Laws
repeat once more the tale which we narrated a little while ago, in
the hope that he who hears us will be the more disposed to abstain
voluntarily on these grounds from murders which are utterly abominable.
For the myth, or saying, or whatever we ought to call it, has been
plainly set forth by priests of old; they have pronounced that the
justice which guards and avenges the blood of kindred, follows the
law of retaliation, and ordains that he who has done any murderous act
should of necessity suffer that which he has done. He who has slain a
father shall himself be slain at some time or other by his children--if
a mother, he shall of necessity take a woman's nature, and lose his life
at the hands of his offspring in after ages; for where the blood of a
family has been polluted there is no other purification, nor can the
pollution be washed out until the homicidal soul which did the deed has
given life for life, and has propitiated and laid to sleep the wrath
of the whole family. These are the retributions of Heaven, and by such
punishments men should be deterred. But if they are not deterred, and
any one should be incited by some fatality to deprive his father, or
mother, or brethren, or children, of life voluntarily and of purpose,
for him the earthly lawgiver legislates as follows: There shall be the
same proclamations about outlawry, and there shall be the same sureties
which have been enacted in the former cases. But in his case, if he be
convicted, the servants of the judges and the magistrates shall slay him
at an appointed place without the city where three ways meet, and there
expose his body naked, and each of the magistrates on behalf of the
whole city shall take a stone and cast it upon the head of the dead man,
and so deliver the city from pollution; after that, they shall bear him
to the borders of the land, and cast him forth unburied, according to
law. And what shall he suffer who slays him who of all men, as they
say, is his own best friend? I mean the suicide, who deprives himself
by violence of his appointed share of life, not because the law of the
state requires him, nor yet under the compulsion of some painful and
inevitable misfortune which has come upon him, nor because he has had
to suffer from irremediable and intolerable shame, but who from sloth or
want of manliness imposes upon himself an unjust penalty. For him, what
ceremonies there are to be of purification and burial God knows, and
about these the next of kin should enquire of the interpreters and of
the laws thereto relating, and do according to their injunctions. They
who meet their death in this way shall be buried alone, and none shall
be laid by their side; they shall be buried ingloriously in the borders
of the twelve portions of the land, in such places as are uncultivated
and nameless, and no column or inscription shall mark the place of their
interment. And if a beast of burden or other animal cause the death
of any one, except in the case of anything of that kind happening to
a competitor in the public contests, the kinsmen of the deceased shall
prosecute the slayer for murder, and the wardens of the country, such,
and so many as the kinsmen appoint, shall try the cause, and let the
beast when condemned be slain by them, and let them cast it beyond the
borders. And if any lifeless thing deprive a man of life, except in the
case of a thunderbolt or other fatal dart sent from the Gods--whether
a man is killed by lifeless objects falling upon him, or by his falling
upon them, the nearest of kin shall appoint the nearest neighbour to be
a judge, and thereby acquit himself and the whole family of guilt. And
he shall cast forth the guilty thing beyond the border, as has been said
about the animals.
If a man is found dead, and his murderer be unknown, and after a
diligent search cannot be detected, there shall be the same proclamation
as in the previous cases, and the same interdict on the murderer; and
having proceeded against him, they shall proclaim in the agora by a
herald, that he who has slain such and such a person, and has been
convicted of murder, shall not set his foot in the temples, nor at all
in the country of the murdered man, and if he appears and is discovered,
he shall die, and be cast forth unburied beyond the border. Let this one
law then be laid down by us about murder; and let cases of this sort be
so regarded.
And now let us say in what cases and under what circumstances the
murderer is rightly free from guilt: If a man catch a thief coming into
his house by night to steal, and he take and kill him, or if he slay
a footpad in self-defence, he shall be guiltless. And any one who does
violence to a free woman or a youth, shall be slain with impunity by the
injured person, or by his or her father or brothers or sons. If a man
find his wife suffering violence, he may kill the violator, and be
guiltless in the eye of the law; or if a person kill another in warding
off death from his father or mother or children or brethren or wife who
are doing no wrong, he shall assuredly be guiltless.
Thus much as to the nurture and education of the living soul of man,
having which, he can, and without which, if he unfortunately be without
them, he cannot live; and also concerning the punishments which are
to be inflicted for violent deaths, let thus much be enacted. Of the
nurture and education of the body we have spoken before, and next in
order we have to speak of deeds of violence, voluntary and involuntary,
which men do to one another; these we will now distinguish, as far as we
are able, according to their nature and number, and determine what will
be the suitable penalties of each, and so assign to them their proper
place in the series of our enactments. The poorest legislator will have
no difficulty in determining that wounds and mutilations arising out of
wounds should follow next in order after deaths. Let wounds be divided
as homicides were divided--into those which are involuntary, and which
are given in passion or from fear, and those inflicted voluntarily
and with premeditation. Concerning all this, we must make some such
proclamation as the following: Mankind must have laws, and conform to
them, or their life would be as bad as that of the most savage beast.
