Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
ATHENIAN: The lawsuits that come after this would naturally follow all the actions we've already covered, given the order of our legislation. As for what sorts of things should be grounds for lawsuits, some have been stated—those concerning farming and everything connected with it—but the most serious matters haven't yet been stated, not one by one, so that once each is named we can say what penalty it should carry and which judges should try it. We need to state these next in order. CLEINIAS: Correctly said. ATHENIAN: There's something shameful, in a way, about legislating at all for the things we're about to do now, in a city we say will be well governed and will achieve every kind of correctness in the pursuit of virtue—and yet in such a city to suppose that someone will grow up ready to share in the worst forms of depravity found elsewhere, so that we must legislate in advance, threatening anyone who turns out that way, and set laws against such people both to deter them and to punish them if they arise, as though they were bound to exist—that, as I said, is shameful in a way. But since we are not, like the ancient lawgivers who legislated for the sons of gods, the heroes, as the story now goes—since they themselves were born of gods and legislated for others likewise born of such stock—but we are men legislating today for the offspring of men, it's no cause for indignation to fear that one of our citizens might turn out like a hard-shelled seed, so tough by nature that it won't soften; just as such seeds resist fire, some men remain untouched even by laws as powerful as these. For this reason—though I won't say it gladly—I will state first the law concerning temple robbery, in case someone dares to do such a thing. We wouldn't wish, nor would we really expect, that a citizen properly raised would ever fall sick with this disease; but their household slaves, and foreigners, and slaves of foreigners, might well attempt many such things.
ATHENIAN: It's mainly for their sake, but also as a guard against the whole weakness of human nature, that I will state the law concerning temple robbers and all others who commit crimes of this kind, ones hard to cure or incurable. Preludes to these laws, in keeping with what we agreed earlier, should be spoken to everyone as briefly as possible. Someone might address the man like this, reasoning with him and comforting him at the same time—the man whom some evil desire, urging him by day and rousing him by night, drives toward robbing a temple: 'My friend, it isn't any human evil, nor a divine one, that now stirs you and drives you toward temple robbery. Rather, some frenzy has taken root in you, born of ancient and unpurified wrongs done by men long ago, a destructive force that circles round—one you must guard against with all your strength. And learn what that guarding is. Whenever such a notion falls upon you, seek out the rites of aversion; present yourself in supplication at the shrines of the evil-averting gods; seek the company of those among you who are reputed good, and listen to some of what they say while trying to say some of it yourself—that every man must honor what is fine and just. But flee the company of the wicked, without ever looking back. And if, doing this, your sickness eases somewhat, well and good; but if not, then consider a nobler death and free yourself from life.' While we sing these preludes for all who contemplate such unholy, city-destroying deeds, the law itself must stay silent for the man who obeys, but for the one who disobeys, after the prelude, it must sing out loudly: whoever is caught robbing a temple, if he is a slave or a foreigner, shall have his misfortune branded on his face and hands, be whipped as many times as the judges decide, and be cast out naked beyond the borders of the country; for perhaps, paying this penalty, he might become better through being disciplined. For no penalty imposed lawfully is meant to do harm—it achieves, roughly, one of two things: it makes the one who undergoes it either better, or less depraved. But if a citizen is ever found doing such a thing—having wronged the gods, or his parents, or the city in one of the great and unspeakable ways—the judge must consider him already incurable, reckoning what kind of upbringing and education he received from childhood and still could not restrain himself from the worst crimes.
ATHENIAN: For such a man, the penalty is death—the least of evils—and he will benefit others by becoming an example, disgraced and made to vanish beyond the borders of the country. But for his children and family, if they flee their father's ways, let there be honor and praise spoken of them, as people who escaped nobly and bravely from evil into good. It would not be fitting for the property of any such person to become public funds in a constitution where the citizens' allotments must remain the same and equal forever. As for fines, whenever someone is judged to deserve a monetary penalty for wrongdoing, he should pay it only out of whatever surplus exists beyond his fixed allotment, up to that limit, and no more; the Guardians of the Law, examining the registers for accuracy, must always report the clear facts to the judges, so that no allotment ever lies idle for lack of funds. But if someone is judged to deserve a larger fine than this, then—failing friends prepared to go bail for him and join in paying off his release—he should be punished with long and public imprisonment and certain forms of public disgrace; but no one should ever be totally disenfranchised, not even for a single offense, nor exiled beyond the borders. Rather, the penalty in such a case should be death, or imprisonment, or blows, or being made to sit or stand in some disfiguring position, or being stationed at temples at the far edges of the country, or paying fines as we described before. Judges for cases involving death shall be the Guardians of the Law together with a court chosen by merit from among the previous year's officials; the introduction of such cases, the summonses, and all such procedural matters should be the concern of the younger lawgivers, while it is our task to legislate the manner of voting. Let the vote be cast openly, but before that, let the judge sit facing the accuser and the accused, in order of seniority, arranged as near to us as possible, and let all the citizens who have the leisure attend eagerly to hear such trials. Let one speech be given, first by the accuser, then by the accused; after these speeches, the eldest should begin questioning, examining what has been said thoroughly, and after the eldest, all the rest in turn must go through whatever each of the two opposing parties said or failed to say that still needs clarifying; whoever has nothing further to ask should hand the questioning to another.
ATHENIAN: Whatever in the testimony seems relevant should be sealed, with all the judges marking it in writing, and placed upon the hearth; then, gathering again the next day at the same place, they should question again in the same way, going through the case and again marking what is said with seals. Having done this three times, and having taken sufficient evidence and witnesses, each judge should cast a sacred vote, having sworn before the hearth to judge, as far as possible, what is just and true, and so bring this kind of trial to its conclusion. After matters concerning the gods come those concerning the overthrow of the constitution. Whoever, by bringing men under the control of an individual, enslaves the laws and makes the city subject to political factions, and does all this by force, stirring up civil strife in violation of the law—that man must be regarded as the worst enemy of the whole city. But the man who takes no part in such things, yet holds the highest offices in the city, and either fails to notice these developments, or notices but through cowardice does not act to defend his homeland—such a citizen must be considered second in wickedness. Every man, however small his worth, should denounce to the officials, bringing to trial, anyone plotting a violent and unlawful overthrow of the government; the judges for these cases shall be the same as for temple robbers, and the whole trial shall proceed for them exactly as for those, with the vote for death carried by majority. In a word, let no disgrace or punishment fall upon the children for the father's crimes, except when a man's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather in succession have all incurred the death penalty; such men, keeping their own property—except for whatever exceeds what's needed to fully furnish an allotment—shall be sent away by the city to their own ancestral homeland and city. And for those citizens who happen to have more than one son, at least ten years old, ten of these sons shall be chosen by lot, whichever ones the father or the grandfather on the father's or mother's side names; the names of those chosen by lot shall be sent to Delphi, and whichever one the god selects shall be established as heir to the household of those who left, with better fortune. CLEINIAS: Well said.
