| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 865b | Pl. Leg. 867b (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 869c |
866cand if he be a resident alien, he shall be exiled for a year, while if he be altogether a Stranger—whether the man slain be a Stranger or resident alien or citizen—in addition to the purifications imposed, he shall be barred for all his life from the country which ordains these laws; and if he transgresses the law, and comes back to it, the Law-wardens shall punish him with death; and if he has any property, they shall hand it over
866dto the next of kin of the victim. And should he come back unwillingly, in case he be shipwrecked off the coast of the country, he shall camp with his feet in the sea, and watch for a ship to take him off; or in case he be brought in by people forcibly by land, the first magistrate of the State that meets with him shall loose him, and send him out over the border unharmed. If a person with his own hand kills a free man, and the deed be done in passion, in a case of this kind we must begin by making a distinction between two varieties of the crime. For murder is committed in passion by those who, on a sudden and without intent to kill,
866edestroy a man by blows or some such means in an immediate attack, when the deed is at once followed by repentance; and it is also a case of murder done in passion whenever men who are insulted by shameful words or actions seek for vengeance, and end by killing a man with deliberate intent to kill, and feel no repentance for the deed. We must lay it down, as it seems, that these murders are of two kinds,
867aboth as a rule done in passion, and most properly described as lying midway between the voluntary and the involuntary. None the less, each of these kinds tends to resemble one or other of these contraries; for the man who retains his passion and takes vengeance, not suddenly on the spur of the moment, but after lapse of time, and with deliberate intent, resembles the voluntary murderer; whereas the man who does not nurse his rage, but gives way to it at once on the spur of the moment and without deliberate intent, has a likeness to the involuntary murderer; yet neither is he wholly involuntary, but bears a resemblance thereto.
867bThus murders done in passion are difficult to define,—whether one should treat them in law as voluntary or involuntary. The best and truest way is to class them both as resemblances, and to distinguish them by the mark of deliberate intent or lack of intent, and to impose more severe penalties on those who slay with intent and in anger, and milder penalties on those who do so without intent and on a sudden. For that which resembles a greater evil must be more heavily punished, that which resembles a lesser evil
867cmore lightly. So our laws also must do likewise.Clinias
They must, most certainly.
AthenianReturning, then, to our task, let us make this pronouncement:—If a man with his own hand slay a free man, and the deed be done in rage without deliberate intent, he shall suffer such other penalties as it is proper for the man to suffer who has slain without passion, and he shall be compelled to go into exile for two years, thereby chastising his own passion.
867dAnd he that slays in passion and with deliberate intent shall be treated in other respects like the former, but shall be exiled for three years—instead of two, like the other,—receiving a longer period of punishment because of the greatness of his passion. As regards the return home, in such cases it shall be on this wise. (It is a difficult matter to legislate for with exactness; for sometimes the more dangerous of the two murderers in the eye of the law might prove the more gentle and the gentler the more dangerous, and the latter might have committed the murder more savagely, the former more gently; though as a rule matters turn out in the way we have stated: 867eso, regarding all these regulations the Law-wardens must act as supervisors). When the period of exile in each case has elapsed, they must send twelve of their number to the borders of the country to act as judges—they having made during the interval a still closer investigation into the actions of the exiles; and these men shall serve also as judges in regard to the matter of giving them pardon and admitting them back; and the exiles must abide by the verdicts of these magistrates. 868aAnd if either of them, after his return, again yields to rage and commits the same act, he shall be exiled, and never again return; and if he returns, he shall suffer the same fate as the returned Stranger. note He that slays a slave of his own shall purify himself; and if he kill another man's slave in rage, he shall pay to the owner twice the damage. And if anyone of all these types of slayers disobeys the law and, being unpurified, defiles the market and the games and other sacred assemblies, whoso pleases shall prosecute 868bboth that member of the dead man's kindred who permits this and the slayer himself, and shall compel the one of them to exact, and the other to pay, double the amount of the money-fines and of the other exactions note; and the sum so paid he shall keep for himself as the law directs. If a slave kills his own master in rage, the kindred of the dead man shall treat the slayer how they please,—save that they must not 868cin any wise let him live,—and shall be held guiltless. And if a slave kill a free man (other than his master) in rage, his masters shall hand over the slave to the kindred of the dead man, and they shall be compelled to put the criminal to death, doing so in whatever manner they choose. If in a fit of rage a father or mother slays a son or daughter by means of blows or some kind of violence,—an occurrence which, though rare, does sometimes happen,—the slayer must make the same purifications as the other slayers, and be exiled for three years;| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 865b | Pl. Leg. 867b (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 869c |
