And the more ancient Greeks provided a certain correction for the vicious taste of the people, by making a law that it should be expressly defined by a censorship what subjects comedy should treat, and how she should treat them.
Whom has it not attacked?
or, rather, whom has it not wounded?
and whom has it spared?
In this, no doubt, it sometimes took the right side, and lashed the popular demagogues and seditious agitators, such as Cleon, Cleophon, and Hyperbolus.

We may tolerate that; though indeed the censure of the magistrate would, in these cases, have been more efficacious than the satire of the poet.

But when Pericles, who governed the Athenian Commonwealth for so many years with the highest authority, both in peace and war, was outraged by verses, and these were acted on the stage, it was hardly more decent than if, among us, Plautus and Naevius had attacked Publius and Cnaeus, or Caecilius had ventured to revile Marcus Cato.
Our laws of the Twelve Tables, on the contrary--so careful to attach capital punishment to a very few crimes only--have included in this class of capital offences the offence of composing or publicly reciting verses of libel, slander, and defamation, in order to cast dishonor and infamy on a fellow-citizen.

And they have decided wisely; for our life and character should, if suspected, be submitted to the sentence of judicial tribunals and the legal investigations of our magistrates, and not to the whims and fancies of poets.

Nor should we be exposed to any charge of disgrace which we cannot meet by legal process, and openly refute at the bar.
In our laws, I admire the justice of their expressions, as well as their decisions.