Durkheim cites the transitions in penalties from ancient societies to the France of his time as evidence for his 'first law'. He relies heavily on the disappearance of 'aggravated death' penalties - death accompanied by torture and mutilation. The use of particularly slow and painful forms of death, the accompaniment of death by mutilation, the preceding of death by torture, Durkheim tells us, was much reduced in the Athenian city-state compared to recorded societies such as ancient Egypt and pre-biblical Israel which went before it, was even further reduced in republican Rome, and gradually went out of use in Europe with the establishment of repub¬lican and constitutional forms of government.