Plato: Laws Book 9

[853a]

Athenian
The method of our legislation requires that we should deal next with the judicial proceedings connected with all the transactions hitherto described. The matters which involve such proceedings have been stated1 in part (those, namely, which concern farming and all industries dependent thereon), but we have not stated as yet the most important of such matters; so our next step must be to state them in full, enumerating in detail what penalty must attach to each offence, [853b] and before what court it must be tried.

Clinias
True.

Athenian
It is, in a sense, a shameful thing to make all those laws that we are proposing to make in a State like ours, which is, as we say, to be well managed and furnished with all that is right for the practice of virtue. In such a State, the mere supposition that any citizen will grow up to share in the worst forms of depravity practiced in other States, so that one must forestall and denounce by law the appearance of any such character, [853c] and, in order to warn them off or punish them, enact laws against them, as though they were certain to appear,—this, as I have said, is in a sense shameful. But we are not now legislating, like the ancient lawgivers, for heroes and sons of gods,2—when, as the story goes, both the lawgivers themselves and their subjects were men of divine descent: we, on the contrary, are but mortal men legislating for the seed of men, and therefore it is permitted to us to dread lest any of our citizens should prove horny-hearted [853d] and attain to such hardness of temper as to be beyond melting; and just as those “horn-struck”3 beans cannot be softened by boiling on the fire, so these men should be uninfluenced by laws, however powerful. So, for the sake of these gentlemen, no very gentle law shall be stated first concerning temple-robbery, in case anyone dares to commit this crime. That a rightly nurtured citizen should be infected with this disease is a thing that we should neither desire nor expect; but such attempts might often be made by their servants, and by foreigners or foreigners' slaves. Chiefly, then, on their account, and also as a precaution against [854a] the general infirmity of human nature, I will state the law about temple-robbing, and all other crimes of a like kind which are hard, if not impossible, to cure. And, in accordance with our rule as already approved,4 we must prefix to all such laws preludes as brief as possible. By way of argument and admonition one might address in the following terms the man whom an evil desire urges by day and wakes up at night, driving him to rob some sacred object— [854b] “My good man, the evil force that now moves you and prompts you to go temple-robbing is neither of human origin nor of divine, but it is some impulse bred of old in men from ancient wrongs unexpiated, which courses round wreaking ruin; and it you must guard against with all your strength. How you must thus guard, now learn. When there comes upon you any such intention, betake yourself to the rites of guilt-averting, betake yourself as suppliant to the shrines of the curse-lifting deities, betake yourself to the company of the men who are reputed virtuous; and thus learn, partly from others, [854c] partly by self-instruction, that every man is bound to honor what is noble and just; but the company of evil men shun wholly, and turn not back. And if it be so that by thus acting your disease grows less, well; but if not, then deem death the more noble way, and quit yourself of life.” As we chant this prelude to those who purpose all these unholy deeds, destructive of civic life, the law itself we must leave unvoiced5 for him who obeys; but for him who disobeys we must suffer the law, following on the prelude, to utter aloud this chant: [854d] “Whosoever is caught robbing a temple, if he be a foreigner or a slave, his curse shall be branded on his forehead and on his hands, and he shall be scourged with so many stripes as the judges decree, and he shall be cast out naked beyond the borders of the country; for, after paying this penalty, he might perchance be disciplined into a better life. For no penalty that is legally imposed aims at evil, but it effects, as a rule, one or other of two results,— [854e] it makes the person who suffers it either better or less bad.6 But if any citizen is ever convicted of such an act,—that is, of committing some great and infamous wrong against gods, parents, or State—the judge shall regard him as already incurable, reckoning that, in spite of all the training and nurture he has had from infancy, he has not refrained from the worst iniquity. For him the penalty is death, the least of evils; and, moreover, [855a] by serving as an example, he will benefit others, when himself disgraced and removed from sight beyond the borders of the country; but his children and family, if they shun their father's ways, shall be honored, and honorable mention shall be made of them, seeing that they have done well and bravely in leaving the ways of vice for those of virtue. That the goods of any such criminal should be confiscated would not be fitting in a State in which the allotments must remain always identical and equal in number. Whosoever is held to have done a wrong which deserves a money-fine must pay the fine exacted when the fine comes within the limits of the surplus he has over when his allotment has been equipped, [855b] but not what exceeds this: the precise facts in such cases the Law-wardens must find out from the registers,7 and they must inform the judges of the true state of each case, in order to prevent any allotment falling out of cultivation through lack of money. And if any man is held to deserve a larger fine, in case none of his friends are willing to go bail or, by clubbing together, to pay the sum and set him free, then we must punish him by long imprisonment, of a public kind, [855c] and by measures of degradation; but no one shall be absolutely outlawed for any single crime, even though he be banished from the country.8 The punishments to be inflicted shall be death, or imprisonment, or stripes, or seats or stations or exposures of a degrading kind at temples or at outermost boundaries, or money-fines of the kind we have stated,—where such punishments are required. In cases where the penalty is death, the judges shall be the Law-wardens together with the court of last year's magistrates selected by merit.9 In respect of these cases [855d] the younger lawgivers must attend to the indictments and summonses and all such matters, and the procedure involved, while it is our task to regulate by law the method of voting. The votes shall be cast openly, and, before this takes place, our judges shall be seated, facing the plaintiff and defendant, in a closely-packed row in order of seniority, and all the citizens who have leisure to do so shall attend and listen attentively to the trials. [855e] One speech shall be made by the plaintiff first, and secondly one by the defendant; and after these speeches the oldest judge shall lead off with his survey of the case, in which he shall review in detail the statements made; and after the oldest, each of the other judges in turn must discuss every point which he has noticed in which either of the litigants has been guilty of making any kind of omission or blunder in his statement; and he that has no such criticism to make shall pass on the task of reviewing to his neighbor; and when such of the statements as the judges have pronounced relevant have been confirmed by affixing to the documents the signatures [856a] of all the judges, they shall lay them up at the altar of Hestia. On the morrow again they shall assemble at the same place and discuss the case, and they shall make their pronouncements in the same manner, and shall again sign the statements. And after doing this thrice,—during which proceedings they shall pay full attention to evidence and witnesses,—each of the judges shall cast a sacred vote, promising by Hestia to give just and true judgment to the best of his power; and thus they shall bring to its end this form of trial. [856b] Next to cases which concern religion come those which concern the dissolution of the polity. Whosoever enslaves the laws by making them subject to men, and makes the State subject to a faction, and acts illegally in doing all this by violence and in stirring up civil strife,—such a man must be deemed the worst of all enemies to the whole State. And the man who, though he takes part in none of these doings, yet fails to observe them, while he has a share in the chief offices of State, or else, though he observes them, fails to defend his country [856c] and punish them, owing to his cowardice,—a citizen of such a kind must be counted second in order of badness. Every man who is of the least worth shall inform the magistrates by prosecuting the plotter on a charge of violent and illegal revolution: they shall have the same judges as the temple-robbers had, and the whole trial shall be conducted just as it was in their case, and the death penalty shall be imposed by a majority of votes. As a summary rule, the disgrace or punishment inflicted on a father shall not descend upon his children, [856d] except in a case where not only the father, but his father and grandfather before him, have all been condemned on a capital charge: in such a case, the children, while retaining their own property, excepting only the allotment with its full equipment, shall be deported by the State to their original country and State. And from the sons of citizens who happen to have more than one son over ten years old, ten shall be chosen by lot—after application made by the father or by the paternal or maternal grandfather,—and the names [856e] thus chosen shall be sent to Delphi; and that man whom the oracle names shall be established as the allotment-holder in the house of those departed,—be it with happier fortune!

Clinias
Very good.

Athenian
Moreover, a third general law shall be laid down, dealing with the judges to be employed and the manner of the trials, in cases where one man prosecutes another on a charge of treason; and concerning the offspring, likewise, whether they are to remain in their country or be expelled, this one law [857a] shall apply to the three cases of the traitor, the temple-robber, and the man who wrecks the State laws by violence. For the thief also, whether he steals a great thing or a small, one law and one legal penalty shall be enacted for all alike10: first, he must pay twice the value of the stolen article, if he loses his case and possesses enough property over and above his allotment wherewith to pay; but if not, he must be put in prison until either he has paid the sum or has been let off by the prosecutor. And if a man be cast in a suit for theft from the State, [857b] on obtaining pardon from the State, or after payment of double the sum stolen, he shall be let out of prison.

