[Laws by Plato]@TWC D-Link bookLaws INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS 334/519
If he complies with this condition, the nearest kinsman of the deceased shall take pity upon him and be reconciled to him; but if he refuses to remain in exile, or visits the temples unpurified, then let the kinsman proceed against him, and demand a double penalty.
The kinsman who neglects this duty shall himself incur the curse, and any one who likes may proceed against him, and compel him to leave his country for five years.
If a stranger involuntarily kill a stranger, any one may proceed against him in the same manner: and the homicide, if he be a metic, shall be banished for a year; but if he be an entire stranger, whether he have murdered metic, citizen, or stranger, he shall be banished for ever; and if he return, he shall be punished with death, and his property shall go to the next of kin of the murdered man.
If he come back by sea against his will, he shall remain on the seashore, wetting his feet in the water while he waits for a vessel to sail; or if he be brought back by land, the magistrates shall send him unharmed beyond the border. Next follows murder done from anger, which is of two kinds--either arising out of a sudden impulse, and attended with remorse; or committed with premeditation, and unattended with remorse.
The cause of both is anger, and both are intermediate between voluntary and involuntary. The one which is committed from sudden impulse, though not wholly involuntary, bears the image of the involuntary, and is therefore the more excusable of the two, and should receive a gentler punishment.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|