, not in way of punishment, but voluntarily for the safer keeping of the prisoner.
[576] Drus. præter. 2 Tim. 1. 18.
[577] Senec. Epist. 5. Non in lib. de tranquil. c. 10. quemadmodum citato à Drusio.
[578] Sen. de tranquil. cap. 10.
Restitution. This was commanded when goods were unjustly gotten, or wrongfully detained, Exod. 22. it was threefold.[579]
[579] Tho. Aquin. secunda secundæ q. 62.