ATHENIAN: Let there be a third law, common to both cases, concerning the judges who should try these cases and the manner of the trials, for whenever someone brings a charge of treason before a court; and let there likewise be one law concerning the staying and departure of the offenders' descendants from their homeland—one law covering these three: the traitor, the temple robber, and the man who destroys the city's laws by force. As for the thief—whether he steals something large or small—let there be one single law and one single penalty for all: whoever is convicted of such an offense must first pay back double the amount stolen, if he is convicted of this charge and has enough remaining property beyond his allotment to pay it; but if not, he must be imprisoned until he pays it off or persuades the one who won the judgment against him. And if someone is convicted of theft against the public, he shall be released from imprisonment once he has persuaded the city or paid back double the amount stolen. CLEINIAS: How can we possibly say, Stranger, that it makes no difference to the thief whether he takes something large or small, from sacred or ordinary property, and all the other differences that exist regarding theft of every kind—differences the lawgiver ought to follow, being so varied, rather than punishing them all with the same penalties? ATHENIAN: Excellently put, Cleinias; you've practically stopped me in my tracks just as I was rushing ahead, and reminded me of something I had thought of before—that the business of lawmaking has never yet, in any way, been properly worked out, at least as far as we can judge from what has just come up. How do we mean this, again? We weren't wrong earlier when we compared all those who are now being legislated for to slaves being doctored by slave-physicians. For one must understand this well: if one of those doctors who practice medicine purely by experience, without theory, ever came upon a free physician conversing with a free patient who is ill, using arguments that verge on philosophy, addressing the illness from its very root, working back through the whole nature of bodies, he would laugh quickly and heartily, and would say nothing different from what most so-called doctors always have ready to say on such occasions: 'You fool, you're not treating the sick man, you're practically educating him, as though he needed to become a doctor rather than get well!' CLEINIAS: Wouldn't he be right to say such a thing? ATHENIAN: Perhaps, if he also considered that whoever discusses laws the way we are doing now is educating the citizens rather than legislating for them. Wouldn't that too seem a fitting thing to say? CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: Well, it has turned out fortunately for us as things stand. CLEINIAS: In what way?
ATHENIAN: There's no requirement that we legislate right away — we could instead sit back and, considering the constitution as a whole, try to work out both what is best and what is most necessary, and how each would come about if it did. And in fact, right now, it seems, we're free to consider the best arrangement, or if we prefer, the most necessary one, when it comes to laws. So let's choose which we want. CLEINIAS: That's a laughable choice you're offering us, stranger — we'd be acting exactly like lawgivers under duress, as if forced by some great necessity to legislate this very moment, with no chance to wait until tomorrow. But we — thank god — have the freedom, like stonemasons or people beginning some other construction, to haul in material at random and then pick out whatever suits the structure we mean to build, and to do the choosing at our leisure. So let's take it that we're not builders working under compulsion, but people who still have time to lay some things out for consideration and to actually assemble others — so that it's fair to say that some of our laws are already being enacted, others merely being set out for review. ATHENIAN: Then, Cleinias, our survey of the laws would come about more naturally. So let's look, in god's name, at the following point about lawgivers. CLEINIAS: What point is that? ATHENIAN: There are writings, and speeches recorded in writing, by all sorts of other people in our cities — and there are also the writings and speeches of the lawgiver. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: So should we pay attention to the writings of others — poets and all who have set down their counsel about life for future memory, whether in verse or without it — but not pay attention to the writings of lawgivers? Or should we attend to those most of all? CLEINIAS: Far more, certainly. ATHENIAN: But shouldn't the lawgiver, alone among all who write, be the one to give counsel about what is fine, good, and just, teaching what these things are and how those who mean to be happy must pursue them? CLEINIAS: Of course he should. ATHENIAN: Then is it really more shameful for Homer and Tyrtaeus and the other poets to have written badly about life and its practices, and less shameful for Lycurgus and Solon and all who became lawgivers and wrote things down?
ATHENIAN: Or isn't it the case, rather, that of all the writings found in our cities, those concerning the laws ought to appear, once unrolled and examined, by far the finest and best, while the rest either follow their lead or, if they clash with them, look ridiculous? Shouldn't we think that the writing of laws for our cities ought to happen in the manner of a father and mother, full of love and good sense, and that what's written should look that way — rather than being drawn up like the decree of some tyrant or master, posted on walls with threats attached, and left at that? So let's consider now whether we should try to speak about the laws with that aim in mind — whether or not we succeed, at least showing the eagerness for it — and, going along this road, if we must suffer something for it, let's suffer it. May it turn out well, and, god willing, it will turn out this way. CLEINIAS: Well said — let's do as you say. ATHENIAN: Then we must first examine carefully, as we set out to do, the matter of temple-robbers and theft of every kind and wrongdoing generally, and we shouldn't be troubled if, in the middle of legislating, we've already laid down some things while still examining others — for we're in the process of becoming lawgivers, not yet lawgivers, though perhaps we may become such before long. So if it seems right to examine the matters I've mentioned in the way I've described, let's examine them. CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: Concerning fine and just things in general, then, let's try to see the following — where we now agree, and where we differ, both with ourselves and with each other, we who would surely claim, if nothing else, to differ from most people — and the many, too, differ among themselves. CLEINIAS: What differences among us do you have in mind? ATHENIAN: I'll try to explain. About justice as a whole, and just people, actions, and deeds, we all pretty much agree that all these things are fine — so that even if someone insisted that just people, even if they happened to be ugly in body, are, on the strength of their thoroughly just character, entirely beautiful in that respect, hardly anyone would think he was speaking out of tune. CLEINIAS: Isn't that correct? ATHENIAN: Perhaps. But let's see this: if everything that partakes of justice is fine, then surely what we experience as a result of it is included among 'all things' too, roughly on a par with what is done. CLEINIAS: What of it? ATHENIAN: Whatever is done, if it's just, shares in the fine to the same degree that it shares in the just. CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And what is suffered, then, insofar as it shares in what is just, would likewise be agreed to be fine to that same degree — wouldn't that follow without contradiction? CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: But if we agree that something is just, yet also agree that what is suffered in it is shameful, then the just and the fine will clash, since the just will be said to be utterly shameful. CLEINIAS: What do you mean by that? ATHENIAN: It's not hard to see. The laws we laid down only a little earlier would seem to prescribe things directly opposed to what's being said now. CLEINIAS: Which laws? ATHENIAN: We laid it down that the temple-robber, and the enemy of well-established laws, should justly die — and, about to establish a great many such laws, we held back once we saw that these are experiences unlimited in number and severity, and at the same time the most just of all experiences and, taken together, the most shameful. Don't the just and the fine, then, appear to us sometimes as wholly identical, and sometimes as complete opposites? CLEINIAS: It looks that way. ATHENIAN: So among the many, then, the fine and the just are spoken of in this disjointed, inconsistent way. CLEINIAS: So it appears, stranger. ATHENIAN: Well then, Cleinias, let's look again at how things stand with us on this very point of consistency. CLEINIAS: Consistency between which things? ATHENIAN: In our earlier discussions, I believe I said quite plainly — and if I didn't say it before, then take it as said now — CLEINIAS: Said what? ATHENIAN: That all wicked people are wicked against their will in every respect. And if that's so, a certain conclusion must necessarily follow from it. CLEINIAS: What conclusion do you mean? ATHENIAN: That the unjust person is wicked, and the wicked person is such against his will. And an unwilling act can never rightly be called willing — so to the person who holds injustice to be involuntary, the wrongdoer will appear to do wrong unwillingly. And I myself must now agree to this — yes, I maintain that all people do wrong unwillingly. Even if someone, out of stubbornness or love of honor, claims that people are unjust unwillingly but that many do wrong willingly — that's not my position, it's the other one. So how, then, could I reconcile this with my own arguments, if you asked me, Cleinias and Megillus: 'If this is really so, stranger, what do you advise us about legislating for the city of the Magnesians — should we legislate or not?' 'Of course we should,' I'll say.
