Complete Works (320 page)

[c] C
LINIAS
: And what are these?

A
THENIAN
: The first category covers every occasion when crimes are committed openly with violence; secondly, we have crimes that take place under cover of darkness, involving secrecy and fraud. Sometimes we find a combination of both methods, in which case our laws will have to be very harsh indeed, if they are going to do their job.

C
LINIAS
: Of course.

[d] A
THENIAN
: Now let’s go back to the point where we started to digress, and carry on with our enactment of the legal code. Our regulations about those who pillage from the gods, and about traitors, had, I think, already been made; we had also dealt with those who do violence to the laws in order to subvert the existing constitution. A man who commits one of these crimes might be suffering from insanity, or be as good as insane either because of disease, or the effects of advanced senility, or because he is still in the years of childhood.

44. (a) If clear proof of any of these states is ever shown to the judges selected in each case, on the submission of either the criminal or his counsel, and in the opinion of the court the man was in that condition [e] when he committed his crime,
he must
pay, without fail, simple recompense for any damage he may have inflicted on anyone, but the other details of the penalty should be waived,
(b) if he has killed someone and his hands are polluted by murder,
he must
depart to a place in another country and live there in exile for a year.

45. If he comes back before the legally appointed time, or even puts a foot into any part of his native country,
he must
be imprisoned in the public jail by the Guardians of the Laws for two years, after which he shall be released.

The start we have made points the way forward: we need not scruple
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to lay down a comprehensive set of laws that will cover every category of murder. First we should deal with those committed with the use of force, but unintentionally:

46 A. If anyone has unintentionally killed a man who is not an enemy
(a) in a contest or public games—whether death occurs immediately, or later as a result of the wounds,
(b) in war similarly,
(c) in military training, whether in javelin-exercises without the protection of armor, or when some weapons are being carried in imitation of [b] wartime usage,
the offender
shall be free of pollution when he has been purified in accordance with the relevant law from Delphi.
(d) All doctors, if their patient dies as an unintended result of their treatment,
are to be free
of pollution according to law.
B. If one man kills another by his own act, but unintentionally,
(α) by his own hand,

(i) without weapons, or
(ii) by tool, weapon, administration of food or drink, application of fire or cold, or deprivation of air, whether

(β)  (i) he does the deed himself, or [c]

(ii) through the agency of others,

in all cases
it must be reckoned his own act and he must pay penalties as under:
If he kills
(a) a slave,
he must
indemnify the dead man’s master against the damage, reflecting what the loss would be if his own slave had been killed.

C. If he fails to indemnify the master,
he must
pay a penalty of twice the value of the dead man, the judges making an estimate of it, and he must resort to greater and more numerous purifications than those who have killed in contests; and such expounders as are chosen by the oracle are to be in charge of these purifications. [d]

B. cont. (b) If he kills a slave of his own,
let him
purify himself, and be quit of the murder according to law.

(c) If he kills a free man, inadvertently,
he must
undergo the same purifications as the killer of a slave.

He should not take lightly an old story that comes from our collection of ancient tales. It runs as follows: Having lived in the full proud spirit of freedom, the man murdered by violence, freshly dead, turns his fury on [e] the person responsible. The dead man is full of fear and loathing at his own violent sufferings; he abominates the sight of his own murderer going about localities once familiar to himself; to the full limit of his powers he visits his own anguish on the perpetrator of the crime, the man and his deeds; and his allies are the memories that haunt the murderer. Therefore

D. (a)
A killer
must keep clear of his victim for all the seasons of an entire year, by staying away from the dead man’s usual haunts and the whole of his native country.
(b) If the deceased is a foreigner,
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the killer
should keep clear of the foreigner’s homeland as well for an identical period.
If a man obeys this law without demur, the deceased’s next of kin, who will take note of his compliance with these requirements, will grant him pardon and will be entirely correct to live on peaceable terms with him.
E. If the killer disobeys,
(a) by daring to enter temples and perform sacrifices, polluted as he is, and then
(b) by refusing to complete the above-mentioned period abroad, [b]
the deceased’s
next of kin must prosecute the killer on a charge of murder.
In case of conviction, all penalties are to be doubled.
F. If the next of kin does not prosecute the crime,
the pollution
must be deemed to have arrived at his own door, owing to the murdered man’s supplications for atonement. Anyone who wishes may bring a charge against the next of kin and force him to keep away from his native country for five years, according to law.
G. (a) If a foreigner kills a foreigner who is living in the state,
[c]
anyone
who wishes should prosecute under the same laws.
(b) If the killer is
      (i) a resident alien,
he must
go abroad for a year;
      (ii) a non-resident alien,
he must
keep away, for the whole of his life, from the country that lays down these laws, in addition to performing the purifications; this is to apply whether he kills (1) a non-resident alien, (2) a resident alien, or
(3) a citizen.
H. If he returns
(a) illegally,
the Guardians of the Laws
must punish him by death, and if he has any property, they must present it to his victim’s nearest relative;
(b) unintentionally,
       [d] (i) being shipwrecked on the coast,
he must
camp out where the sea washes by his feet and await an opportunity to sail away;
      (ii) being forcibly brought in overland by someone,
the first
official of the state that comes across him must set him free and dispatch him unharmed beyond the border.

