Laws
if any homicide is disobedient to the law, and without purification
pollutes the agora, or the games, or the temples, he who pleases may
bring to trial the next of kin to the dead man for permitting him, and
the murderer with him, and may compel the one to exact and the other to
suffer a double amount of fines and purifications; and the accuser shall
himself receive the fine in accordance with the law. If a slave in a fit
of passion kills his master, the kindred of the deceased man may do with
the murderer (provided only they do not spare his life) whatever they
please, and they will be pure; or if he kills a freeman, who is not
his master, the owner shall give up the slave to the relatives of the
deceased, and they shall be under an obligation to put him to death,
but this may be done in any manner which they please. And if (which is
a rare occurrence, but does sometimes happen) a father or a mother in
a moment of passion slays a son or daughter by blows, or some other
violence, the slayer shall undergo the same purification as in other
cases, and be exiled during three years; but when the exile returns the
wife shall separate from the husband, and the husband from the wife, and
they shall never afterwards beget children together, or live under the
same roof, or partake of the same sacred rites with those whom they
have deprived of a child or of a brother. And he who is impious and
disobedient in such a case shall be brought to trial for impiety by any
one who pleases. If in a fit of anger a husband kills his wedded wife,
or the wife her husband, the slayer shall undergo the same purification,
and the term of exile shall be three years. And when he who has
committed any such crime returns, let him have no communication in
sacred rites with his children, neither let him sit at the same table
with them, and the father or son who disobeys shall be liable to be
brought to trial for impiety by any one who pleases. If a brother or
a sister in a fit of passion kills a brother or a sister, they shall
undergo purification and exile, as was the case with parents who killed
their offspring: they shall not come under the same roof, or share in
the sacred rites of those whom they have deprived of their brethren, or
of their children. And he who is disobedient shall be justly liable to
the law concerning impiety, which relates to these matters. If any one
is so violent in his passion against his parents, that in the madness
of his anger he dares to kill one of them, if the murdered person before
dying freely forgives the murderer, let him undergo the purification
which is assigned to those who have been guilty of involuntary homicide,
and do as they do, and he shall be pure. But if he be not acquitted, the
perpetrator of such a deed shall be amenable to many laws--he shall
be amenable to the extreme punishments for assault, and impiety, and
robbing of temples, for he has robbed his parent of life; and if a man
could be slain more than once, most justly would he who in a fit of
passion has slain father or mother, undergo many deaths. How can he,
whom, alone of all men, even in defence of his life, and when about to
suffer death at the hands of his parents, no law will allow to kill
his father or his mother who are the authors of his being, and whom the
legislator will command to endure any extremity rather than do this--how
can he, I say, lawfully receive any other punishment? Let death then be
the appointed punishment of him who in a fit of passion slays his father
or his mother. But if brother kills brother in a civil broil, or under
other like circumstances, if the other has begun, and he only defends
himself, let him be free from guilt, as he would be if he had slain an
enemy; and the same rule will apply if a citizen kill a citizen, or
a stranger a stranger. Or if a stranger kill a citizen or a citizen a
stranger in self-defence, let him be free from guilt in like manner; and
so in the case of a slave who has killed a slave; but if a slave have
killed a freeman in self-defence, let him be subject to the same law
as he who has killed a father; and let the law about the remission
of penalties in the case of parricide apply equally to every other
remission. Whenever any sufferer of his own accord remits the guilt of
homicide to another, under the idea that his act was involuntary, let
the perpetrator of the deed undergo a purification and remain in exile
for a year, according to law.
Enough has been said of murders violent and involuntary and committed in
passion: we have now to speak of voluntary crimes done with injustice of
every kind and with premeditation, through the influence of pleasures,
and desires, and jealousies.
CLEINIAS: Very good.
ATHENIAN: Let us first speak, as far as we are able, of their various
kinds. The greatest cause of them is lust, which gets the mastery of the
soul maddened by desire; and this is most commonly found to exist where
the passion reigns which is strongest and most prevalent among the mass
of mankind: I mean where the power of wealth breeds endless desires of
never-to-be-satisfied acquisition, originating in natural disposition,
and a miserable want of education. Of this want of education, the
false praise of wealth which is bruited about both among Hellenes and
barbarians is the cause; they deem that to be the first of goods which
in reality is only the third. And in this way they wrong both posterity
and themselves, for nothing can be nobler and better than that the truth
about wealth should be spoken in all states--namely, that riches are for
the sake of the body, as the body is for the sake of the soul. They are
good, and wealth is intended by nature to be for the sake of them, and
is therefore inferior to them both, and third in order of excellence.
