Note 867 — Chapter I · UNIVERSAL INVOCATION OF THE JUDGMENT OF GOD.

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.