ATHENIAN: Will you then distinguish for them between involuntary and voluntary wrongs, and set greater penalties for voluntary mistakes and wrongs, lesser ones for involuntary ones? Or will you treat them all equally, on the ground that there's no such thing as voluntary wrongdoing at all? CLEINIAS: That's a fair question, stranger — and what shall we do with what's just been said? ATHENIAN: Well asked. First, then, let's make this use of it. CLEINIAS: What use? ATHENIAN: Let's recall that a little earlier we rightly said there is a great deal of confusion and disagreement among us about matters of justice. Bearing that in mind, let's ask ourselves again — have we, in the face of this puzzle, neither worked our way out of it nor determined just how these things differ from one another, which every lawgiver there has ever been treats, in every city, as two kinds of wrongdoing — the voluntary and the involuntary — and legislates accordingly? Yet our own account, just given, as though delivered from a god, will simply say its piece and be done, without giving any reason for its correctness, and go on legislating in some fashion regardless? That can't be right. Rather, before legislating we must somehow show that these are indeed two distinct things, and how they differ, so that when someone imposes the penalty appropriate to each, everyone can follow the reasoning and judge, in some way at least, whether the penalty set is fitting or not. CLEINIAS: What you say seems right to us, stranger — we're bound to do one of two things: either stop saying that all wrongdoing is involuntary, or first draw the distinction and show that this claim is correct. ATHENIAN: Of these two options, the first — simply refusing to say it, holding as I do that it's the truth — is something I absolutely cannot accept, since that would be neither lawful nor pious. But in what way are these two things distinct, if not by differing as the involuntary and the voluntary? We must somehow find some other way to make this clear. CLEINIAS: Indeed, stranger, there's no other way for us to think about this at all. ATHENIAN: So be it. Come then — harms done by citizens to one another in their dealings and associations occur often, and both the voluntary and the involuntary are abundant among them. CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: But let no one, in treating all harms as injustices, suppose that the unjust acts within them are likewise split in two this way, some voluntary, some involuntary — for involuntary harms are, in total number and magnitude, no fewer than voluntary ones. Consider whether what I'm about to say makes any sense at all, or none whatsoever. I do not claim, Cleinias and Megillus, that if someone harms another without meaning to, unwillingly, he does wrong — even though unwillingly — and I won't legislate on that basis, treating this as involuntary wrongdoing; nor will I count such harm as injustice at all, whether great or small. Often, in fact, we'll say that someone who confers a benefit wrongly is himself doing wrong, if my view prevails. For, my friends, whether someone gives another something of value, or on the contrary takes it away, we shouldn't simply call the act just or unjust on that basis alone — rather, the lawgiver must look at whether, in character and just manner, a person benefits or harms someone else; that's what he must examine, keeping his eye on these two things, injustice and harm. What has been harmed, the laws must, so far as possible, restore to health — making good what has been lost, setting right what has fallen, healing what has been killed or wounded — and where compensation has settled accounts between the one who acted and the one who suffered for each instance of harm, the laws must always try to turn discord back into friendship. CLEINIAS: Well said, that. ATHENIAN: As for unjust harms, and gains too, when someone profits by wronging another — whatever of these can be cured, as being diseases of the soul, must be cured; and we must say that the cure for injustice tends in this direction. CLEINIAS: In which direction? ATHENIAN: So that whoever commits a wrong, great or small, the law will teach him and compel him, in the future, either never willingly to dare such a thing again, or to do so far less — in addition to paying compensation for the harm. And whether this is achieved through deeds or words, through pleasures or pains, through honors or dishonors, through fines of money or even gifts, or by whatever means at all one can bring someone to hate injustice and to love — or at least not hate — the nature of justice, this very thing is the work of the finest laws. But whomever the lawgiver perceives to be incurable in this respect, what penalty and law will he set for such people?
ATHENIAN: Knowing that for all such people it's better not to go on living, and that their departure from life would benefit everyone else doubly—by standing as an example that discourages wrongdoing, and by ridding the city of bad men—the lawgiver must, for cases like these, prescribe death as the penalty. There's simply no other way. CLEINIAS: What you say seems reasonable enough, put quite moderately, but I'd be glad to hear it laid out still more clearly—this distinction between wrongdoing and mere harm, and how the voluntary and involuntary are woven through it all. ATHENIAN: Then let me try to do as you ask. It's plain that you both say to one another, and hear said, at least this much about the soul: that one element in its nature—whether we call it an affection or a part—is spirit, an unruly and combative possession bred into us, which by its senseless force overturns much. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And pleasure, again, we don't call the same thing as spirit—we say it holds power from the opposite quarter, working through persuasion mixed with forceful deception to accomplish whatever its will desires. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And a third thing—someone would not be wrong to call ignorance the cause of wrongdoings. But the lawgiver would do better to split this into two: the simple form of it he should treat as the cause of light offenses, but the double form—when someone is mistaken not merely because gripped by ignorance but because of a reputation for wisdom, thinking he knows perfectly well what he in fact doesn't know at all—when this is joined with strength and power, he should set it down as the cause of great and graceless offenses; but when it's joined with weakness, he'll set it down as offenses belonging to children, and to their elders too, and will class them under laws as offenses, yet the gentlest of all and most deserving of pardon. CLEINIAS: That's reasonable. ATHENIAN: Now about pleasure and spirit we pretty much all say that one of them masters us and the other is mastered by us—and that's how it is. CLEINIAS: Absolutely so. ATHENIAN: But about ignorance, that one part of us masters it and another is mastered by it—we've never heard that said. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: And we say that all these forces drive each person, drawing him toward their own particular wish, often toward opposite directions at once. CLEINIAS: Very often indeed.