This argument teaches us that he who would be happy ought not to seek to
be rich, or rather he should seek to be rich justly and temperately, and
then there would be no murders in states requiring to be purged away
by other murders. But now, as I said at first, avarice is the chiefest
cause and source of the worst trials for voluntary homicide. A second
cause is ambition: this creates jealousies, which are troublesome
companions, above all to the jealous man himself, and in a less degree
to the chiefs of the state. And a third cause is cowardly and unjust
fear, which has been the occasion of many murders. When a man is doing
or has done something which he desires that no one should know him to be
doing or to have done, he will take the life of those who are likely to
inform of such things, if he have no other means of getting rid of them.
Let this be said as a prelude concerning crimes of violence in general;
and I must not omit to mention a tradition which is firmly believed by
many, and has been received by them from those who are learned in the
mysteries: they say that such deeds will be punished in the world below,
and also that when the perpetrators return to this world they will pay
the natural penalty which is due to the sufferer, and end their lives in
like manner by the hand of another. If he who is about to commit murder
believes this, and is made by the mere prelude to dread such a penalty,
there is no need to proceed with the proclamation of the law. But if
he will not listen, let the following law be declared and registered
against him: Whoever shall wrongfully and of design slay with his own
hand any of his kinsmen, shall in the first place be deprived of legal
privileges; and he shall not pollute the temples, or the agora, or the
harbours, or any other place of meeting, whether he is forbidden of men
or not; for the law, which represents the whole state, forbids him, and
always is and will be in the attitude of forbidding him. And if a cousin
or nearer relative of the deceased, whether on the male or female side,
does not prosecute the homicide when he ought, and have him proclaimed
an outlaw, he shall in the first place be involved in the pollution, and
incur the hatred of the Gods, even as the curse of the law stirs up the
voices of men against him; and in the second place he shall be liable to
be prosecuted by any one who is willing to inflict retribution on behalf
of the dead. And he who would avenge a murder shall observe all the
precautionary ceremonies of lavation, and any others which the God
commands in cases of this kind. Let him have proclamation made, and then
go forth and compel the perpetrator to suffer the execution of justice
according to the law. Now the legislator may easily show that these
things must be accomplished by prayers and sacrifices to certain Gods,
who are concerned with the prevention of murders in states. But who
these Gods are, and what should be the true manner of instituting such
trials with due regard to religion, the guardians of the law, aided by
the interpreters, and the prophets, and the God, shall determine, and
when they have determined let them carry on the prosecution at law. The
cause shall have the same judges who are appointed to decide in the case
of those who plunder temples. Let him who is convicted be punished with
death, and let him not be buried in the country of the murdered man, for
this would be shameless as well as impious. But if he fly and will not
stand his trial, let him fly for ever; or, if he set foot anywhere
on any part of the murdered man's country, let any relation of the
deceased, or any other citizen who may first happen to meet with him,
kill him with impunity, or bind and deliver him to those among the
judges of the case who are magistrates, that they may put him to death.
And let the prosecutor demand surety of him whom he prosecutes; three
sureties sufficient in the opinion of the magistrates who try the cause
shall be provided by him, and they shall undertake to produce him at the
trial. But if he be unwilling or unable to provide sureties, then the
magistrates shall take him and keep him in bonds, and produce him at the
day of trial.
If a man do not commit a murder with his own hand, but contrives the
death of another, and is the author of the deed in intention and design,
and he continues to dwell in the city, having his soul not pure of
the guilt of murder, let him be tried in the same way, except in what
relates to the sureties; and also, if he be found guilty, his body after
execution may have burial in his native land, but in all other respects
his case shall be as the former; and whether a stranger shall kill a
citizen, or a citizen a stranger, or a slave a slave, there shall be
no difference as touching murder by one's own hand or by contrivance,
except in the matter of sureties; and these, as has been said, shall be
required of the actual murderer only, and he who brings the accusation
shall bind them over at the time. If a slave be convicted of slaying a
freeman voluntarily, either by his own hand or by contrivance, let the
public executioner take him in the direction of the sepulchre, to a
place whence he can see the tomb of the dead man, and inflict upon him
as many stripes as the person who caught him orders, and if he survive,
let him put him to death. And if any one kills a slave who has done no
wrong, because he is afraid that he may inform of some base and evil
deeds of his own, or for any similar reason, in such a case let him pay
the penalty of murder, as he would have done if he had slain a citizen.
There are things about which it is terrible and unpleasant to legislate,
but impossible not to legislate. If, for example, there should be
murders of kinsmen, either perpetrated by the hands of kinsmen, or by
their contrivance, voluntary and purely malicious, which most often
happen in ill-regulated and ill-educated states, and may perhaps occur
even in a country where a man would not expect to find them, we must