1Within our memory, the people stabbed Tricho, a Roman knight, with writing-styluses in the forum, because he had flogged his son to death; 1the authority of Augustus Caesar barely rescued him from the hostile hands of fathers and sons alike. 2Tarius, who after hearing the case condemned his son, caught in a plot against his father's life, was admired by everyone, because, content with exile, and a comfortable exile at Marseilles, he kept the parricide there and provided him with as large a yearly allowance as he used to give him while he was innocent; 2this generosity brought it about that, in a city where the worse side never lacks an advocate, no one doubted that the accused had been justly condemned, since he had been condemned by a father who could not hate him.
3From this very example I shall give you a good prince to compare with a good father. 3When about to try his son, Tarius invited Caesar Augustus to his council; 3he came to a private home, took his seat, was part of another man's council, and did not say: 'No, let him come to my house'; 3for had that happened, the trial would have been Caesar's, not the father's. 4When the case had been heard and everything examined, both what the young man had said in his defence and the charges against him, he asked that each should write down his verdict, lest it become everyone's because it had been Caesar's; 4then, before the tablets were opened, he swore that he would not accept the inheritance of Tarius, a wealthy man.
5Someone will say: 'He was faint-hearted to fear that he might seem to want to open a way for his own hopes by the son's condemnation.' 5I think the opposite; 5any of us ought to have had enough confidence in a good conscience against malicious opinions, but princes must give much weight to reputation as well. 5He swore that he would not accept the inheritance. 6Tarius did indeed lose a second heir on the same day, but Caesar bought the freedom of his verdict; 6and after he had shown that his severity was disinterested, something a prince must always take care of, he said the son should be banished to wherever the father thought fit.
7He did not decree the sack, nor the serpents, nor prison, mindful not of whom he was judging but of whose council he was part; 7he said that a father ought to be content with the mildest form of punishment in the case of a very young son, driven into this crime, in which he had behaved timidly, which was the next thing to innocence; 7he ought to be removed from the city and from his parent's sight.