And the reason of this is that no man's nature is able to know what is
best for human society; or knowing, always able and willing to do what
is best. In the first place, there is a difficulty in apprehending that
the true art of politics is concerned, not with private but with public
good (for public good binds together states, but private only distracts
them); and that both the public and private good as well of individuals
as of states is greater when the state and not the individual is first
considered. In the second place, although a person knows in the abstract
that this is true, yet if he be possessed of absolute and irresponsible
power, he will never remain firm in his principles or persist in
regarding the public good as primary in the state, and the private good
as secondary. Human nature will be always drawing him into avarice and
selfishness, avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure without any reason, and
will bring these to the front, obscuring the juster and better; and so
working darkness in his soul will at last fill with evils both him and
the whole city. For if a man were born so divinely gifted that he could
naturally apprehend the truth, he would have no need of laws to rule
over him; for there is no law or order which is above knowledge, nor can
mind, without impiety, be deemed the subject or slave of any man, but
rather the lord of all. I speak of mind, true and free, and in harmony
with nature. But then there is no such mind anywhere, or at least not
much; and therefore we must choose law and order, which are second
best. These look at things as they exist for the most part only, and
are unable to survey the whole of them. And therefore I have spoken as I
have.
And now we will determine what penalty he ought to pay or suffer who has
hurt or wounded another. Any one may easily imagine the questions which
have to be asked in all such cases: What did he wound, or whom, or
how, or when? for there are innumerable particulars of this sort which
greatly vary from one another. And to allow courts of law to determine
all these things, or not to determine any of them, is alike impossible.
There is one particular which they must determine in all cases--the
question of fact. And then, again, that the legislator should not permit
them to determine what punishment is to be inflicted in any of these
cases, but should himself decide about all of them, small or great, is
next to impossible.
CLEINIAS: Then what is to be the inference?
ATHENIAN: The inference is, that some things should be left to courts of
law; others the legislator must decide for himself.
CLEINIAS: And what ought the legislator to decide, and what ought he to
leave to the courts of law?
ATHENIAN: I may reply, that in a state in which the courts are bad
and mute, because the judges conceal their opinions and decide causes
clandestinely; or what is worse, when they are disorderly and noisy,
as in a theatre, clapping or hooting in turn this or that orator--I say
that then there is a very serious evil, which affects the whole state.
Unfortunate is the necessity of having to legislate for such courts,
but where the necessity exists, the legislator should only allow them to
ordain the penalties for the smallest offences; if the state for which
he is legislating be of this character, he must take most matters into
his own hands and speak distinctly. But when a state has good
courts, and the judges are well trained and scrupulously tested, the
determination of the penalties or punishments which shall be inflicted
on the guilty may fairly and with advantage be left to them. And we are
not to be blamed for not legislating concerning all that large class
of matters which judges far worse educated than ours would be able to
determine, assigning to each offence what is due both to the perpetrator
and to the sufferer. We believe those for whom we are legislating to be
best able to judge, and therefore to them the greater part may be left.
At the same time, as I have often said, we should exhibit to the
judges, as we have done, the outline and form of the punishments to be
inflicted, and then they will not transgress the just rule. That was an
excellent practice, which we observed before, and which now that we are
resuming the work of legislation, may with advantage be repeated by us.
Let the enactment about wounding be in the following terms: If any one
has a purpose and intention to slay another who is not his enemy, and
whom the law does not permit him to slay, and he wounds him, but is
unable to kill him, he who had the intent and has wounded him is not
to be pitied--he deserves no consideration, but should be regarded as
a murderer and be tried for murder. Still having respect to the fortune
which has in a manner favoured him, and to the providence which in pity
to him and to the wounded man saved the one from a fatal blow, and the
other from an accursed fate and calamity--as a thank-offering to this
deity, and in order not to oppose his will--in such a case the law will
remit the punishment of death, and only compel the offender to emigrate
to a neighbouring city for the rest of his life, where he shall remain
in the enjoyment of all his possessions. But if he have injured the
wounded man, he shall make such compensation for the injury as the court
deciding the cause shall assess, and the same judges shall decide who
would have decided if the man had died of his wounds. And if a child
intentionally wound his parents, or a servant his master, death shall be