Clinias
How comes it, Stranger, that we are ruling that it makes no difference to the thief whether the thing he steals be great or small, and whether the place it is stolen from be holy or unhallowed, or whatever other differences may exist in the manner of a theft; whereas the lawgiver ought to suit the punishment to the crime by inflicting dissimilar penalties in these varying cases?

Athenian
Well said, Clinias! You have collided with me [857c] when I was going, as it were, full steam ahead, and so have woken me up. You have reminded me of a previous reflection of mine, how that none of the attempts hitherto made at legislation have ever been carried out rightly—as in fact we may infer from the instance before us. What do I mean to imply by this remark? It was no bad comparison we made11 when we compared all existing legislation to the doctoring of slaves by slaves. For one should carefully notice this, that if any of the doctors who practice medicine by purely empirical methods, [857d] devoid of theory, were to come upon a free-born doctor conversing with a free-born patient, and using arguments, much as a philosopher would, dealing with the course of the ailment from its origin and surveying the natural constitution of the human body,—he would at once break out into a roar of laughter, and the language he would use would be none other than that which always comes ready to the tongue of most so-called “doctors”: “You fool,” he would say, “you are not doctoring your patient, but schooling him, so to say, as though what he wanted was to be made, not a sound man, [857e] but a doctor.”

Clinias
And in saying so, would he not be right?

Athenian
Possibly, provided that he should also take the view that the man who treats of laws in the way that we are now doing is schooling the citizens rather than legislating. Would he not seem to be right in saying that, too?

Clinias
Probably.

Athenian
How fortunate we are in the conclusion we have now come to!

Clinias
What conclusion?

Athenian
This,—that there is no need to legislate, [858a] but only to become students ourselves, and endeavor to discern in regard to every polity how the best form might come about, and how that which is the least elaborate possible. Moreover, we are now allowed, as it seems, to study, if we choose, the best form of legislation, or, if we choose, the least elaborate. So let us make our choice between these two.

Clinias
The choice we propose, Stranger, is an absurd one: we should be acting like legislators [858b] who were driven by some overpowering necessity to pass laws on the spot, because it is impossible for them to do so on the morrow. But for us (if Heaven will) it is quite possible to do as bricklayers do, or men starting on any other kind of construction,—that is, to collect material piecemeal, from which we may select what is suitable for the edifice we intend to build, and, what is more, select it at our leisure. Let us assume, then, that we are not now building under compulsion, but that we are still at leisure, and engaged partly in collecting material and partly in putting it together; so that we may rightly say that our laws are being in part [858c] already erected and in part collected.

Athenian
In this way, Clinias, our survey of laws will at any rate follow nature's course more closely. Now let us consider, I adjure you, the following point about legislators.

Clinias
What point?

Athenian
We have in our States not only the writings and written speeches of many other people, but also the writings and speeches of the lawgiver.

Clinias
Certainly.

Athenian
Are we, then, to pay attention to the compositions of the others— [858d] poets, and all who, either with or without meter, have composed and put on record their counsels concerning life,—but to pay no attention to those of the lawgivers? Or should we not attend to them above all others?

Clinias
Yes, far above all.

Athenian
But we surely do not mean that the lawgiver alone of all the writers is not to give counsel about what is noble, good and just, teaching what these are, and how those who intend to be happy must practice them.

Clinias
Of course he must do so. [858e]

Athenian
Well then, is it more disgraceful on the part of Homer and Tyrtaeus and the rest of the poets to lay down in their writings bad rules about life and its pursuits, and less disgraceful on the part of Lycurgus and Solon and all the legislators who have written? Or rather, is it not right that, of all the writings which exist in States, those which concern laws should be seen, when unrolled, to be by far the fairest and best, and all other writings to be either modelled on them or, [859a] if disagreeing with them, contemptible? Are we to conceive that the written laws in our States should resemble persons moved by love and wisdom, such as a father or a mother, or that they should order and threaten, like some tyrant and despot, who writes his decree on the wall, and there is an end of it? So let us now consider whether we are going to try to discuss laws [859b] with this intention—showing zeal, at any rate, whether or not we may prove successful; and if, in proceeding on this course, we must meet with mishap, so be it. Yet we pray that it may be well with us, and if God wills, it shall be well.

Clinias
You are right: let us do as you say.

Athenian
First of all, since we have started on it, we must examine closely the law about temple-robbers and all forms of thieving and wrongdoing; nor should we be vexed by the fact that, although we enacted some points while legislating, [859c] there are some points still under consideration: for we are in process of becoming lawgivers, and may perhaps become so, but we are not lawgivers as yet. So if we agree to consider the matters I have mentioned in the way I have mentioned, let us so consider them.

Clinias
Most certainly.

Athenian
In respect of goodness and justice as a whole, let us try to discern this,—how far we now agree with ourselves, and how far we differ (for we should certainly say that we desire, if nothing else, [859d] to differ at least from the majority of men), and how far also the majority agree or differ among themselves.

Clinias
What differences of ours have you in mind?

Athenian
I will try to explain. Concerning justice in general, and men, things, or actions that are just, we all agree that these are all beautiful, so that no one would be regarded as saying what was wrong even if he should maintain that just men, however ugly in body, [859e] are quite beautiful in respect of their very just character.

Clinias
Would not that be right?

Athenian
Perhaps; but let us observe this,—that if all things which belong to justice are beautiful, that “all” includes for us passions12 nearly as much as actions.

Clinias
Well, what then?

Athenian
Every just action, in so far as it shares in justice, practically in the same degree partakes of beauty.

Clinias
Yes.

Athenian
It is agreed also—if our argument is to be consistent— [860a] that a passion which shares in justice, becomes, so far, beautiful.

Clinias
True.

Athenian
But if we agree that a passion though just is unseemly, then justice and beauty will be at discord, when just things are called most unseemly.

Clinias
What do you mean by that?

Athenian
It is not hard to grasp. The laws we enacted a short time ago might seem to enjoin what is absolutely contrary to our present statements.

Clinias
What statements? [860b]

Athenian
We laid it down13 that it is just to put to death the temple-robber and the enemy of the rightly-enacted laws; and then, when we were minded to enact a host of similar rules, we held our hand, since we perceived that such rules involve passions infinite both in number and in magnitude, and that, although they are eminently just, they are also eminently unseemly. Thus the just and the beautiful will seem to us at one moment wholly identical, at another, utterly opposed, will they not?

Clinias
I am afraid so. [860c]

Athenian
Thus it is that by the multitude the beautiful and the just are flung apart, and inconsistent language is used about them.

Clinias
It certainly seems so, Stranger.

Athenian
Then let us look again at our own view, and see how far it is consistent in this respect.

Clinias
What kind of consistency, and in respect of what, do you mean?

Athenian
I believe that I expressly stated14 in our previous discourse,—or, if I did not do it before, please assume that I now assert—

Clinias
What? [860d]

Athenian
That all bad men are in all respects unwillingly bad; and, this being so, our next statement must agree therewith.

Clinias
What statement do you mean?

Athenian
This,—that the unjust man is, indeed, bad, but the bad man is unwillingly bad.15 But it is illogical to suppose that a willing deed is done unwillingly; therefore he that commits an unjust act does so unwillingly in the opinion of him who assumes that injustice is involuntary—a conclusion which I also must now allow; for I agree that all men do unjust acts unwillingly; so, since I hold this view—and do not share the opinion of those who, [860e] through contentiousness or arrogance, assert that, while there are some who are unjust against their will, yet there are also many who are unjust willingly,—how am I to prove consistent with my own statements? Suppose you two, Megillus and Clinias, put this question to me—“If this is the state of the case, Stranger, what counsel do you give us in regard to legislating for the Magnesian State? Shall we legislate or shall we not?” “Legislate by all means,” I shall reply. “Will you make a distinction, then, between voluntary and involuntary wrongdoings, and are we to enact heavier penalties for the crimes and wrongdoings that are voluntary, [861a] and lighter penalties for the others? Or shall we enact equal penalties for all, on the view that there is no such thing as a voluntary act of injustice?”

