| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 910b | Pl. Leg. 914c (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 916b |
913d“Take not up what you laid not down,”—the man who despises these two lawgivers and takes up what he has not laid down himself, it being no small thing but sometimes a vast quantity of treasure,—what penalty should such a man suffer? God knows what, at the hands of gods; but the man that first notices an act of this kind shall report it, if it occur in the city, to the city-stewards, or if in a public market,
914ato the market-stewards; and if it occur in the country outside, he shall declare it to the rural stewards and their officers. And when such declarations are made, the State shall send to Delphi ; note and whatever the god pronounces concerning the goods and him that moved them, that the State shall execute, acting as agent on behalf of the oracles of the god. And if the informer be a free man, he shall win a reputation for virtue, but for vice if he fail to inform; and if he be a slave, as a reward for informing it will be right that he should be set free, by the State offering his price to his master, whereas he shall be punished by death if he fail to give information.
914bFollowing on this there should come next a similar rule about matters great and small, to reinforce it. If a man, whether willingly or unwillingly, leaves any of his goods behind, he that happens on them shall let them lie, believing that the Goddess of the Wayside note guards them, as things dedicated to her divinity by the law. Should anyone transgress this rule and disobediently take such things and carry them home, he being a slave and the article of small value, then the man who meets with him, being over thirty years old, shall scourge him with many stripes;
914cbut if he be a free man, he shall not only be accounted illiberal and a rebel against the laws, but he shall in addition buy back ten times the value of the article moved to the man who left it behind. And if one man charges another with possessing any of his goods, be it great or small, and the man so charged allows that he has the article, but denies that it is the other man's,—then, if the article in question has been registered note with the magistrates according to law, the plaintiff shall summon the man who possesses it before the magistrate, and he shall produce it in court. And the article being thus exhibited, if it be clearly recorded in the records to which of the disputants it belongs,
914dhe shall take it and depart; but should it belong to another third party, not then present, whichever of the two claimants produces a sufficient guarantor shall take it away on behalf of the absent party, in pursuance of his right of removal, to hand it over to him. But if the article in dispute be not registered with the magistrates, it will be kept in charge of the three senior magistrates up to the time of the trial; and if the article in pledge be a beast, the man that loses the case concerning it shall pay the magistrates for its keep; and the magistrates shall decide the case within three days.
914eAny person—provided that he be in his senses—may lay hands, if he wishes, on his own slave, to employ him for any lawful purpose; and on behalf of another man (one of his relatives or friends) he may lay hands on the runaway slave, to secure his safe-keeping. And if a man tries to remove to freedom anyone who is being carried off as a slave, the man who is carrying him off shall let him go, and he that is removing him shall do so on the production of three substantial sureties, but not otherwise; and if anyone removes a slave contrary to these conditions,
915ahe shall be liable for assault, and if convicted he shall pay double his registered due to the man deprived. And a man may arrest also a freedman, if in any case he fails to attend, or to attend sufficiently, on those who have freed him; and such tendance shall consist in the coming of the freedman three times a month to the home of the man that freed him, and there undertaking to do those duties which are both just and feasible, and in regard to marriage also to act as may seem good also to his former master. The freedman shall not be permitted to be more wealthy than the man who freed him;
915band, if he is, the excess shall be made to his master. He that is let go free shall not remain in the country more than twenty years, but shall depart, like all other foreigners, note taking with him all the property he owns, unless he gains the consent of the magistrates and also of the man who freed him. And if a freedman, or any other foreigner, acquired property exceeding in amount the third evaluation, note within thirty days from the day on which he acquires this excess he shall take his own property and depart,
915cand he shall have no further right to request from the magistrates permission to remain; and if he disobeys these rules and is summoned before the court and convicted, he shall be punished by death, and his goods shall be confiscated. Such cases shall be tried before the tribal courts, unless the parties first get a settlement of their charges against one another before neighbors or chosen jurors. If anyone claims as his own the beast of any other man, or any other
| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 910b | Pl. Leg. 914c (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 916b |