ATHENIAN: Now I could define for you clearly, without any further elaboration, what justice and injustice are, at least as I understand them. The tyranny in the soul exercised by spirit and fear and pleasure and pain and envy and desire—whether or not it does harm—I call injustice in every case. But the opinion of what is best, however a city or private individuals may come to believe it will turn out, if this opinion prevails and governs every man's soul, ordering it completely, even if it sometimes goes wrong—whatever is done under its rule, and whatever anyone submits to from that kind of authority, must be called just in every case, and the best thing for the whole of human life, even though many believe that the harm such a rule sometimes causes is involuntary injustice. We're not now concerned with quarreling over names, but since three kinds of wrongdoing have been shown to exist, we should first fix them more firmly in memory. There is, then, one kind consisting of pain, which we call spirit and fear. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: A second is pleasure and desire; and a third, distinct from these, is the pursuit of hopes and true opinion about what is best. And this third one, split in two, makes five kinds in all, as we're now saying—and for these five kinds we must lay down laws that differ from one another, falling under two broad classes. CLEINIAS: Which two? ATHENIAN: The kind done each time through violent and open action, and the kind done stealthily, in darkness and deceit, and sometimes a kind done through both together—and it's for this last that the harshest laws would be fitting, if they're to get their proper due. CLEINIAS: That seems likely. ATHENIAN: Let's go back, then, to the point from which we departed, and finish laying down the laws. We had established laws, I believe, concerning those who rob temples, and concerning traitors, and further concerning those who corrupt the laws with a view to overthrowing the existing constitution. Now someone might do one of these things while mad, or overwhelmed by disease or extreme old age, or acting like a child, in no way different from such people. If it becomes clear to the judges chosen for each case—whether the doer himself brings it up, or someone pleading on his behalf does—and he's judged to have broken the law while in such a condition, let him simply pay back, in full, whatever harm he's done, and be released from all other penalties—except if he has killed someone and so is not clean of hands from murder. In that case let him go live in exile in another place and country for a year; but if he returns before the time the law has set, or even so much as sets foot anywhere in his own country, let him be bound in public bonds by the guardians of the law for two years, and only then released from his bonds.
ATHENIAN: Now, concerning murder, let's try to carry on as we began and lay down laws covering every kind of it from start to finish, and first let's speak of the violent, involuntary sort. If someone, in a public contest or public games, unintentionally kills a friend—whether on the spot or later from the effects of blows—or does so in war, or likewise in training for war, when officials are conducting exercises either with bare bodies or with weapons in imitation of warfare, once he has undergone the purification that the ordinance fetched from Delphi prescribes for such cases, let him be clean. As for physicians in general, if a patient dies under their care against their will, let them be clean according to law. But if one man kills another with his own hand, unintentionally, whether with his own bare body, or with a tool, or a missile, or by giving drink or food, or by fire or exposure to storm, or by depriving him of air—whether by his own body or through the agency of others—in every such case he shall be treated as having killed with his own hand, and shall pay the following penalties. If he kills a slave, thinking he has merely dealt with his own property, he shall provide the dead man's master compensation for the harm and go unpunished, or else undergo a penalty double the slave's assessed value—the judges to determine that value—and he must use purifications greater and more numerous than those prescribed for killings in athletic contests, and the authorities over these purifications shall be whichever interpreters the god designates. But if it's his own slave he kills, once he has been purified he shall be released from the pollution of murder according to law. If someone unintentionally kills a free person, let him undergo the same purifications as one who has killed a slave, but let him not dishonor a certain old story handed down from ancient times. It is said that the man who was violently put to death, having lived with a free spirit, feels anger, newly dead as he is, at the one who did the deed, and being himself filled with fear and dread on account of his violent suffering, and seeing his own killer going about in the very haunts of his former life, he is terrified, and being disturbed himself he disturbs the doer in every way he can, with memory as his ally—both the victim himself and his deeds. Therefore it's necessary that the doer withdraw from the one who suffered, for the full round of the year's seasons, and vacate every familiar place throughout the whole of his native land.
ATHENIAN: And if the one who died was a foreigner, let the killer be barred likewise from the foreigner's own country for the same length of time. Now if someone willingly obeys this law—the nearest kinsman of the deceased, who oversees all these matters—let him grant forgiveness, and in making peace with the killer show himself altogether moderate. But if someone disobeys, and first of all, while still unclean, dares to go to the sacred places and offer sacrifice, and further is unwilling to complete the prescribed period of exile abroad, let the nearest kinsman of the deceased prosecute the killer for murder, and let all penalties be doubled for the one convicted. And if the nearest relative fails to prosecute for the suffering done, on the ground that the pollution has, as it were, come round upon himself, since the victim's suffering calls out for vindication, let whoever wishes prosecute the case instead, and compel the negligent kinsman by law to keep away from his own homeland for five years. And if a foreigner unintentionally kills a foreigner living in the city, let whoever wishes prosecute under the same laws; and if the killer is a resident alien, let him go into exile for a year, but if he is entirely a foreigner, then besides the purification, whether he has killed a foreigner or a resident alien or a citizen, let him be barred for his whole life from the country under the authority of these laws. If he returns in defiance of this law, the Law-Guardians are to punish him with death; and whatever property he owns they shall deliver to the nearest kin of the victim. But if he returns unintentionally—if he is shipwrecked onto the country by sea, let him pitch camp at the water's edge, wetting his feet, and watch for passage away; or if he's brought onto land by force by others, let the first official of the city who comes upon him release him and send him off unharmed across the border. But if someone kills a free person with his own hand, and the deed is done in anger, we must first distinguish this case in two ways. For a deed is done in anger both by those who, suddenly and without premeditation, kill someone on the spot with blows or something of the sort, the impulse arising in that very moment, and immediate regret follows the deed; and also in anger by those who, having been insulted by words or by dishonoring acts, pursue vengeance and later kill someone, meaning to kill, and feel no regret at all for what they've done.
ATHENIAN: So it seems we must set down murders as twofold, both of them arising, roughly speaking, from anger, and most rightly described as falling somewhere between the voluntary and the involuntary. Still, each is only an image of the other: the one who nurses his anger, and takes revenge not on the spot suddenly but later, with premeditation, resembles the voluntary killer; while the one who acts on his rage without restraint, immediately and without forethought, resembles the involuntary killer—yet even he is not wholly involuntary, but only an image of the involuntary. That's why murders committed in anger are hard to classify—whether the lawgiver should treat them as voluntary or as, in some sense, involuntary. The best and truest course is to set both down as images, but to divide them from each other by premeditation and lack of premeditation, and to legislate harsher penalties for those who kill with premeditation and out of anger, gentler ones for those who act without forethought and on the spot. For it's fitting to punish the greater evil more heavily, the lesser more lightly. This, then, is how our laws should proceed as well. CLEINIAS: Absolutely so. ATHENIAN: Let's go back, then, and say: if someone kills a free person with his own hand, and the deed was done in anger without premeditation, let him suffer, in other respects, what would be fitting for one who killed without anger, but let him necessarily go into exile for two years, thereby punishing his own anger. But whoever kills in anger, yet with premeditation, shall suffer, in other respects, according to the previous case, but shall go into exile for three years—the one who acted without premeditation went for two—being punished the longer for the greater intensity of his anger. As for their return, let it be arranged as follows. It's difficult to legislate this with precision, for sometimes the one the law ranks as the harsher case would actually be the gentler man, and the one ranked gentler would be harsher, and might commit the murder more savagely, while the other did it more gently; but for the most part things do turn out as we've just described. So the guardians of the law must judge all these matters, and when the time of exile has come for each of the two, they must send twelve of their number as judges to the borders of the country, who in that time shall have examined the conduct of the exiles still more closely, and shall serve as judges concerning their reinstatement and reception back,
ATHENIAN: And the two exiles must abide by whatever judgment such officials hand down. But if either of them, once returned, again gives way to anger and does the same thing, then let him go into exile and never come back; and if he does come back, let him suffer whatever the law prescribes for a foreigner who arrives in the country. Whoever kills his own slave must purify himself; but if he kills another man's slave out of rage, he must pay double the damage to the owner. And if any killer refuses to obey this law, and remains unpurified and pollutes the marketplace, the games, and the other sacred places, then anyone who wishes may bring both the killer and the relative of the dead man who permitted this into court, and compel them to pay double the fine in money and in every other penalty, and the man who brings the charge shall keep the payment for himself, as the law provides. If a slave in a fit of rage kills his own master, the relatives of the dead man may deal with the killer however they wish, except that they may in no way spare his life. But if some other slave kills a free man in anger, the owners must hand the slave over to the relatives of the dead man, and they must put him to death, though in whatever manner they choose. If — as happens, though rarely — a father or mother in a fit of rage kills a child of their own, whether with blows or through some other violence, the parent must undergo the same purifications as everyone else and live in exile for three years; and when the killers return, husband and wife must part from one another, never again to have children together, nor ever to share hearth or holy rites with the child whose brother or sister they took from them. Anyone who acts impiously in these matters and disobeys shall be liable to a charge of impiety brought by anyone who wishes. If a husband in anger kills his wedded wife, or a wife likewise kills her own husband, they must undergo the same purifications and complete three years of exile. When the one who has done such a thing returns, he must never join his own children in holy rites, nor ever take a place at their table; and if either the parent or the child disobeys, that one too shall be liable to a charge of impiety brought by anyone who wishes.