Clinias
What you say, Stranger, is quite right: so what use are we to make of our present arguments?

Athenian
A very proper question! The use we shall make of them, to begin with, is this—

Clinias
What?

Athenian
Let us recall how, a moment ago, we rightly stated that in regard to justice we are suffering from the greatest confusion and inconsistency. Grasping this fact, [861b] let us again question ourselves,—“As to our perplexity about these matters, since we have neither got it clear nor defined the point of difference between those two kinds of wrongdoing, voluntary and involuntary, which are treated as legally distinct in every State by every legislator who has ever yet appeared,—as to this, is the statement we recently made to stand, like a divine oracle, as a mere ex cathedra statement, unsupported by any proof, and to serve as a kind of master-enactment16?” [861c] That is impossible; and before we legislate we are bound first to make it clear somehow that these wrong-doings are two-fold, and wherein their difference consists, in order that when we impose the penalty on either kind, everyone may follow our rules, and be able to form some judgment regarding the suitability or otherwise of our enactments.

Clinias
What you say, Stranger, appears to us to be excellent: we ought to do one of two things,—either not assert that all unjust acts are involuntary, or else make our distinctions first, [861d] then prove the correctness of that assertion.

Athenian
Of these alternatives the first is to me quite intolerable—namely, not to assert what I hold to be the truth,—for that would be neither a lawful thing to do nor a pious. But as to the question how such acts are two-fold,—if the difference does not lie in that between the voluntary and the involuntary, then we must try to explain it by means of some other distinction.17

Clinias
Well, certainly, Stranger, about this matter there is no other plan we can possibly adopt. [861e]

Athenian
It shall be done. Come now, in dealings and intercourse between citizens, injuries committed by one against another are of frequent occurrence, and they involve plenty of the voluntary as well as of the involuntary.

Clinias
To be sure!

Athenian
Let no one put down all injuries as acts of injustice and then regard the unjust acts involved as two-fold in the way described, namely, that they are partly voluntary and partly involuntary (for, of the total, the involuntary injuries are not less than the voluntary either in number or in magnitude); [862a] but consider whether in saying what I am now going to say I am speaking sense or absolute nonsense. For what I assert, Megillus and Clinias, is not that, if one man harms another involuntarily and without wishing it, he acts unjustly though involuntarily, nor shall I legislate in this way, pronouncing this to be an involuntary act of injustice, but I will pronounce that such an injury is not an injustice at all, whether it be a greater injury or a less. And, if my view prevails, we shall often say that the author of a benefit wrongly done commits an injustice; [862b] for as a rule, my friends, neither when a man gives some material object to another, nor when he takes it away, ought one to term such an act absolutely just or unjust, but only when a man of just character and disposition does any benefit or injury to another,—that is what the lawgiver must look at; he must consider these two things, injustice and injury, and the injury inflicted he must make good so far as possible by legal means; he must conserve what is lost, restore what has been broken down, make whole [862c] what is wounded or dead; and when the several injuries have been atoned for by compensation, he must endeavor always by means of the laws to convert the parties who have inflicted them and those who have suffered them from a state of discord to a state of amity.

Clinias
He will be right in doing that.

Athenian
As regards unjust injuries and gains, in case one man causes another to gain by acting unjustly towards him, all such cases as are curable we must cure, regarding them as diseases of the soul. And we should affirm that our cure for injustice lies in this direction—

Clinias
What direction? [862d]

Athenian
In this,—that whenever any man commits any unjust act, great or small, the law shall instruct him and absolutely compel him for the future either never willingly to dare to do such a deed, or else to do it ever so much less often, in addition to paying for the injury. To effect this, whether by action or speech, by means of pleasures and pains, honors and dishonors, money-fines and money-gifts, and in general by whatsoever means one can employ to make men hate injustice and love (or at any rate not hate) justice,—this is precisely the task of laws most noble. [862e] But for all those whom he perceives to be incurable in respect of these matters, what penalty shall the lawgiver enact, and what law? The lawgiver will realize that in all such cases not only is it better for the sinners themselves to live no longer, but also that they will prove of a double benefit to others by quitting life—since they will both serve as a warning to the rest not to act unjustly, and also rid [863a] the State of wicked men,18—and thus he will of necessity inflict death as the chastisement for their sins, in cases of this kind, and of this kind only.

Clinias
What you have said seems very reasonable; but we should be glad to hear a still clearer statement respecting the difference between injury and injustice, and how the distinction between the voluntary and the involuntary applies in these cases.

Athenian
I must endeavor to do as you bid me, and explain the matter. [863b] No doubt in conversing with one another you say and hear said at least thus much about the soul, that one element in its nature (be it affection or part) is “passion,” which is an inbred quality of a contentious and pugnacious kind, and one that overturns many things by its irrational force.

Clinias
Of course.

Athenian
Moreover, we distinguish “pleasure” from passion, and we assert that its mastering power is of an opposite kind, since it effects all that its intention desires by a mixture of persuasion and deceit.

Clinias
Exactly. [863c]

Athenian
Nor would it be untrue to say that the third cause of sins is ignorance.19 This cause, however, the lawgiver would do well to subdivide into two, counting ignorance in its simple form to be the cause of minor sins, and in its double form—where the folly is due to the man being gripped not by ignorance only, but also by a conceit of wisdom,20 as though he had full knowledge of things he knows nothing at all about,—counting this to be the cause of great and brutal sins when it is joined with strength and might, [863d] but the cause of childish and senile sins when it is joined with weakness; and these last he will count as sins and he will ordain laws, as for sinners, but laws that will be, above all others, of the most mild and merciful kind.

Clinias
That is reasonable.

Athenian
And pretty well everyone speaks of one man being “superior,” another “inferior,” to pleasure or to passion; and they are so.

Clinias
Most certainly.

Athenian
But we have never heard it said that one man is “superior,” another “inferior,” to ignorance.21 [863e]

Clinias
Quite true.

Athenian
And we assert that all these things urge each man often to go counter to the actual bent of his own inclination.

Clinias
Very frequently.

Athenian
Now I will define for you, clearly and without complication, my notion of justice and injustice. The domination of passion and fear and pleasure and pain and envies and desires in the soul, whether they do any injury or not, I term generally “injustice”; but the belief in the highest good— [864a] in whatsoever way either States or individuals think they can attain to it,—if this prevails in their souls and regulates every man, even if some damage be done, we must assert that everything thus done is just, and that in each man the part subject to this governance is also just, and best for the whole life of mankind, although most men suppose that such damage is an involuntary injustice. But we are not now [864b] concerned with a verbal dispute. Since, however, it has been shown that there are three kinds of sinning, we must first of all recall these still more clearly to mind. Of these, one kind, as we know, is painful; and that we term passion and fear.22

Clinias
Quite so.

Athenian
The second kind consists of pleasure and desires; the third, which is a distinct kind, consists of hopes and untrue belief regarding the attainment of the highest good. And when this last kind is subdivided into three,23 five classes are made, as we now assert; and for these five classes [864c] we must enact distinct laws, of two main types.

Clinias
What are they?

Athenian
The one concerns acts done on each occasion by violent and open means, the other acts done privily under cover of darkness and deceit, or sometimes acts done in both these ways,—and for acts of this last kind the laws will be most severe, if they are to prove adequate.

Clinias
Naturally.

