Greek Texts & Translations

23.44Read the next statute.Statute

If any man outside the frontier pursue or violently seize the person of any homicide who has quitted the country, and whose goods are not confiscate, he shall incur the same penalty as if he so acted within our own territory.

Here is another law, men of Athens, humanely and excellently enacted; and this law the defendant shall in like manner be proved to have transgressed. 23.45“If any man,” it begins, and then, “any homicide who has quitted the country and whose goods are not confiscate,” meaning any man who has migrated by reason of involuntary manslaughter. That is quite clear, because it speaks of those who have “quitted the country,” not of those who have gone into exile, and because it specifies persons “whose goods are not confiscate,” for the property of willful murderers is forfeited to the State. The legislator, I say, is speaking of involuntary offenders. To what purport? 23.46If they are pursued or violently seized, he says, “outside the frontier.” What is the significance of “outside the frontier”? For all homicides alike the “frontier” implies exclusion from the country of the person slain. From that country he permits them to be pursued and seized; but outside of it he permits neither seizure nor pursuit. For anyone who contravenes this rule he orders the same punishment as if he had done the man wrong at home, in the words, “shall incur the same penalty as if he had so acted at home.” 23.47Now suppose the defendant Aristocrates were asked,—you must not think it a silly question—first if he knows whether Charidemus will be killed by someone, or will die in some other way. He would reply, I take it, that he does not know. However, we will presume that somebody will kill him. Next question: will the man who is to do it be a voluntary or an involuntary agent, an alien or a citizen,—do you know, Aristocrates? You cannot say that you do know. 23.48Then of course you ought to have supplied these particulars, and written, “if any man, whether alien or citizen, shall kill, with or without intention, rightfully or wrongfully,” in order that any man soever, by whom the deed should have been done, might have received his deserts according to law; but assuredly, after merely naming an accusation, you ought not to have added, “he shall be liable to seizure.” What boundary have you left in this clause? 23.49Yet the law distinctly provides that beyond the frontier a man shall not be pursued, whereas you permit him to be seized anywhere. Beyond the frontier the law forbids not only pursuit but also seizure; and yet according to your decree anyone who chooses will take as an outcast and forcibly seize a man who has slain without intention, and carry him by violence into the country of the slain man. Are you not treating human conduct indiscriminately, and ignoring the motives according to which a given act is either virtuous or immoral?— 23.50Observe, gentlemen, that this is a universal distinction: it does not apply only to questions of homicide. “If a man strike another, giving the first blow,” says the law. The implication is that he is not guilty, if the blow was defensive. “If a man revile another,”—“with false hoods,” the law adds, implying that, if he speaks the truth, he is justified. “If a man slay another with malice aforethought,”—indicating that it is not the same thing if he does it unintentionally. “If a man injures another with intention, wrongfully.” Everywhere we shall find that it is the motive that fixes the character of the act. But not with you: you say, without qualification, “if any man slay Charidemus, he shall be seized,” though he do it unwittingly, or righteously, or in self-defence, or for a purpose permitted by law, or in any way whatsoever.