ATHENIAN: And if a brother in anger kills a brother or a sister, or a sister kills a brother or a sister, the same rules for purification and exile that were stated for parents and children must apply here as well — and those who have thereby deprived brothers of brothers, or parents of children, must never share a hearth with them nor a share in sacred rites; and if anyone disobeys, he would rightly be held liable, by due process, under the law just stated concerning impiety in these matters. But if someone should lose control of his anger to such a degree against his own parents that in a fit of rage he dares to kill one of them, then, if the dying parent freely releases the killer from the charge of murder before dying, the killer, once purified in the same way as those guilty of involuntary killing, and having done everything else that they do, shall be clean. But if the parent does not release him, the one who did such a thing shall be liable under many laws at once: he would be liable to the harshest penalties for assault, and likewise for impiety, and for sacrilege too, since he has plundered the very soul of the one who begot him — so that, if it were possible for the same man to die many times over, it would be perfectly just for the man who in anger killed his father or his mother to suffer many deaths. For this is the one man to whom, alone of all men, no law will grant the right to kill his father or mother in self-defense even though he is about to be killed by his own parents — the very ones who brought his nature into the light — but the law will require him to endure everything rather than do such a thing; so how, in that case, could this man justly meet with any penalty other than what the law prescribes? Let death, then, be fixed as the penalty for the man who kills his father or mother in anger. If a brother kills a brother in a factional clash, in the course of a fight, or in some similar circumstance, defending himself against one who struck the first blow, let him be clean, just as if he had killed an enemy in war; and the same holds if a citizen kills a citizen, or a foreigner a foreigner. And if a citizen kills a foreigner, or a foreigner a citizen, in self-defense, he shall likewise be clean on the same grounds. The same applies if a slave kills a slave. But if a slave kills a free man in self-defense, he shall be liable to the same laws as one who kills his father. And whatever has been said about a father releasing his killer from the charge of murder shall apply in exactly the same way to every such release, whenever anyone at all willingly releases anyone else, on the understanding that the killing was involuntary; the killer must then undergo purification, and the law shall require one year of exile. Let this, then, suffice as a moderate account of killings that are violent, involuntary, and done in anger. Next we must speak of killings that are deliberate and done out of complete injustice, arising from a plot laid because a man has been overcome by pleasures, desires, and envy. CLEINIAS: You are right.
ATHENIAN: Let us then, once more, speak first, as best we can, of how many such cases there might be. The greatest of them is desire, when it masters a soul made savage by longing; and this occurs above all where the craving that most people feel is strongest and most powerful — the passion, born of a bad nature and a bad upbringing, for insatiable and unlimited acquisition of wealth, which breeds countless such longings. And the cause of this bad upbringing is the reputation wealth wins, wrongly praised by both Greeks and non-Greeks alike; for by ranking it first among goods, when really it is third, they cripple both the generations to come and themselves. For the truest and finest thing that could be said about wealth in every city is that it exists for the sake of the body, and the body for the sake of the soul; so that, granted the goods for whose sake wealth naturally exists, it would rank third, after the excellence of the body and of the soul. This argument, then, would teach us that the man who is to be happy should not seek to be wealthy, but should seek to be wealthy justly and with self-control; and if this were so, murders requiring purification by further murder would not occur in cities. But as it is, this is one thing, and the greatest thing, that produces the gravest cases of deliberate murder, just as we said when we began this subject. The second cause is a soul disposed to love honor, which breeds envy, a dangerous companion to live with, most of all for the man who feels it himself, and second most for the best people in the city. And third, cowardly and unjust fears have brought about many murders, whenever someone has done or is doing things he wants no one to know about, and so, having no other way, he does away with those who might expose him, by killing them. Let this, then, stand as the prelude spoken concerning all these cases; and in addition to this, let us add the account that many who take such matters seriously in the mystery rites hear and are strongly persuaded by — that such deeds are punished in Hades, and that those who return again to this life must inevitably pay a penalty in keeping with nature: that the one who suffered must, by another's hand, meet the same fate the killer himself once inflicted, in that later life.
ATHENIAN: For a man who is persuaded and altogether fears such a punishment, from the prelude alone, there is no need to chant further the law that follows on it; but for the man who disobeys, let this law be set down in writing. Whoever with premeditation and unjustly kills, with his own hand, any member of his own community, shall first be barred from everything lawful: he shall pollute no sacred place, no marketplace, no harbor, no other public gathering, whether or not anyone forbids him to do so — for the law forbids it, and in forbidding it speaks, and will always be seen to speak, on behalf of the whole city. And whoever, though bound to prosecute or to proclaim that the killer be barred, fails to do so — being a relative of the dead man within the degree of first cousin, on either the father's or the mother's side — shall first take upon himself the pollution and the enmity of the gods, since the curse of the law drives that reputation onto him, and second, he shall be liable to prosecution by anyone who wishes to avenge the dead man. The one who wishes to avenge him must observe all the rules concerning the washings and whatever other customs the god hands down concerning these matters, and must make the proclamation, and then proceed to compel the guilty man to submit to the exaction of justice according to law. That these things must be accompanied by certain prayers and sacrifices to gods who are concerned with such matters, so that murders may cease in cities, is easy for a lawgiver to declare; but which gods they are, and what manner of bringing such cases to trial would be most correctly in accord with the divine, the Guardians of the Law must determine, together with the interpreters, the seers, and the god, and it is they who shall bring these cases to trial. The judges of these cases shall be the same men who were said to have full authority to judge those who plunder temples. The man found guilty shall pay the penalty of death, and burial anywhere in his victim's land shall be refused him, because of the shamelessness heaped on top of his impiety. If he flees and refuses to stand trial, let him be banished forever; and if he ever sets foot anywhere in the territory of the murdered man, the first relative of the dead man, or any citizen, who comes upon him may kill him with impunity, or may bind him and hand him over to the officials who judged the case, to be put to death. And the man bringing the charge must, at the same time, require the accused to provide sureties; the accused must furnish guarantors, judged sufficient by the officials who preside over such cases — three sufficient guarantors pledging to produce him for trial. And if a man is unwilling, or unable, to provide such guarantors, the officials shall take him into custody, keep him bound, and produce him for the trial.