Athenian
Let us revert next to that point from which we digressed,24 and proceed with our enactment of the laws. [864d] We had, I believe, laid down the laws dealing with those who plunder the gods and with traitors, and also with those who wreck the laws with intent to overthrow the existing constitution. An act of this kind a man might commit when mad, or when suffering from some disease or from excessive senility, or in a state of childishness, whereby he is no better than a madman. If any case of this kind is ever brought to the notice of the selected judges, either on the information of the doer of the act or on that of him who is pleading for the doer, and if it be judged that he was in this state of madness when he broke the law, [864e] then he shall certainly pay for the damage he has done, but only the exact sum, and he shall be acquitted of the other charges, unless it be that he has killed a man and has not purged his hands from blood: in this case he shall depart into another country and place, and dwell there as an exile for a year; and should he return within the time fixed by the law or set foot at all within his own country, he shall be put in the public jail by the Law-wardens for the space of two years, [865a] and not let out of jail until after that time. We need not hesitate to enact laws about every class of murder on similar lines, now that we have made a beginning. First we shall deal with the cases that are violent and involuntary. If a man has killed a friend in a contest or in public games—whether his death has been immediate or as the after-effect of wounds,—or similarly if he has killed him in war or in some action of training for war, either when practicing [865b] javelin-work without armor or when engaged in some warlike maneuver in heavy armor,—then, when he has been purified as the Delphic rule on this matter directs, he shall be accounted pure. So too with respect to all doctors, if the patient dies against the will of his doctor, the doctor shall be accounted legally pure. And if one man kills another of his own act, but involuntarily,—whether it be with his own unarmed body, or by a tool or a weapon, or by a dose of drink or of solid food, or by application of fire or of cold, or by deprivation of air, and whether he does it himself with his own body or by means of other bodies,— [865c] in all cases it shall be accounted to be his own personal act, and he shall pay the following penalties. If he kill a slave, he shall secure the master against damage and loss, reckoning as if it were a slave of his own that had been destroyed, or else he shall be liable to a penalty of double the value of the dead man,—and the judges shall make an assessment of his value,—and he must also employ means of purification greater and more numerous than those employed by persons [865d] who kill a man at games, and those interpreters25 whom the oracle names shall be in charge of these rites; but if it be a slave of his own that he has killed, he shall be set free after the legal purification. And if anyone kill a free man involuntarily, he shall undergo the same purifications as the man that has killed a slave; and there is an ancient tale, told of old, to which he must not fail to pay regard. The tale is this,—that the man slain by violence, who has lived in a free and proud spirit, is wroth with his slayer when newly slain, [865e] and being filled also with dread and horror on account of his own violent end, when he sees his murderer going about in the very haunts which he himself had frequented, he is horror-stricken; and being disquieted himself, he takes conscience as his ally, and with all his might disquiets his slayer—both the man himself and his doings. Wherefore it is right for the slayer to retire before his victim for a full year, in all its seasons, and to vacate all the spots he owned in all parts of his native land; and if the dead man be a Stranger, he shall be barred also from the Stranger's country [866a] for the same period. If a man willingly obeys this law, he that is nearest of kin to the dead man, having the supervision of the performance of all these rules, shall pardon him and live at peace with him, and in doing so he will be acting with perfect propriety; but if a man disobeys, and dares, in the first place, to approach the altars and to do sacrifice while still unpurified, and if he refuses, further, [866b] to fulfil the times appointed in exile, then the next of kin to the dead man shall prosecute the slayer for murder, and in case of conviction all the penalties shall be doubled. And should the nearest relative fail to prosecute for the crime, it shall be as though the pollution had passed on to him, through the victim claiming atonement for his fate; and whoso pleases shall bring a charge against him, and compel him by law to quit his country for five years. And if a Stranger involuntarily kills a Stranger who is resident in the State, whoso pleases shall prosecute him under the same laws; [866c] and if he be a resident alien, he shall be exiled for a year, while if he be altogether a Stranger—whether the man slain be a Stranger or resident alien or citizen—in addition to the purifications imposed, he shall be barred for all his life from the country which ordains these laws; and if he transgresses the law, and comes back to it, the Law-wardens shall punish him with death; and if he has any property, they shall hand it over [866d] to the next of kin of the victim. And should he come back unwillingly, in case he be shipwrecked off the coast of the country, he shall camp with his feet in the sea, and watch for a ship to take him off; or in case he be brought in by people forcibly by land, the first magistrate of the State that meets with him shall loose him, and send him out over the border unharmed. If a person with his own hand kills a free man, and the deed be done in passion, in a case of this kind we must begin by making a distinction between two varieties of the crime. For murder is committed in passion by those who, on a sudden and without intent to kill, [866e] destroy a man by blows or some such means in an immediate attack, when the deed is at once followed by repentance; and it is also a case of murder done in passion whenever men who are insulted by shameful words or actions seek for vengeance, and end by killing a man with deliberate intent to kill, and feel no repentance for the deed. We must lay it down, as it seems, that these murders are of two kinds, [867a] both as a rule done in passion, and most properly described as lying midway between the voluntary and the involuntary. None the less, each of these kinds tends to resemble one or other of these contraries; for the man who retains his passion and takes vengeance, not suddenly on the spur of the moment, but after lapse of time, and with deliberate intent, resembles the voluntary murderer; whereas the man who does not nurse his rage, but gives way to it at once on the spur of the moment and without deliberate intent, has a likeness to the involuntary murderer; yet neither is he wholly involuntary, but bears a resemblance thereto. [867b] Thus murders done in passion are difficult to define,—whether one should treat them in law as voluntary or involuntary. The best and truest way is to class them both as resemblances, and to distinguish them by the mark of deliberate intent or lack of intent, and to impose more severe penalties on those who slay with intent and in anger, and milder penalties on those who do so without intent and on a sudden. For that which resembles a greater evil must be more heavily punished, that which resembles a lesser evil [867c] more lightly. So our laws also must do likewise.

Clinias
They must, most certainly.

Athenian
Returning, then, to our task, let us make this pronouncement:—If a man with his own hand slay a free man, and the deed be done in rage without deliberate intent, he shall suffer such other penalties as it is proper for the man to suffer who has slain without passion, and he shall be compelled to go into exile for two years, thereby chastising his own passion. [867d] And he that slays in passion and with deliberate intent shall be treated in other respects like the former, but shall be exiled for three years—instead of two, like the other,—receiving a longer period of punishment because of the greatness of his passion. As regards the return home, in such cases it shall be on this wise. (It is a difficult matter to legislate for with exactness; for sometimes the more dangerous of the two murderers in the eye of the law might prove the more gentle and the gentler the more dangerous, and the latter might have committed the murder more savagely, the former more gently; though as a rule matters turn out in the way we have stated: [867e] so, regarding all these regulations the Law-wardens must act as supervisors). When the period of exile in each case has elapsed, they must send twelve of their number to the borders of the country to act as judges—they having made during the interval a still closer investigation into the actions of the exiles; and these men shall serve also as judges in regard to the matter of giving them pardon and admitting them back; and the exiles must abide by the verdicts of these magistrates. [868a] And if either of them, after his return, again yields to rage and commits the same act, he shall be exiled, and never again return; and if he returns, he shall suffer the same fate as the returned Stranger.26 He that slays a slave of his own shall purify himself; and if he kill another man's slave in rage, he shall pay to the owner twice the damage. And if anyone of all these types of slayers disobeys the law and, being unpurified, defiles the market and the games and other sacred assemblies, whoso pleases shall prosecute [868b] both that member of the dead man's kindred who permits this and the slayer himself, and shall compel the one of them to exact, and the other to pay, double the amount of the money-fines and of the other exactions27; and the sum so paid he shall keep for himself as the law directs. If a slave kills his own master in rage, the kindred of the dead man shall treat the slayer how they please,—save that they must not [868c] in any wise let him live,—and shall be held guiltless. And if a slave kill a free man (other than his master) in rage, his masters shall hand over the slave to the kindred of the dead man, and they shall be compelled to put the criminal to death, doing so in whatever manner they choose. If in a fit of rage a father or mother slays a son or daughter by means of blows or some kind of violence,—an occurrence which, though rare, does sometimes happen,—the slayer must make the same purifications as the other slayers, and be exiled for three years; [868d] and when the slayers have returned, the wife must be separated from the husband and the husband from the wife, and they must never again have a child, nor shall they ever share a home with those whom the slayer has robbed of child or brother, nor shall they take part in their worship; he that is disobedient and impious concerning this matter shall be liable to an action for impiety at the hands of whoso pleases. And if a husband in a fit of rage kills his wedded wife, or if a wife in like manner kills her husband, they must undergo [868e] the same purifications, and remain exiled for three years. And when one who has committed such a crime returns, he shall never take part in worship with his children, nor sit at table with them; and if either the parent or the child disobeys, he shall be liable to a charge of impiety at the hands of whoso pleases. And if in rage a brother kill a brother or a sister, or a sister kill a brother or a sister, it shall be declared that they must undergo the same purifications and banishment as have been ordained for parents and children,—namely, that the homicide shall never share in the house or in the worship of those brothers or parents whom he has robbed of brothers or of children; [869a] and if anyone disobeys, he will rightly and justly be liable to the law laid down concerning such cases of impiety. If any man gets into such an uncontrollable rage with his parents as actually to dare to kill a parent in the madness of his rage, then, in case the dead person before dying voluntarily acquits the culprit of murder, he shall be held pure, after he has purified himself in the same manner as those who have committed an involuntary murder, and done as they [869b] in all other respects; but in case the dead person does not so acquit him, then he that has done such a deed is liable to a number of laws: for outrage he will be liable to most heavy penalties, and likewise for impiety and temple-robbing, since he has robbed his parent of life; so that if “to die a hundred deaths” were possible for any one man, that a parricide or a matricide, who did the deed in rage, should undergo a hundred deaths would be a fate most just. Since every law will forbid the man to kill [869c] father or mother, the very authors of his existence, even for the sake of saving his own life, and will ordain that he must suffer and endure everything rather than commit such an act,— in what other way than this can such a man be fittingly dealt with by law, and receive his due reward? Be it enacted, therefore, that for the man who in rage slays father or mother the penalty is death. If a brother kill a brother in fight during a civil war, or in any such way, acting in self-defence [869d] against the other, who first started the brawl, he shall be counted as one who has slain an enemy, and be held guiltless; so too, when a citizen has killed a citizen in like manner, or a Stranger a Stranger. And if a citizen kill a Stranger in self-defence, or a Stranger a citizen, he shall be accounted pure in the same way. So likewise, if a slave kill a slave; but if a slave kill a free man in self-defence, he shall be liable to the same laws as he that kills a father. And what has been said about remission of the charge in the case of the murder of a father shall hold equally good [869e] in all such cases—if any man voluntarily acquit any culprit of this charge, the purifications for the culprit shall be made as though the murder were involuntary, and one year of exile shall be imposed by law. Let us take this as an adequate statement respecting murder-cases that involve violence, and are involuntary and done in passion. Next to these we must state the regulations regarding such acts when voluntary and involving iniquity of all kinds and premeditated,—acts caused by yielding to pleasure or lust or envy.

