| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 23.17 | Dem. 23.28 (Greek) | >>Dem. 23.38 |
23.24Now I beg you to observe how candidly and honestly I am going to treat the question; for I assign him to that class which entitles him to the greatest respect, though I do deny his right to acquire illegally privileges not enjoyed by us who are citizens by birthright,—the privileges, I mean, which the defendant has specified in this decree. In the statute it is provided that the Council shall take cognizance of homicide, intentional wounding, arson, and poisoning, if a man kills another by giving him poison.
23.25The legislator, while he presumes the killing, has nevertheless directed a judicial inquiry before specifying what is to be done to the culprit, and thereby has shown a just respect, men of Athens , for the religious feeling of the whole city. I say of the whole city, because it is impossible that all of you should know who the manslayer is. He thought it scandalous to give credit to such accusations, when made, without a trial; and he conceived that, inasmuch as the avenging of the sufferer is in our hands, we ought to be informed and satisfied by argument that the accused is guilty, for then conscience permits us to inflict punishment according to knowledge, but not before.
23.26Moreover he argued that before the trial is held such expressions as “if a man kill,” “if a man rob a temple,” “if a man commit treason,” and the like, are merely phrases of accusation: they become definitions of crime only after trial and conviction. To a formula of accusation he thought it proper to attach not punishment, but only trial; and therefore, when enacting that, if one man killed another, the Council should take cognizance, he did not lay down what should be done to the culprit if found guilty.
23.27So much for the legislator; but what of the author of the decree? “If any man kill Charidemus,” he says. So he defines the injury in the same phrase, “if any man kill,” as the legislator; but the sequel is not the same. He struck out submission to trial, and made the culprit liable to immediate seizure; he passed by the tribunal appointed by law, and handed over to the accusers, to be dealt with as they chose, a man untried, a man whose guilt is not yet proven.
23.28When they have got him, they are to be allowed to torture him, or maltreat him, or extort money from him. Yet the next ensuing statute directly and distinctly forbids such treatment even of men convicted and proved to be murderers. Read to the jury the statute that follows.Athens ; and I beg you to examine it and observe how admirably and most righteously it is framed by the legislator. He uses the term “murderers”; but in the first place you see that by murderer he means a man found guilty by verdict; for no man comes under that designation until he has been convicted and found guilty.
23.30That is made clear both in the earlier statute and in this one; for in the former, after the words “if any man kill,” the legislator directs the Council to take cognizance, and here, after designating the man as “the murderer,” he has directed what is to be done to him. That is to say, when it is a question of accusation, he has ordered a trial, but when the culprit, being found guilty, is liable to this designation, he has specified the penalty. Therefore he should be speaking only of persons found guilty. Well, what does he direct? That it shall be lawful to kill them and to put them under arrest.
23.31Does he say that they are to be taken to the house of the prosecutor, or as he pleases? No, indeed. How are they to be arrested? “As directed on the first turning-table,” is the phrase; and you all know what that means. The judicial archons are there authorized to punish with death persons who have gone into exile on a charge of murder. Only last year you all saw the culprit who was arrested by them in the Assembly. It is to the archons, then, that the murderer is to be taken on arrest;
23.32and that differs from being taken to the house of the prosecutor in this respect, men of Athens ,—that the captor who carries a man to the judges gives control of the malefactor to the laws, while the captor who takes him home gives such control to himself. In the former case punishment is suffered as the law enjoins; in the latter, as the captor pleases; and of course it makes a vast difference whether the retribution is controlled by the law or by a private enemy.
23.33“Not to maltreat or amerce,” says the statute. What does that mean? Every one, I am sure, understands that not to maltreat means that there is to be no scourging, no binding nor anything like that, and that not to amerce means not to extort blood-money, for the ancients called fining amercement.
23.34Note that in this manner the law lays down not only how the murderer or convict is to be punished, but also where, for it specifies the country of the person injured, and it directly prescribes that the penalty is to be inflicted in that way and in no other, in that place and in no other. Yet the author of the decree is far indeed from making this distinction,—his proposals are exactly contrary. After the words, “if anyone shall kill Charidemus,” he adds, “he shall be liable to seizure everywhere.”—
Law
It shall be lawful to kill note murderers in our own territory, or to arrest them as directed on the first turning-table, note but not to maltreat or amerce them, on penalty of a payment of twice the damage inflicted. The Archons, according to their several jurisdictions, shall bring cases into court; for any man who so desires and the court of Heliaea shall adjudicate.
23.29You have heard the law, men of
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 23.17 | Dem. 23.28 (Greek) | >>Dem. 23.38 |