ATHENIAN: If a man does not kill with his own hand, but plots the death of another, and by his wish and his scheming is responsible for the killing, and his soul remains impure of the murder while he lives on in the city, the same trials shall apply to him in these matters as well, except for the matter of bail; but if he is convicted, he shall be permitted burial in his own land, while everything else concerning him shall proceed in the same way as stated before. The same rules shall hold between foreigners and foreigners, between citizens and foreigners toward one another, and between slaves and slaves, in matters both of killing with one's own hand and of plotting, except for the matter of bail; that, as has been said, applies to those who kill with their own hand — and the man who makes the proclamation of murder must also require bail from these as well. If a slave willingly kills a free man, whether with his own hand or by plotting, and is convicted, the public executioner of the city shall lead him to the tomb of the dead man, from a spot where he can see the grave, and shall flog him with as many strokes as the man who won the case orders, and if the murderer still lives after the beating, put him to death. If a man puts a blameless slave to death, out of fear that the slave might reveal some shameful and wicked deeds of his own, or for some other such reason, then just as he would be liable to the penalties for murder had he killed a citizen, so too, when such a slave dies in this way, he shall be liable in the same manner. Now if there should be cases — as there must be laws even for matters that are dreadful and in no way welcome to legislate about, though it is impossible not to legislate for them — of killing kinsmen with one's own hand or through a plot, willingly and altogether unjustly, cases which mostly occur in cities badly governed and badly raised, though such a thing could happen even in a place where one would least expect it, then it is right to repeat again the account stated a little earlier, in the hope that anyone who hears us might be more willing to hold back, of his own accord, from murders of this kind, which are the most unholy of all. For the story, or account, or whatever one ought to call it, has been clearly told by priests of old: that Justice, the avenger of the blood of kinsmen, keeps watch, employing the very law just now stated, and has ordained that whoever does such a thing must of necessity suffer the very same thing he did — that if a man ever killed his father, he must in time suffer the same violence himself at the hands of his own children; and if he killed his mother, he must of necessity come to share in a female nature, and, once born as a woman, must in a later time lose his own life at the hands of those he bore.
ATHENIAN: For once the shared blood has been polluted, there is no other purifying it — the pollution refuses to wash clean until the soul that did the deed pays back murder for like murder, and by that payment calms the wrath of the whole kindred and lays it to rest. A person should be held back from such acts by fear of these penalties from the gods. But if some wretched calamity should so seize a man that he dares, deliberately and with forethought, to rob his father or mother or brothers or children of their soul, here is how the law laid down by our mortal lawgiver deals with such cases. The proclamations barring him from the customary places, and the same sworn guarantees, apply as were stated for the earlier cases. If anyone is convicted of such a murder, having killed one of these kin, the officers and attendants of the court, once they have put him to death, shall throw his naked body out at an appointed crossroads outside the city, and each of the magistrates, acting for the entire city, shall carry a stone and hurl it at the head of the corpse, thereby cleansing all the city of its defilement; after that they shall carry it to the borders of the territory and cast it out unburied, as the law commands. But what should be done to a man who kills the one closest and dearest of all to him — I mean one who kills himself, doing violence to his allotted share of fate, when no judgment of the city has ordered it and no unavoidable and agonizing misfortune has forced it upon him, nor has he fallen into some disgrace beyond bearing or beyond living with, but simply through laziness and a coward's want of manhood inflicts this unjust sentence on himself? For such a man, the god knows what customary rites should govern the purifications and the burial, and his nearest kin must inquire of the interpreters and of the laws that concern these matters and act as instructed. But the graves of those destroyed in this way shall, first, be solitary, with no one else buried alongside; and further, they shall be buried without honor in the waste, unmarked plots at the borders of the twelve districts, with neither headstone nor name to mark the grave. And if a beast of burden or some other animal kills a person — except in the case of something that happens to a contestant in a public athletic contest — the relatives of the dead shall prosecute the killing, and the rural wardens whom the relative appoints, in whatever number he directs, shall judge the case; and whatever animal is convicted shall be killed and thrown out beyond the borders of the territory.
ATHENIAN: And if some lifeless thing deprives a person of life — except for a thunderbolt or some other such missile sent by a god — but any other thing that kills someone by falling on him or by his falling upon it, the nearest relative shall appoint one of the neighbors as judge over it, thereby purging the pollution on behalf of himself and the whole kindred, and the guilty object shall be cast out beyond the border, exactly as was said of the class of animals. And if a person is found dead, but the killer is unknown and cannot be found despite a diligent search, the same proclamations shall be made as in the other cases, and the killing shall be publicly proclaimed against the doer, and the one who brings the charge shall have it announced in the marketplace that whoever killed so-and-so, being convicted of the murder, may not set foot in the temples nor anywhere in the territory of the victim, on the understanding that if he is discovered and identified he shall be put to death and his body thrown out unburied beyond the territory of the victim. Let this, then, stand as a single binding law concerning murder. So much, then, for these matters up to this point. Now, the conditions under which a killer might rightly be considered clean of guilt shall be these. If a man catches a thief entering his house at night to steal his property, and kills him, he is clean. And if he kills a robber in defending himself against him, he is clean. And if anyone forces himself sexually on a free woman or a free child, he may be killed with impunity by the one who was violated, or by the father or brothers or sons of the victim. And if a husband comes upon his wedded wife being raped and kills the rapist, he is clean before the law. And if anyone comes to the aid of his father when the father's life is in danger, and the father is doing nothing impious, and kills someone in the process — or comes to the aid of his mother, or his children, or his brothers, or the mother of his children — he shall in every case be clean. So much, then, stands legislated concerning how the living soul is to be reared and trained — that soul for whom success here makes life worth living, and failure the reverse — and concerning the penalties that violent deaths require. What concerns the nurture and education of bodies has already been said; what comes next, we must, as far as we are able, distinguish and define — namely the violent acts committed by one person against another, whether unintentional or intentional, how many kinds there are and what they are, and what penalties, once applied to each, would be fitting. It seems that it is these matters which, after the foregoing, ought properly to be legislated next. Wounds, and the maiming that results from wounds, even the most casual person turning his mind to lawmaking would rank second only to killings. Wounds, then, must be divided just as killings were divided — some unintentional, some done in anger, some out of fear, and some that occur intentionally and with forethought.