Clinias
You are right.

Athenian
First, let us once more state, as best we can, [870a] how many these causes are likely to be. The greatest is lust, which masters a soul that is made savage by desires; and it occurs especially in connection with that object for which the most frequent and intense craving afflicts the bulk of men,—the power which wealth possesses over them, owing to the badness of their nature and lack of culture, to breed in them countless lustings after its insatiable and endless acquisition. And of this lack of culture the cause is to be found in the ill-praising of wealth in the common talk of both Greeks and barbarians; for by exalting it as the first of “goods,”28 [870b] when it should come but third, they ruin both posterity and themselves. The noblest and best course of all in all States is that the truth should be stated about wealth,—namely, that it exists for the sake of the body, and the body for the sake of the soul; so that, while the objects for which it really exists are “goods,” yet wealth itself will come third, after goodness of body and of soul. So this law will serve as an instructor, to teach that the man who intends to be happy must seek not to be wealthy, but to be justly and temperately wealthy; [870c] and if this were so, no murders that needed purging by murders would occur in States. But, as things now stand, this love of riches is—as we said29 when we began this subject—one cause, and a very great cause, which produces the most serious of trials for willful murder. A second cause is the temper of the ambitious soul, which breeds envies that are dangerous associates for the man that feels the envy, in the first place, and dangerous also for the best citizens in the State. Thirdly, fears bred of cowardice and iniquity [870d] have wrought many murders,—in cases where men do or have done things concerning which they desire that no one should share their secret; consequently, if there are any who might expose their secret, they remove them by death, whenever they can do so by no other means. Concerning all these matters, the preludes mentioned shall be pronounced, and, in addition to them, that story which is believed by many when they hear it from the lips of those who seriously relate such things at their mystic rites,—that vengeance for such acts is exacted in Hades,30 and that those who return again to this earth31 are bound to pay [870e] the natural penalty,—each culprit the same, that is, which he inflicted on his victim,—and that their life on earth must end in their meeting a like fate at the hands of another. To him who obeys, and fully dreads such a penalty, there is no need to add to the prelude by reciting the law on the subject; [871a] but to the disobedient this is the law which shall be stated in the written code:—Whosoever of deliberate intent and unjustly slays with his own hand any of the tribesmen shall, in the first place, be debarred from the lawful assemblies, and shall not defile either temples or market or harbors or any other place of meeting, whether or not any person warns off the doer of such deeds—for he is warned off by the law, which is, and always will continue, warning him thus publicly, on behalf of the whole State; and the man who fails to prosecute him when he ought, [871b] or fails to warn him of the fact that he is thus debarred, if he be of kin to the dead man on either the male or female side, and not further removed than a cousin,32 shall, first, receive upon himself the defilement and the wrath of the gods, since the curse of the law brings also upon him that of the divine voice, and, secondly, he shall be liable to the action of whosoever pleases to punish him on behalf of the dead man. And he that wishes to punish him shall duly perform all that concerns the observance of the purifications proper therefore, and whatsoever else the god prescribes as lawful in these cases, [871c] and he shall recite the pronouncement of warning; and thus he shall go and compel the culprit to submit to the execution of the penalty according to law. That it is necessary that these proceedings should be accompanied by certain invocations and sacrifices to those gods whose concern it is that murders should not occur in States, it is easy for the lawgiver to demonstrate: who these gods are, and what method for bringing such prosecutions would be the most correct in point of ritual,—this the Law-wardens, in conjunction with the interpreters and seers and with the god, shall ordain; [871d] and so they shall bring these prosecutions. And the judges in these cases shall be the same persons who form—as we described33—the final court of trial for robbers of temples. He that is convicted shall be punished by death, and he shall not be buried in the land of the victim, because of the shamelessness as well as impiety of his act. If the culprit flees and refuses to come up for judgment, he shall be exiled with an unending exile; and if any such person sets foot in the country of the murdered man, he of the dead man's relatives or of the citizens that first meets with him [871e] shall slay him with impunity, or else bind him and hand him over to those magistrates who have judged the case, to be slain. The prosecutor, in a murder-charge, must at once demand bail from the defendant; and the latter shall provide three substantial securities—as approved by the court of the judges in such cases—, who guarantee to produce him at the trial; and if a man be unwilling or unable to provide these sureties, the court must take, bind and keep him, and produce him at the trial of the case. [872a] If a man does not slay another with his own hand, but plots death for him, and after killing him by design and plotting resides in the State, being responsible for the murder and not innocent or pure of heart in respect of it,—in his case the prosecutions on this charge shall proceed in the same way, except in the matter of bail. And the person convicted shall be allowed to have burial at home; but all else shall be carried out in his case in the same way as in the case last described. And these same regulations shall govern all cases where Strangers are at law with Strangers, or citizens and Strangers at law with each other, [872b] or slaves with slaves, in respect both of actual murder and of plotting to murder, except as regards bail; and as to this, just as it has been said that the actual murderers must be secured by guarantors, so these persons too must provide security to the person who proclaims the murder. If a slave willfully slay a free man, either by his own hand or by plotting, and be convicted at the trial, the public executioner of the State shall drag him in the direction of the tomb of the dead man to a spot from which he can see the tomb, and there scourge him with as many stripes [872c] as the prosecutor shall prescribe; and if the murderer be still alive after the beating, he shall put him to death. And if a man kill a slave when he is doing no wrong, actuated by fear lest the slave should expose his own foul and evil deeds, or for any other such reason, just as he would have been liable to a charge of murder for slaying a citizen, so likewise he shall be liable in the same way for the death of such a slave. Should cases occur of a kind for which it is a formidable and most unwelcome task to legislate, and yet impossible not to legislate,—such as murders of kinsfolk, either by a man's own hand [872d] or by plotting, which are wholly willful and wicked,—crimes that occur for the most part in States with bad organization and nurture, but may occur at times even in a country where one would not expect them,—we must again recite the story we uttered34 a moment ago, if haply anyone, on hearing us, may become more strongly disposed in consequence voluntarily to abstain from murders of the most impious kind. The myth or story (or whatever [872e] one should call it) has been clearly stated, as derived from ancient priests, to the effect that Justice, the avenger of kindred blood, acting as overseer, employs the law just mentioned, and has ordained that the doer of such a deed must of necessity suffer the same as he has done: if ever a man has slain his father, he must endure to suffer the same violent fate at his own children's hands in days to come; or if he has slain his mother, he must of necessity come to birth sharing in the female nature, and when thus born be removed from life by the hands of his offspring in afterdays; for of the pollution of common blood there is no other purification, nor does the stain of pollution admit of being washed off [873a] before the soul which committed the act pays back murder for murder, like for like, and thus by propitiation lays to rest the wrath of all the kindred. Wherefore, in dread of such vengeances from Heaven a man should refrain himself; if, however, any should be overtaken by a disaster so lamentable that they have the audacity deliberately and of free will to reave soul from body for father, mother, brethren or children, in such cases the ordinance of the law of the mortal lawgiver stands thus:— [873b] The warnings of exclusion from customary places, and the sureties, are the same as those prescribed for former cases; and if any man be convicted of such a murder, and of having slain any of the persons named, the officers of the judges and magistrates shall kill him and cast him out naked at an appointed cross-roads outside the city; and all the magistrates, acting on behalf of the whole State, shall take each a stone and cast it on the head of the corpse, and thus make atonement for the whole State; and after this they shall carry the corpse to the borders of the land and cast it out [873c] unburied, according to law. Now he that slays the person who is, as men say, nearest and dearest of all,—what penalty should he suffer? I mean the man that slays himself,—violently robbing himself of his Fate-given share of life, when this is not legally ordered by the State, and when he is not compelled to it by the occurrence of some intolerable and inevitable misfortune, nor by falling into some disgrace that is beyond remedy or endurance,—but merely inflicting upon himself this iniquitous penalty owing to sloth and unmanly cowardice. In this case, the rest of the matters—concerning the rules [873d] about rites of purification and of burial—come within the cognizance of the god, and regarding these the next of kin must seek information from the interpreters and the laws dealing with these matters, and act in accordance with their instructions: but for those thus destroyed the tombs shall be, first, in an isolated position with not even one adjacent, and, secondly, they shall be buried in those borders of the twelve districts which are barren and nameless, without note, and with neither headstone nor name to indicate the tombs. If a mule or any other animal murder anyone,— [873e] except when they do it when taking part in a public competition,—the relatives shall prosecute the slayer for murder, and so many of the land-stewards as are appointed by the relatives shall decide the case, and the convicted beast they shall kill and cast out beyond the borders of the country. If a lifeless thing rob a man of life—except it be lightning or some bolt from heaven,—if it be anything else than these which kills someone, either through his falling against it or its falling upon him, then the relative shall set the nearest neighbor [874a] to pass judgment on it, thus making atonement on behalf of himself and all his kindred, and the thing convicted they shall cast beyond the borders, as was stated in respect of animals. If anyone be found evidently dead, and if his slayer be unknown and undiscoverable after careful search, then the warnings shall be the same as in the other cases, including the warning of death [874b] to the doer of the deed, and the prosecutor, when he has proved his claim, shall give public warning in the market-place to the slayer of So-and-so, convicted of murder, not to set foot in holy places nor anywhere in the country of the victim, since, if he appears and is known, he shall be put to death and be cast out from the country of the victim without burial. So let this stand as one section of our code of law dealing with murder. Thus far we have dealt with crimes of the kind described; in what follows we shall describe the cases and the circumstances under which the slayer will rightly be pronounced guiltless. If a man catch and slay a thief who is entering his house by night to steal goods, he shall be guiltless; [874c] and if a man in self-defence slay a footpad, he shall be guiltless. The man who forcibly violates a free woman or boy shall be slain with impunity by the person thus violently outraged, or by his father or brother or sons. And should a man discover his wedded wife being violated, if he kills the violator he shall be guiltless before the law. And if a man slay anyone when warding off death from his father (when he is doing no wrong), or from his mother or children or brethren, or from the mother of his own children, [874d] he shall be wholly guiltless. Thus let it be laid down by law respecting the nurture and training of living souls,—which when gained make life livable, but when missed, unlivable,—and respecting the punishments which ought to be imposed in cases of violent death. The regulations regarding the nurture and training of the body have been stated35: but what comes next, namely, violent actions, both voluntary and involuntary, done by one against another,—these we must define as clearly as we can, stating their character and number [874e] and what punishment each duly deserves: such enactments, as it seems, will rightly follow on the foregoing. Next in order after cases of death even the least competent of those who essay legislation would place cases of wounds and maiming. Wounds, just like murders, must be classed under several heads,—the involuntary, those done in passion, those done in fear, and all those that are voluntary and deliberate. Concerning all such cases we must make a prefatory pronouncement to this effect:—It is really necessary for men to make themselves laws and to live according to laws, or else to differ not at all from [875a] the most savage of beasts. The reason thereof is this,—that no man's nature is naturally able both to perceive what is of benefit to the civic life of men and, perceiving it, to be alike able and willing to practice what is best. For, in the first place, it is difficult to perceive that a true civic art necessarily cares for the public, not the private, interest,—for the public interest bind States together, whereas the private interest rends them asunder,—and to perceive also that it benefits both public and private interests alike when the public interest, rather than the private, is well enacted. [875b] And, secondly, even if a man fully grasps the truth of this as a principle of art, should he afterwards get control of the State and become an irresponsible autocrat, he would never prove able to abide by this view and to continue always fostering the public interest in the State as the object of first importance, to which the private interest is but secondary; rather, his mortal nature will always urge him on to grasping and self-interested action, irrationally avoiding pain [875c] and pursuing pleasure; both these objects it will prefer above justice and goodness, and by causing darkness within itself it will fill to the uttermost both itself and the whole State with all manner of evils. Yet if ever there should arise a man competent by nature and by a birthright of divine grace to assume such an office, he would have no need of rulers over him; for no law or ordinance is mightier than Knowledge,36 nor is it right for Reason to be subject or in thrall to anything, but to be lord of all things, [875d] if it is really true to its name and free in its inner nature. But at present such a nature exists nowhere at all, except in small degree; wherefore we must choose what is second best, namely, ordinance and law, which see and discern the general principle, but are unable to see every instance in detail. This declaration has been made for the sake of what follows: now we shall ordain what the man who has wounded, or in some way injured, another must suffer or pay. And here, of course, it is open to anyone, in regard to any case, to interrupt us, and quite properly, with the question—“What wounds has the man you speak of inflicted, [875e] and on whom, and how and when? For cases of wounding are countless in their variety, and they differ vastly from one another.” So it is impossible for us either to commit all these cases to the law courts for trial, or to commit none of them. Yet in regard to them all there is one point that we must of necessity commit for decision,—the question of fact, whether or not each of the alleged acts took place; [876a] and it is practically impossible for the lawgiver to refuse in all cases to commit to the courts the question regarding the proper penalty or fine to be inflicted on the culprit, and himself to pass laws respecting all such cases, great and small.

Clinias
What, then, is to be our next statement?

Athenian
This,—that some matters are to be committed to the courts, while others are not to be so committed, but enacted by the lawgiver.

Clinias
What are the matters to be enacted, and what are to be handed over to the law courts for decision?

Athenian
It will be best to make the following statement next,— [876b] that in a State where the courts are poor and dumb and decide their cases privily, secreting their own opinions, or (and this is a still more dangerous practice) when they make their decisions not silently but filled with tumult, like theaters, roaring out praise or blame of each speaker in turn,—then the whole State, as a rule, is faced with a difficult situation. To be compelled by some necessity to legislate for law courts of this kind is no happy task; but when one is so compelled, one must commit to them the right of fixing penalties [876c] only in a very few cases, dealing oneself with most cases by express legislation—if indeed one ever legislates at all for a State of that description. On the other hand, in a State where the courts have the best possible constitution, and the prospective judges are well-trained and tested most strictly, there it is right, and most fitting and proper, that we should commit to such judges for decision most of the questions regarding what penalties convicted criminals should suffer or pay. On the present occasion we may well be pardoned [876d] if we refrain from ordaining for them by law the points that are most important and most numerous, which even ill-educated judges could discern, and could assign to each offence the penalty merited by the wrong as suffered and committed; and seeing that the people for whom we are legislating are themselves likely, as we suppose, to become not the least capable of judges of such matters, we must commit most of them to them. None the less, that course which we frequently adopted37 when laying down our former laws, both by word and action— [876e] when we stated an outline and typical cases of punishments, and gave the judges examples, so as to prevent their ever overstepping the bounds of justice,—that course was a perfectly right one then, and now also we ought to adopt it, when we return again at last to the task of legislation. So let our written law concerning wounding run thus—If any man purposing of intent to kill a friendly person—save such as the law sends him against,—wounds him, but is unable to kill him, he that has thus purposed [877a] and dealt the wound does not deserve to be pitied; rather he is to be regarded exactly as a slayer, and must be compelled to submit to trial for murder; yet out of respect for his escape from sheer ill-fortune and for his Genius 38—who in pity alike for him and for the wounded man saved the wound of the one from proving fatal and the fortune and crime of the other from proving accursed,—in gratitude to this Genius, and in compliance therewith, the wounder shall be relieved of the death-penalty, but shall be deported for life [877b] to a neighboring State, enjoying the fruits of all his own possessions. If he has done damage to the wounded man, he shall pay for it in full to him that is damaged; and the damage shall be assessed by the court which decides the case, which court shall consist of those who would have tried the culprit for murder if the man had died of the wound he received. If in like manner, deliberately, a son wound his parents or a slave his master, death shall be the penalty; and if a brother wound in like manner a brother or sister, or a sister wound a brother or sister, [877c] and be convicted of wounding deliberately, death shall be the penalty. A wife that has wounded her husband, or a husband his wife, with intent to kill, shall be exiled for life: if they have sons or daughters who are still children, the guardians shall administer their property, and shall take charge of the children as orphans; but if they be already grown men, the offspring shall be compelled to support their exiled parent, and they shall possess his property. If any person overtaken by such a disaster be childless, the kinsfolk [877d] on both sides, both male and female, as far as cousins' children, shall meet together and appoint an heir for the house in question—the 5040th in the State,—taking counsel with the Law-wardens and priests; and they shall bear in mind this principle, that no house of the 5040 belongs as much, either by private or public right, to the occupier or to the whole of his kindred as it belongs to the State; [877e] and the State must needs keep its own houses as holy and happy as possible. Therefore, whenever any house is at once unhappy and unholy, in that the owner thereof leaves no children, but—being either unmarried or, though married, childless—dies, after having been convicted of willful murder or of some other offence against gods or citizens for which death is the penalty expressly laid down in the law; or else if any man who is without male issue be exiled for life;—then they shall be in duty bound, in the first place, to make purifications and expiations for this house, and, in the next place, the relatives, [878a] as we said just now, must meet together and in consultation with the Law-wardens consider what family there is in the State which is pre-eminent for goodness, and prosperous withal, and containing several children. Then from the family selected they shall adopt one child on behalf of the dead man's father and ancestors to be a son of theirs, and they shall name him after one of them, for the sake of the omen—with a prayer that in this wise he may prove to them a begetter of offspring, a hearth-master and a minister in holy and sacred things, and be blest with happier fortune than his (official) father; [878b] him they shall thus establish legally as lot-holder, and the offender they shall suffer to be nameless and childless and portionless, whenever such calamities overtake him. It is not the fact, as it would seem, that in the case of all objects boundary is contiguous with boundary; but where there is a neutral strip, which lies between the two boundaries, impinging on each, it will be midway between both. And that is precisely the description we gave39 of the passionate action as one which lies midway between involuntary and voluntary actions. So let the law stand thus respecting wounding committed in anger:—If a person be convicted, in the first place he shall pay [878c] double the damage, in case the wound prove to be curable, but four times the damage in case of incurable wounds. And if the wound be curable, but cause great shame and disgrace to the wounded party, the culprit shall pay three times the damage. And if ever a person, in wounding anyone, do damage to the State as well as to the victim, by rendering him incapable of helping his country against its enemies, such a person, in addition to the rest of the damages, shall pay also for the damage done to the State: in addition to his own military service, he shall do service also as a substitute for the incapacitated man, [878d] and carry out his military duties in his place, or, if he fails to do so, he shall by law be liable to prosecution for shirking military service, at the hands of anyone who pleases. The due proportion of the damage payable—whether two, three, or four times the actual amount—shall be fixed by the judges who have voted on the case. If a kinsman wound a kinsman in the same way as the person just mentioned, the members of his tribe and kin, both males and females, as far as cousins' children on both the male and female side, [878e] shall meet together and, after coming to a decision, shall hand over the case to the natural parents for assessment of the damage; and if the assessment be disputed, the kindred on the male side shall be authorized to make a binding assessment; and if they prove unable to do so, they shall refer the matter finally to the Law-wardens. When woundings of this kind are inflicted by children on parents, the judges shall be, of necessity, men over sixty years of age who have genuine, and not merely adopted, children of their own; and if a person be convicted, they shall assess the penalty—whether such a person ought to be put to death, or ought to suffer some other punishment still more severe, or possibly a little less severe: but none of the relatives of the culprit shall act as a judge, [879a] not even if he be of the full age stated in the law. If a slave wound a free man in rage, his owner shall hand over the slave to the wounded man to be dealt with just as he pleases; and if he do not hand over the slave, he shall himself make good the damage to the full. And if any man alleges that the deed was a trick concocted by the slave in collusion with the wounded party, he shall dispute the case: if he fail to win it, he shall pay three times the damage, but if he win, he shall hold liable for kidnapping the man who contrived the trick in collusion with the slave. [879b] Whoever wounds another involuntarily shall pay a single equivalent for the damage (since no lawgiver is able to control fortune), and the judges shall be those designated to act in cases of the wounding of parents by children; and they shall assess the due proportion of damage payable. All the cases we have now dealt with are of suffering due to violence, and the whole class of cases of “outrage” involve violence. Regarding such cases, the view that should be held by everyone,—man, woman and child,—is this, that the older is greatly more revered than the younger, both among the gods and among those men who propose to keep safe and happy. [879c] An outrage perpetrated by a younger against an older person is a shameful thing to see happening in a State, and a thing hateful to God: when a young man is beaten by an old man, it is meet that, in every case, he should quietly endure his anger, and thus store up honor for the time of his own old age. Therefore let the law stand thus:—Everyone shall reverence his elder both by deed and word; whosoever, man or woman, exceeds himself in age by twenty years he shall regard as a father or a mother, and he shall keep his hands off that person, and he shall ever refrain himself, for the sake of the gods of birth, from all the generation [879d] of those who are potentially his own bearers and begetters. So likewise he shall keep his hands off a Stranger, be he long resident or newly arrived; neither as aggressor nor in self-defence shall he venture at all to chastise such an one with blows. If he deems that a Stranger has shown outrageous audacity in beating him and needs correction, he shall seize the man and take him before the bench of the city-stewards (but refrain from beating him), so that he may flee the thought of [879e] ever daring to strike a native. And the city-stewards shall take over the Stranger and examine him—with due respect for the God of Strangers;40 and if he really appears to have beaten the native unjustly, they shall give the Stranger as many strokes of the scourge as he himself inflicted, and make him cease from his foreign forwardness; but if he has not acted unjustly, they shall threaten and reprove the man who arrested him, and dismiss them both. If a man of a certain age beat a man of his own age, or one above his own age who is childless,— [880a] whether it be a case of an old man beating an old man, or of a young man beating a young man,—the man attacked shall defend himself with bare hands, as nature dictates, and without a weapon. But if a man over forty ventures to fight, whether as aggressor or in self-defence, he shall be called a knave and a boor, and if he finds himself incurring a degrading sentence, he will be getting his deserts. Any man who lends a ready ear to such exhortations will prove easy to manage; but he that is intractable and pays no regard to the prelude will hearken readily [880b] to a law to this effect:—If anyone beats a person who is twenty or more years older than himself, in the first place, whoever comes upon them, if he be neither of equal age nor younger, shall try to separate them, or else be held to be a coward in the eyes of the law; and if he be of a like age with the man assaulted or still younger, he shall defend him who is wronged as he would a brother or a father or a still older progenitor. Further, he that dares to strike the older man in the way described shall be liable also to an action for outrage, and if he be convicted, [880c] he shall be imprisoned for not less than a year; and if the judges assess the penalty at a longer period, the period so assessed shall be binding on him. And if a Stranger or a resident alien beat a man older than himself by twenty or more years, the same law regarding help from bystanders shall be equally binding; and he that is cast in a suit of this kind, if he be a non-resident Stranger, shall be imprisoned for two years and fulfil this sentence; and he that is a resident alien and disobeys the laws shall be imprisoned for three years, unless the court assess his penalty at a longer period. [880d] And the man who is a bystander in any of these cases of assault, and who fails to give help as the law prescribes, shall be penalized by a fine of a mina, if he be a man of the highest property-class; of fifty drachmae, if he be of the second class; of thirty drachmae, if of the third; and of twenty drachmae, if of the fourth class. And the court for such cases shall consist of the generals, taxiarchs, phylarchs, and hipparchs. Laws, it would seem, are made partly [880e] for the sake of good men, to afford them instruction as to what manner of intercourse will best secure for them friendly association one with another, and partly also for the sake of those who have shunned education, and who, being of a stubborn nature, have had no softening treatment41 to prevent their taking to all manner of wickedness. It is because of these men that the laws which follow have to be stated,—laws which the lawgiver must enact of necessity, on their account, although wishing that the need for them may never arise. Whosoever shall dare to lay hands on father or mother, or their progenitors, and to use outrageous violence, fearing neither the wrath of the gods above nor that of the Avengers (as they are called) of the underworld, but scorning the ancient and worldwide traditions [881a] (thinking he knows what he knows not at all), and shall thus transgress the law,—for such a man there is needed some most severe deterrent. Death is not a most severe penalty; and the punishments we are told of in Hades for such offences, although more severe than death and described most truly, yet fail to prove any deterrent to souls such as these,—else we should never find cases of matricide and of impiously audacious assaults [881b] upon other progenitors. Consequently, the punishments inflicted upon these men here in their lifetime for crimes of this kind must, so far as possible, fall in no way short of the punishments in Hades. So the next pronouncement shall run thus:—Whosoever shall dare to beat his father or mother, or their fathers or mothers, if he be not afflicted with madness,—in the first place, the bystander shall give help, as in the former cases, and the resident Stranger who helps shall be invited to a first-row seat at the public games, but he who fails to help shall be banished from the country for life; [881c] and the non-resident Stranger shall receive praise if he helps, and blame if he does not help; and the slave who helps shall be made free, but if he fails to help he shall be beaten with 100 stripes of a scourge by the market-stewards, if the assault occur in the market, and if it occur in the city, but outside the market-place, the punishment shall be inflicted by the city-steward in residence, and if it occur in any country district, by the officers of the country-stewards. And the bystander who is a native—whether man, woman, or boy—shall in every case drive off the attacker, crying out against his impiety; [881d] and he that fails to drive him off shall be liable by law to the curse of Zeus, guardian-god of kinship and parentage. And if a man be convicted on a charge of outrageous assault upon parents, in the first place he shall be banished for life from the city to other parts of the country, and he shall keep away from all sacred places and if he fails to keep away, the country-stewards shall punish him with stripes, and in any other way they choose, and if he returns again he shall be punished with death. And if any free man voluntarily eat or drink or hold any similar intercourse with such an one, [881e] or even give him merely a greeting when he meets him, he shall not enter any holy place or the market or any part of the city until he be purified, but he shall regard himself as having incurred a share of contagious guilt; and should he disobey the law and illegally defile sacred things and the State, any magistrate who notices his case and fails to bring him up for trial shall have to face this omission as one of the heaviest charges against him at his audit. [882a] If it be a slave that strikes the free man—stranger or citizen—the bystander shall help, failing which he shall pay the penalty as fixed according to his assessment;42 and the bystanders together with the person assaulted [882b] shall bind the slave, and hand him over to the injured person, and he shall take charge of him and bind him in fetters, and give him as many stripes with the scourge as he pleases, provided that he does not spoil his value to the damage of his master, to whose ownership he shall hand him over according to law. The law shall stand thus:—Whosoever, being a slave, beats a free man without order of the magistrates,—him his owner shall take over in bonds from the person assaulted, and he shall not loose him until the slave have convinced the person assaulted that he deserves to live [882c] loosed from bonds. The same laws shall hold good for all such cases when both parties are women, or when the plaintiff is a woman and the defendant a man, or the plaintiff a man and the defendant a woman.

