Laws
ignorance, when possessed of power and strength, will be held by the
legislator to be the source of great and monstrous crimes, but when
attended with weakness, will only result in the errors of children
and old men; and these he will treat as errors, and will make laws
accordingly for those who commit them, which will be the mildest and
most merciful of all laws.
CLEINIAS: You are perfectly right.
ATHENIAN: We all of us remark of one man that he is superior to pleasure
and passion, and of another that he is inferior to them; and this is
true.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: But no one was ever yet heard to say that one of us is
superior and another inferior to ignorance.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: We are speaking of motives which incite men to the fulfilment
of their will; although an individual may be often drawn by them in
opposite directions at the same time.
CLEINIAS: Yes, often.
ATHENIAN: And now I can define to you clearly, and without ambiguity,
what I mean by the just and unjust, according to my notion of them:
When anger and fear, and pleasure and pain, and jealousies and desires,
tyrannize over the soul, whether they do any harm or not--I call all
this injustice. But when the opinion of the best, in whatever part
of human nature states or individuals may suppose that to dwell, has
dominion in the soul and orders the life of every man, even if it be
sometimes mistaken, yet what is done in accordance therewith, and the
principle in individuals which obeys this rule, and is best for the
whole life of man, is to be called just; although the hurt done by
mistake is thought by many to be involuntary injustice. Leaving the
question of names, about which we are not going to quarrel, and having
already delineated three sources of error, we may begin by recalling
them somewhat more vividly to our memory: One of them was of the painful
sort, which we denominate anger and fear.
CLEINIAS: Quite right.
ATHENIAN: There was a second consisting of pleasures and desires, and a
third of hopes, which aimed at true opinion about the best. The latter
being subdivided into three, we now get five sources of actions, and for
these five we will make laws of two kinds.
CLEINIAS: What are the two kinds?
ATHENIAN: There is one kind of actions done by violence and in the light
of day, and another kind of actions which are done in darkness and with
secret deceit, or sometimes both with violence and deceit; the laws
concerning these last ought to have a character of severity.
CLEINIAS: Naturally.
ATHENIAN: And now let us return from this digression and complete the
work of legislation. Laws have been already enacted by us concerning the
robbers of the Gods, and concerning traitors, and also concerning those
who corrupt the laws for the purpose of subverting the government. A
man may very likely commit some of these crimes, either in a state of
madness or when affected by disease, or under the influence of extreme
old age, or in a fit of childish wantonness, himself no better than
a child. And if this be made evident to the judges elected to try the
cause, on the appeal of the criminal or his advocate, and he be judged
to have been in this state when he committed the offence, he shall
simply pay for the hurt which he may have done to another; but he shall
be exempt from other penalties, unless he have slain some one, and have
on his hands the stain of blood. And in that case he shall go to another
land and country, and there dwell for a year; and if he return before
the expiration of the time which the law appoints, or even set his foot
at all on his native land, he shall be bound by the guardians of the law
in the public prison for two years, and then go free.
Having begun to speak of homicide, let us endeavour to lay down
laws concerning every different kind of homicide; and, first of all,
concerning violent and involuntary homicides. If any one in an athletic
contest, and at the public games, involuntarily kills a friend, and
he dies either at the time or afterwards of the blows which he has
received; or if the like misfortune happens to any one in war, or
military exercises, or mimic contests of which the magistrates enjoin
the practice, whether with or without arms, when he has been purified
according to the law brought from Delphi relating to these matters, he
shall be innocent. And so in the case of physicians: if their patient
dies against their will, they shall be held guiltless by the law. And if
one slay another with his own hand, but unintentionally, whether he be
unarmed or have some instrument or dart in his hand; or if he kill him
by administering food or drink, or by the application of fire or cold,
or by suffocating him, whether he do the deed by his own hand, or by the
agency of others, he shall be deemed the agent, and shall suffer one of
the following penalties: If he kill the slave of another in the belief
that he is his own, he shall bear the master of the dead man harmless
from loss, or shall pay a penalty of twice the value of the dead man,
which the judges shall assess; but purifications must be used greater
and more numerous than for those who committed homicide at the
games--what they are to be, the interpreters whom the God appoints shall
be authorised to declare. And if a man kills his own slave, when he has
been purified according to law, he shall be quit of the homicide. And
if a man kills a freeman unintentionally, he shall undergo the same
purification as he did who killed the slave. But let him not forget also
a tale of olden time, which is to this effect: He who has suffered a
violent end, when newly dead, if he has had the soul of a freeman in
life, is angry with the author of his death; and being himself full of
fear and panic by reason of his violent end, when he sees his murderer
walking about in his own accustomed haunts, he is stricken with terror
