Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
82.
_What is the reason that before the Prætors, generall Captaines and head Magisrates, there be caried bundels of roddes, together with hatchets or axes fastned unto them?_ IS it to signifie, that the anger of the magistrate ought not to be prompt to execution, nor loose and at libertie? Or, because that to undoe and unbinde the said bundels, yeeldeth some time and space for choler to coole, and ire to asswage, which is the cause otherwhiles that they change their mindes, and doe not proceed to punishment? Now forasmuch as among the faults that men commit, some are curable, others remedilesse: the roddes are to reforme those who may be amended; but the hatchets to cut them off who are incorrigible.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.