1 Plat. Laws 842e.

2 Cp. Plat. Laws 713b.

3 i.e. “hard-shelled”; seeds struck by a beast's horn were vulgarly supposed to become “horny” and unfit for cooking.

4 Cp. Plat. Laws 718b.

5 Cp. Plat. Laws 871a.

6 Cp. Plat. Laws 862d., Plat. Laws 934a.

7 Cp. Plat. Laws 745a; Plat. Laws 745b.

8 Cp. Plat. Laws 865e ff., Plat. Laws 877c ff.

9 Cp. Plat. Laws 767d.

10 But cp. Plat. Laws 859b ff., Plat. Laws 933e ff.

11 Plat. Laws 720a.

12 i.e. “sufferings.”

13 Plat. Laws 854b.

14 Plat. Laws 731c, Plat. Laws 734b: cp. Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1109b.30 ff.

15 In what follows, the Athenian, adopting the Socratic dictum that “vice is involuntary” (cp. Plat. Tim. 86e ff.), applies it to the special vice of injustice; but here his view is found to conflict with the popular view which distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary acts of injustice, and assigns to them different legal penalties. If this popular distinction is wrong, the lawgiver must either (a) simply apply the Socratic rule, and enact that all unjust acts are involuntary and deserve therefore equal penalties, or (b) draw a new distinction, which Ath. proceeds to do in 861 E ff. (see note ad loc.).

16 Literally, “to legislate down” (i.e. over-rule the popular objection to our Socratic view).

17 The proper distinction to be drawn (as Ath. proceeds to argue) is not that between voluntary and involuntary acts of injustice (since there are no such voluntary acts), but that between “injuries” (βλάβαι, “acts causing loss”) and “acts of injustice.” Injustice is really a quality of the agent rather than of the act, and (like all vice) is a form of un-reason: as the slave of un-reason, the unjust man is never a free agent. Hence the task of the lawgiver is two fold, (1) to make good the “injuries,” and (2) to cure the agent of his “injustice” by restoring the power of reason (“moral sense”) in his soul.

18 Cp. Plat. Laws 957e, Plat. Rep. 410a

19 Cp. Plat. Laws 864d., Plat. Laws 908e; Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1110b.18 ff.

20 Cp. Plat. Laws 732a, Plat. Phileb. 48e.

21 i.e. ignorance is not regarded as an active force (like passion or pleasure) capable of opposing reason and tyrannizing over the soul.

22 Cp.Plat. Phileb. 40d, Plat. Phileb. 40e.

23 Cp. Plat. Laws 863c, Plat. Laws 863d.

24 i.e. Plat. Laws 857b.

25 Cp. Plat. Laws 759c.

26 Cp. Plat. Laws 855c.

27 Such as the costs of the purification-rites.

28 Cp. Plat. Laws 697b, Plat. Laws 831c; Aristot. Pol. 1323a.25 ff; Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1098 b 13 ff.

29 Plat. Laws 831c; cp. Aristot. Pol. 1271a.17.

30 Cp. Plat. Laws 722d: whereas the law coerces, its “prelude” seeks to persuade.

31 This implies the (Pythagorean) doctrine of re-incarnation: cp. Plat. Laws 904c, Plat. Rep. 614e ff., Plat. Tim. 90e ff.

32 Cp. Plat. Laws 877c Plat. Laws 877d.

33 Plat. Laws 855c.

34 Plat. Laws 870d, Plat. Laws 870e.

35 Plat. Laws 813d.

36 Cp. Plat. Prot. 352b ff.; Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1145 b 24 ff.

37 Cp. Plat. Laws 770b, Plat. Laws 846b, Plat. Laws 846c.

38 For “daemon” in this sense of “tutelary Genius” or “Guardian-angel,” cp. Plat. Laws 732c, Plat. Rep. 619d ff, Plat. Rep. 619e.

39 Plat. Laws 867a.

40 For the respect due to Strangers as a religious duty, cp. Plat. Laws 729e.

41 Cp. Plat. Laws 853d.

42 Cp. Plat. Laws 880d.