and becomes disordered, and this disorder of his, aided by the guilty
recollection of the other, is communicated by him with overwhelming
force to the murderer and his deeds. Wherefore also the murderer must
go out of the way of his victim for the entire period of a year, and not
himself be found in any spot which was familiar to him throughout the
country. And if the dead man be a stranger, the homicide shall be
kept from the country of the stranger during a like period. If any one
voluntarily obeys this law, the next of kin to the deceased, seeing all
that has happened, shall take pity on him, and make peace with him,
and show him all gentleness. But if any one is disobedient, and either
ventures to go to any of the temples and sacrifice unpurified, or will
not continue in exile during the appointed time, the next of kin to the
deceased shall proceed against him for murder; and if he be convicted,
every part of his punishment shall be doubled. And if the next of kin
do not proceed against the perpetrator of the crime, then the pollution
shall be deemed to fall upon his own head--the murdered man will fix the
guilt upon his kinsman, and he who has a mind to proceed against him may
compel him to be absent from his country during five years, according
to law. If a stranger unintentionally kill a stranger who is dwelling in
the city, he who likes shall prosecute the cause according to the same
rules. If he be a metic, let him be absent for a year, or if he be an
entire stranger, in addition to the purification, whether he have slain
a stranger, or a metic, or a citizen, he shall be banished for life
from the country which is in possession of our laws. And if he return
contrary to law, let the guardians of the law punish him with death; and
let them hand over his property, if he have any, to him who is next
of kin to the sufferer. And if he be wrecked, and driven on the coast
against his will, he shall take up his abode on the seashore, wetting
his feet in the sea, and watching for an opportunity of sailing; but
if he be brought by land, and is not his own master, let the magistrate
whom he first comes across in the city, release him and send him
unharmed over the border.
If any one slays a freeman with his own hand, and the deed be done
in passion, in the case of such actions we must begin by making a
distinction. For a deed is done from passion either when men suddenly,
and without intention to kill, cause the death of another by blows and
the like on a momentary impulse, and are sorry for the deed immediately
afterwards; or again, when after having been insulted in deed or word,
men pursue revenge, and kill a person intentionally, and are not sorry
for the act. And, therefore, we must assume that these homicides are of
two kinds, both of them arising from passion, which may be justly said
to be in a mean between the voluntary and involuntary; at the same time,
they are neither of them anything more than a likeness or shadow
of either. He who treasures up his anger, and avenges himself, not
immediately and at the moment, but with insidious design, and after an
interval, is like the voluntary; but he who does not treasure up his
anger, and takes vengeance on the instant, and without malice prepense,
approaches to the involuntary; and yet even he is not altogether
involuntary, but is only the image or shadow of the involuntary;
wherefore about homicides committed in hot blood, there is a difficulty
in determining whether in legislating we shall reckon them as voluntary
or as partly involuntary. The best and truest view is to regard them
respectively as likenesses only of the voluntary and involuntary, and
to distinguish them accordingly as they are done with or without
premeditation. And we should make the penalties heavier for those who
commit homicide with angry premeditation, and lighter for those who do
not premeditate, but smite upon the instant; for that which is like a
greater evil should be punished more severely, and that which is like
a less evil should be punished less severely: this shall be the rule of
our laws.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Let us proceed: If any one slays a freeman with his own hand,
and the deed be done in a moment of anger, and without premeditation,
let the offender suffer in other respects as the involuntary homicide
would have suffered, and also undergo an exile of two years, that he may
learn to school his passions. But he who slays another from passion, yet
with premeditation, shall in other respects suffer as the former; and
to this shall be added an exile of three instead of two years--his
punishment is to be longer because his passion is greater. The manner of
their return shall be on this wise: (and here the law has difficulty in
determining exactly; for in some cases the murderer who is judged by the
law to be the worse may really be the less cruel, and he who is judged
the less cruel may be really the worse, and may have executed the murder
in a more savage manner, whereas the other may have been gentler. But in
general the degrees of guilt will be such as we have described them. Of
all these things the guardians of the law must take cognizance): When a
homicide of either kind has completed his term of exile, the guardians
shall send twelve judges to the borders of the land; these during the
interval shall have informed themselves of the actions of the criminals,
and they shall judge respecting their pardon and reception; and the
homicides shall abide by their judgment. But if after they have returned
home, any one of them in a moment of anger repeats the deed, let him be
an exile, and return no more; or if he returns, let him suffer as the
stranger was to suffer in a similar case. He who kills his own slave
shall undergo a purification, but if he kills the slave of another in
anger, he shall pay twice the amount of the loss to his owner. And