If someone kills a free man by his own hand, but the deed is done in anger, we must first make an internal distinction within this type of crime. Anger is common to (1) those who kill a man by blows or similar means, owing to a sudden impulse: here the action is immediate, there is no [e] previous intention to kill, and regret for the deed follows at once; (2) those who have been stung by insults or opprobrious actions and who pursue their vengeance until, some time later, they kill somebody: they
intend
to kill, and the deed causes no repentance. So it looks as if we have to establish two categories of murder; broadly speaking, both are done in anger, but
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a proper description would be ‘falling somewhere midway between “voluntary” and “involuntary” ’; however, each type comes closer to one or other of these extremes. The man who nurses his anger and takes his vengeance later—not suddenly, on the spur of the moment, but with premeditation—approximates to the voluntary murderer. The man whose anger bursts forth uncontrollably, whose action is instant, immediate, and without premeditation, resembles the involuntary killer. Yet even so, he is not an entirely involuntary killer: he only resembles one. It is therefore sometimes difficult to categorize murders done under the influence of [b] anger, and to know whether to treat them in law as voluntary or involuntary. The best course, which corresponds most closely to reality, is to classify them both under what they most resemble, and to distinguish them by the presence or absence of premeditation. We should lay down comparatively severe penalties for those who have killed in anger and with premeditation, and lighter ones for those who have killed on the spur of the moment without previous intent. Something which resembles a greater evil should attract a greater punishment, whereas a lesser penalty should be visited on that which resembles a lesser evil. This, then, is the [c] course our laws should take.

C
LINIAS
: Indeed it is.

A
THENIAN
: Then let’s go back to our subject and carry on as follows:

47 A. If someone kills a free man with his own hand, and the deed is done in a fit of anger, without previous intent,
his penalty
should in general be that appropriate to a man who has killed without anger; but in addition he should be obliged to go into exile for two years, by way of a curb for his anger.

B. If a man kills in anger, but with premeditation, [d]
his penalty
should in general be that inflicted in the should in general be that inflicted in the previous instance; but his exile should be for three years as against the other’s two, the period of punishment being longer because of the greater violence of his passion.

In such cases, regulations for the return from exile should run as follows. (It is not easy to make hard and fast rules: sometimes the fiercer criminal as defined by the law may turn out easier to manage, whereas the man who is supposedly more manageable may turn out to be a more difficult case, having committed a murder with some savagery; the other, [e] conversely, may have dispatched his victim without brutality. However, my account does describe the cases you’ll find are typical.)

The Guardians of the Laws should act as assessors of all these points, and when the period of exile prescribed for either category has come to an end, they should send twelve of their number, as judges, to the borders of the country. During the time that has elapsed these twelve should have made a still more exact investigation into what the exiles did, so as to decide whether to grant pardon and permission to return; and the exiles are bound to acquiesce in the judgment of these authorities.

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C. (a) If a returned exile of either category is ever again overcome by anger and commits the same offense,
he must
go into exile and never come back.

(b) If he does come back,
his penalty
will be the same as that imposed on the foreigner who returns [46H].

D (a) If a man kills his own slave,
he must
purify himself.

(b) If he kills another’s slave, in anger,
he must
pay double damages to the owner.

E. If a killer in any category flouts the law and in his unpurified state pollutes the market-place, the sports stadium, and other holy places,
[b]
anyone who wishes
should prosecute both the killer and the relative of the dead man who allows the killer to do this, and compel the relative to exact payment of twice the fine and the other expenses; and the prosecutor shall be legally entitled to take for himself the money so paid.

F. (a) If a slave kills his own master, in anger,
the relatives
of the deceased shall treat the killer in whatever way they [c] like (except that under no circumstances whatever may they let him go on living), and be free of pollution.

(b) If a slave murders a free man who is not his master, in anger,
his master
shall deliver him up to the relatives of the deceased, who will be obliged to kill him, the manner of the execution being within their discretion.

G. (This is a rare occurrence, but not unknown.)
(a) If a father or mother kills a son or daughter in anger by beating them or by using some other form of violence,
the murderers
must undergo the same purifications as apply in the other [d] cases, and go into exile for three years.

(b) When they come back, the female killer must be separated from her husband and the male from his wife, and they must have no more children; and they must never again share hearth and home with those whom they have robbed of a son or brother, or join in religious ceremonies with them.

H. If someone is impious enough to disobey these regulations,
he shall
be liable to a charge of impiety at the hands of anyone who wishes.
[e] I. (a) If a man kills his wedded wife in a fit of anger, or a wife her husband,
they must
undergo the same purifications and spend three years in exile.

(b) On his return, a person who has done such a deed must never join his children in religious ceremonies nor eat at the same table with them.
J. If the parent or the child disobeys,
he shall
equally be liable to a charge of impiety at the hands of anyone who wishes.

K. If in anger
(a) a brother kills a brother or a sister, or
(b) a sister kills a brother or a sister,
the same purifications
and periods of exile as applied to parents and children should be specified as applying in these cases too. (That is, they should never share hearth and home with the brothers whom they have deprived of their fellow brothers nor with parents whom they have deprived of children, nor join in religious ceremonies with them.)

L. If anyone disobeys this law,
he will
be subject to the relevant law of impiety already laid down, as
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is only right and proper.

M. If anyone gets into such an ungovernable temper with his parents and begetters that in his insane fury he dares to kill one of them, and
(a) is let off responsibility for murder by a voluntary statement of the deceased before death,
he must
perform the same purifications as those who commit involuntary murder; and when he has followed the rest of the procedure prescribed for those cases, he may be considered purified.

(b) If he is not let off,

the perpetrator of such a crime will be indictable under many laws. He [b] will be subject to the most huge penalties for assault, and likewise for impiety and temple-robbery—he has plundered the shrine that is his parent’s body, and deprived it of life. Consequently if one man could die many times, the murderer of his father or mother who has acted in anger would deserve to die the death over and over again. To this one killer no law will allow the plea of self-defense; no law will permit him to kill his [c] father or mother, who brought him into the world. The law will instruct him to put up with all manner of suffering before he does such a thing. But what other penalty than death could the law appropriately lay down for this criminal? The law, then, should run: