| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 934c | Pl. Leg. 936c (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 941a |
935ebut forbid anyone (as we have already said) to do so in real earnest and with passion? We must by no means go back on what we said; but we must determine by law who is to be granted this permission, and who refused. A composer of a comedy or of any iambic or lyric song shall be strictly forbidden to ridicule any of the citizens either by word or by mimicry, note whether with or without passion; and if anyone disobeys, the Presidents of the Games
936ashall on the same day banish him wholly from the country, failing which they shall be fined three minas, dedicated to the god whose festival is being held. Those to whom permission has been given, as we previously said, note to write songs about one another shall be allowed to ridicule others in jest and without passion; but they shall not be allowed to do so with passion and in earnest. The task of making this distinction shall be entrusted to the minister in charge of the general education of the young: whatever he shall approve, the composer shall be allowed to produce in public, but whatever he shall disapprove, the composer shall be forbidden either personally to exhibit to anyone or to be found teaching to any other person, free man or slave;
936band if he does so, he shall be held to be a base man and disobedient to the laws. The man who suffers from hunger or the like is not the man who deserves pity, but he who, while possessing temperance or virtue of some sort, or a share thereof gains in addition evil fortune; wherefore it would be a strange thing indeed if in a polity and State that is even moderately well organized, a man of this kind (be he slave or free man) should be so entirely neglected as to come to utter beggary. Wherefore the Lawgiver will be safe in enacting for such cases some such law as this:—
936cThere shall be no beggar in our State; and if anyone attempts to beg, and to collect a livelihood by ceaseless prayers, the market-stewards shall expel him from the market, and the Board of city-stewards from the city, and from any other district he shall be driven across the border by the country-stewards, to the end that the land may be wholly purged of such a creature. If a slave, male or female, do any injury to another man's goods,
936dwhen the injured man himself has had no share in causing the injury through his own clumsy or careless handling, then the master of him that has done the injury shall fully make good the damage, or else shall hand over the person of the injurer: but if the master brings a charge affirming that the claim is made in order to rob him of his slave by a privy agreement between the injurer and the injured party, then he shall prosecute the man who claims that he has been injured on the charge of conspiracy; and if he wins his case, he shall receive double the price at which the court shall assess the slave,
936ebut if he loses he shall not only make good the damage, but he shall also hand over the slave. And if it be a mule or horse or dog any other animal that causes damage to any property belonging to a neighbor, its master shall in like manner pay compensation. If anyone is unwilling to act as witness, the man who requires his evidence shall summon him, and the man so summoned shall attend the trial, and if he knows the facts and is willing to give evidence, he shall give it; but in case he denies knowledge, he shall take an oath by the three gods, Zeus, Apollo, and Themis, that of a truth he has no knowledge,
937aand this done, he shall be dismissed from the suit. And if a man summoned as witness does not attend with his summoner, he shall be legally liable to be sued for damages. And if one of the judges be summoned as a witness, he shall not vote at the trial after giving evidence. A free woman, if she be over forty years old, shall be allowed to give evidence to support a plea, and if she have no husband, she shall be allowed to bring an action; but if she have a husband alive,
937bshe shall only be allowed to give evidence. A male or female slave and a child shall be allowed to give evidence and support a plea in murder cases only, provided that they furnish a substantial security that, if their evidence be denounced as false, they will remain until the trial. Either of the opposing parties in a suit may denounce all or part of the evidence, provided that he claims that false witness has been given before the action is finally decided; and the magistrates shall keep the denunciations, when they have been sealed by both parties, and shall produce them at the trial for false witness.
937cIf any person be twice convicted of false witness, no law shall compel him any longer to bear witness, and if thrice, he shall not be allowed to bear witness any longer; and if after three convictions, a man dare to bear witness, whoso wishes shall report him to the magistrates, and they shall hand him over to the court, and if he be found guilty, he shall be punished with death. In the case of all those whose evidence is condemned at the trial,—they being adjudged to have given false witness and thus to have caused the victory of the winner,—if more than the half of their evidence be condemned,
937dthe action that was lost because of them shall be annulled, and there shall be a disputation and a trial as to whether the action was or was not decided on the evidence in question; and by the verdict then given, whichever way it goes, the result of the previous actions shall be finally determined. Although there are many fair things in human life, yet to most of them there clings a kind of canker which poisons and corrupts them.
| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 934c | Pl. Leg. 936c (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 941a |