ATHENIAN: Something of this sort must be said as a preface to all such matters — that it is necessary for human beings to lay down laws and live according to laws, or else be no different from the wildest of beasts. And the reason is this: no man's nature is by itself adequate both to recognize what is beneficial for human beings in the running of a city, and, having recognized it, to possess at every moment both the power and the willingness to act on the best course. For, in the first place, it is hard to recognize that the true political craft must concern itself not with the private but with the common good — for the common good binds cities together, while the private good tears them apart — and that it benefits both the common and the private interest, of the two, when the common good is set in order well rather than the private. And second, even if a man should grasp with sufficient mastery that this is how things naturally stand, and should then rule a city with power unaccountable and absolute, he could never remain steadfast in this conviction throughout his life, governing the city with the common good as his guide and the private good following after it; rather, his mortal nature will always drive him toward greed and self-interest, fleeing pain without reason and pursuing pleasure, setting both of these ahead of what is more just and better, and, breeding darkness within itself, will in the end fill both itself and the whole city with every evil. Yet if ever a man were born with a nature capable enough, by some divine allotment, to take on this understanding, he would need no laws to rule over him; for no law or ordinance is mightier than knowledge, nor is it right for reason to be subject to anything or a slave to anything, but rather to rule over everything — if indeed it is truly and by nature free. But as things stand, such a nature exists nowhere at all, or only in some small degree; and that is why we must choose the second-best thing, order and law, which see and look to what holds for the most part, but are unable to grasp every single case. This has been said for the following reason: we are now about to determine what a person who has wounded another, or done some other harm, ought to suffer or to pay. And it is easy for anyone, in any case, to raise the fair objection: what do you mean — wounded whom, in what way, and when? For there are countless such particulars, and they differ enormously from one another. To hand all of this over to the courts to decide, or none of it, is equally impossible.
ATHENIAN: There is one thing which must, in every case, necessarily be entrusted to the courts to decide — whether each of these things happened or did not happen. But to leave to them entirely the question of what penalty ought to be imposed and what an offender in these matters ought to suffer, without the lawgiver himself legislating on all points, great and small, is nearly impossible. CLEINIAS: What, then, is the argument that follows from this? ATHENIAN: This: that some matters must be entrusted to the courts, and others must not, but must instead be legislated by the lawgiver himself. CLEINIAS: Then which matters must be legislated, and which handed over to the courts to judge? ATHENIAN: The most correct thing to say after this would be as follows: in a city where the courts are poor and voiceless, hiding their own opinions and deciding cases behind closed doors — or, worse still, when they judge cases not even in silence but in courts full of uproar, like theaters, shouting their applause and their condemnation of each speaker in turn — a grievous condition tends to afflict the whole city. To legislate for courts of this sort, if one is forced by some necessity to do so, is no happy business, but if one is nonetheless compelled to it, one should entrust to them the setting of penalties only in the very smallest matters, and legislate most things oneself in explicit detail, in case anyone should ever have to legislate for such a constitution. But in whatever city the courts are established as rightly as possible, and those who are to serve as judges have been well brought up and thoroughly tested and examined, there it is right and good and proper to entrust much of the judging to such judges — deciding what those convicted ought to suffer or pay. So it is no reproach to us now that we do not legislate for our judges on the greatest and most numerous matters, things which even judges of rather poorer education could work out for themselves and attach to each offense the penalty fitting the suffering and the deed. Since we believe that those for whom we are legislating will prove to be judges especially competent in such matters, most things must indeed be entrusted to them. All the same, as we have often said and done in our earlier legislation, it is right — having stated the outline and the general patterns of penalties — to give the judges models, so that they may never step outside the bounds of justice; and that was the most correct approach then, and this same thing must now be done, returning once more to the laws themselves.
ATHENIAN: Let our statute on wounding, then, be laid down as follows. If anyone, intending in his purpose to kill a kinsman — except in the cases the law permits — inflicts a wound yet proves unable to accomplish the killing, the one who so intended and so wounded does not deserve pity, nor should he be shown any leniency; rather, he must be forced to stand trial for murder exactly as if he had killed. But out of respect for the fortune that was not wholly evil, and for the guardian spirit who took pity on both him and the wounded man and turned aside from them the fate that would have made the wound incurable for the one and the sentence and calamity accursed for the other — out of gratitude to this spirit, and not opposing it, we should spare the wounder's life, but let him be exiled for life to a neighboring city, enjoying the full use of his own property. And if he did damage to the wounded man, he must pay compensation to the injured party, the amount to be assessed by whichever court would have judged the case had the man died of the blow, the same court that would have tried it as murder. If a child wounds his parents, or a slave his master, in the same deliberate way, the penalty shall be death; and if a brother wounds a brother or a sister, or a sister a brother or a sister, in the same way, and is convicted of wounding with forethought, the penalty shall be death. But a wife who wounds her own husband, plotting to kill him, or a husband his wife, shall go into permanent exile. As for their property, if they still have sons or daughters who are children, the guardians shall administer it and take care of the children as of orphans; but if the children are grown men, the exile shall not be under any obligation to be supported by his offspring, and the offspring shall keep the property themselves. And if anyone who falls into such a misfortune is childless, the relatives, gathering together as far as the children of first cousins on both sides — both through the men and through the women — of the exile, shall, after taking counsel with the priests and with the law-guardians, appoint an heir to that household, to be the five-thousand-and-fortieth household of the city, reasoning in this manner: that none of the five thousand and forty households belongs to the man living in it, or even to his whole family line, so much as it belongs to the city, both publicly and privately; for the city ought, as far as possible, to keep its own households as holy and as prosperous as it can.
ATHENIAN: Now when a household is struck by misfortune and impiety at once, so that its owner leaves no children behind — dying unmarried, or married but childless, convicted of willful murder or of some other crime against gods or citizens for which the law explicitly prescribes death, or going into permanent exile without children — that household must first be purified and ritually cleansed, as the law requires. Then the relatives, together with the Guardians of the Laws, must meet, as we said just now, and look through the city for whichever family is most highly regarded for virtue and at the same time fortunate, one in which there are several sons. From that family they should adopt one son for the dead man's father and for the ancestors above him, naming him after them for the sake of the family name, and pray that he prove, as their begetter, hearth-keeper, and tender of their rites both sacred and secular, luckier than the father was. Having made this prayer, they should install him as heir according to law, and let the wrongdoer lie nameless, childless, and without a share, whenever such disasters overtake him. Not everything that exists, it seems, has a boundary that touches directly on another's boundary; rather, where there is a borderland between two things, that middle ground touches each of the two first and lies between them both. And indeed, among involuntary and voluntary acts, we said that what is done in anger is just such a middle thing. So let this be the rule for wounds inflicted in anger: if a man is convicted, he must first pay double the damage, if the wound proves curable, and quadruple if it proves incurable. But if the wound is curable yet brings some great and shameful disgrace upon the one wounded, he must pay four times the damage. And whenever a man's wounding of another harms not only the victim but the city as well, by making him unable to help his homeland against enemies, the wrongdoer must, besides his other penalties, pay the city for that harm too — for in addition to his own campaigns he must serve on campaign in place of the man now unable to serve, and take up that man's post in battle; or, failing to do this, he becomes liable to prosecution, according to law, by anyone who wishes to bring charges of draft evasion. As for the value of the harm — whether it comes to double, triple, or quadruple — the jurors who convict him shall set the amount. And if one member of a family wounds another of the same family in this same way, the kinsmen and relatives on both the women's and the men's side, down to the children of cousins, men and women together, shall meet, judge the case, and hand the offender over to his natural parents for punishment. If the assessment of the penalty is disputed, the male relatives shall have final authority over it; and if they cannot agree, the matter shall finally be left to the Guardians of the Laws.
ATHENIAN: In cases where children wound parents in this way, the judges must be men over sixty years old who have genuine children of their own, not adopted ones. If someone is convicted, they must decide whether he ought to die, or suffer something even worse than death, or something not much lighter. None of the offender's own relatives may serve as judge, even if he has reached the age the law requires. If a slave wounds a free man in anger, his owner must hand the slave over to the wounded man to deal with as he pleases; if the owner does not hand him over, he must himself make good the damage. If the owner claims that the slave and the wounded man conspired together to fake the incident, he may contest the charge; if he fails to prove this, he must pay triple the damages, but if he succeeds, the one who devised the scheme, together with the slave, becomes liable to a charge of kidnapping. Whoever wounds another unintentionally must pay simple damages — for no lawgiver is able to legislate against chance — and jurisdiction shall belong to the same court that was named for children's offenses against parents, and they shall assess the value of the harm. All the wrongs we have described so far involve violence, and every form of assault is likewise violent. Every man, woman, and child must always bear this in mind concerning such matters: that age is honored far more than youth, both among gods and among men who are to be safe and happy. It is a shameful thing, hateful to the gods, for an assault upon an older person to occur in the city at the hands of someone younger. It is fitting for any young man, if struck by an old man, to bear the anger patiently, storing up this honor for himself against his own old age. So let it be thus: let every one of us revere our elders in deed and word. Let a man regard anyone twenty years older than himself, male or female, with the same caution he would show a father or mother, and for the sake of the gods of birth let him always keep his hands off anyone of an age still capable of begetting or bearing children. In the same way he must restrain himself from striking a foreigner, whether long resident or newly arrived; whether starting the quarrel or defending himself, let him never dare to correct such a person with blows. But if he thinks some foreigner deserves punishment for behaving insolently and violently toward him, let him seize the man and bring him before the city-wardens, but keep himself from striking him, so that the local citizen may be kept far from ever daring to strike a foreigner. The city-wardens, once they have taken charge of the case and examined it — being mindful of the god of foreigners — shall, if it appears the foreigner struck the citizen unjustly, give the foreigner as many lashes with the whip as he himself gave, and so put a stop to his foreign insolence. But if he is found not to have done wrong, the accuser shall receive threats and reproaches from them, and both men shall be released.
ATHENIAN: If a man of equal age, or one who has no children, strikes another equal in age — an old man an old man, or a young man a young man — the one struck may defend himself naturally, with bare hands and without a weapon. But if a man over forty years old dares to fight with anyone, whether as the aggressor or in self-defense, he shall be called boorish, ill-bred, and slavish, and it will be fitting for him to receive a humiliating penalty. If a man is persuaded by such warnings, he will prove easy to guide; but the man who is hard to persuade and pays no heed to the preamble should readily accept the following law: if anyone strikes a person twenty years older than himself or more, then first, whoever happens to be present — provided he is neither the same age nor younger than the combatants — must separate them, or be counted a coward under the law. But if he is the same age as the one struck, or younger, he must defend the wronged party as he would a brother, a father, or someone still older. Further, the man who has dared to strike his elder, as described, must stand trial for assault, and if he is convicted, he must be imprisoned for not less than a year; but if the jurors assess a longer term, the time they set shall stand. If a foreigner or a resident alien strikes a person twenty years older than himself or more, the same law shall apply with the same force regarding those present who must help; and whoever loses such a case — if he is a foreigner not permanently settled — must serve two years in prison in payment for this offense, while a resident alien who disobeys the laws in this way shall be confined in prison for three years, or for whatever longer period the court may fix. Anyone present at any such incident who fails to give the help the law requires must also be fined: the man of the highest property class a mina, the second class fifty drachmas, the third thirty, and the fourth twenty. The court for such cases shall consist of the generals, the company commanders, the tribal commanders, and the cavalry commanders. Laws, it seems, are made for the sake of decent people, to teach them how they may live together in friendship; but they are also made for those who have escaped education, whose natures are unyielding and untouched by any softening, so that they rush headlong into every kind of wickedness. It is for the sake of these people that the arguments about to be given will be spoken; it is for them that the lawgiver will necessarily legislate, though he wishes there were never any need to use such laws at all.
ATHENIAN: Whoever, in an act of outrage, dares to raise a violent hand against the father or the mother who bore him, or against their parents in turn, without fearing the wrath of the gods above nor the punishments spoken of beneath the earth, but instead — as though he knew what in truth he does not know at all — scorns the ancient and universally attested traditions and breaks the law, needs the harshest possible deterrent. Death is not the harshest thing; the sufferings said to await such people in Hades are harsher still than death, yet, however truly they are described, they accomplish nothing to deter souls of this kind — otherwise there would never arise men bold enough to strike their mothers or commit such unholy assaults against their other parents. It follows that the punishments inflicted here in life for such acts must, as far as possible, fall no short of those in Hades. Let it therefore be declared as follows: whoever, not gripped by madness, dares to strike either parent, or the father or the mother of either of them, must first be met with help from whoever happens to be present, just as in the earlier cases; and the resident alien or foreigner who helps shall be invited to a seat of honor at the public games, while one who fails to help shall be banished from the country forever. The citizen who is not a resident alien shall be praised for helping, and blamed for failing to help. A slave who helps shall be set free, but one who fails to help shall receive a hundred lashes of the whip — administered by the market officials if the incident occurs in the marketplace, by the city-wardens if it occurs elsewhere within the town and the offender is a resident there, and by the officers of the country-wardens if it occurs somewhere out in the countryside. If the bystander happens to be a native — whether child, man, or woman — everyone must come to the defense, denouncing the offender as unholy; anyone who fails to help shall be subject to the curse of Zeus, god of kindred and of fathers, according to law. If a man is convicted of assaulting his parents, he must first go into permanent exile from the city into the rest of the country, and be barred from all the sacred places; and if he does not stay away, the country-wardens shall punish him with blows and however else they wish, and if he returns, he shall be put to death. If any free person eats or drinks with such a man, or shares in any other such fellowship with him, or even merely meets and willingly touches him, he must not enter any temple, nor the marketplace, nor the city at all, until he has been purified, considering that he has shared in a cursed fate.
ATHENIAN: If, in defiance of the law, someone pollutes the sacred places and the city unlawfully, then whichever official becomes aware of it and fails to bring the offender to justice shall have this counted as one of the gravest charges against him at his official review. And if a slave strikes a free person — whether foreigner or citizen — whoever happens to be present must help, or else pay the prescribed fine according to his property class; those present, together with the one struck, must bind the slave and hand him over to the injured party, who, taking him, shall bind him in chains and give him as many lashes as he wishes, without harming his master's property thereby, and then hand him back to his owner to keep, according to law. Let the law be this: whoever, being a slave, strikes a free man without the order of the magistrates — his owner, once he receives him bound from the man who was struck, shall keep him in bonds until the slave convinces the man he struck that he has earned the right to live unshackled. The same rules shall hold for women toward one another in all such matters, and for women toward men and men toward women.