Laws

Ath. If a man does not slay another with his own hand, but plots death for him, and after killing him by design and plotting resides in the State, being responsible for the murder and not innocent or pure of heart in respect of it,—in his case the prosecutions on this charge shall proceed in the same way, except in the matter of bail. And the person convicted shall be allowed to have burial at home; but all else shall be carried out in his case in the same way as in the case last described. And these same regulations shall govern all cases where Strangers are at law with Strangers, or citizens and Strangers at law with each other, or slaves with slaves, in respect both of actual murder and of plotting to murder, except as regards bail; and as to this, just as it has been said that the actual murderers must be secured by guarantors, so these persons too must provide security to the person who proclaims the murder. If a slave willfully slay a free man, either by his own hand or by plotting, and be convicted at the trial, the public executioner of the State shall drag him in the direction of the tomb of the dead man to a spot from which he can see the tomb, and there scourge him with as many stripes as the prosecutor shall prescribe; and if the murderer be still alive after the beating, he shall put him to death. And if a man kill a slave when he is doing no wrong, actuated by fear lest the slave should expose his own foul and evil deeds, or for any other such reason, just as he would have been liable to a charge of murder for slaying a citizen, so likewise he shall be liable in the same way for the death of such a slave. Should cases occur of a kind for which it is a formidable and most unwelcome task to legislate, and yet impossible not to legislate,—such as murders of kinsfolk, either by a man’s own hand or by plotting, which are wholly willful and wicked,—crimes that occur for the most part in States with bad organization and nurture, but may occur at times even in a country where one would not expect them,—we must again recite the story we uttered a moment ago, if haply anyone, on hearing us, may become more strongly disposed in consequence voluntarily to abstain from murders of the most impious kind. The myth or story (or whatever one should call it) has been clearly stated, as derived from ancient priests, to the effect that Justice, the avenger of kindred blood, acting as overseer, employs the law just mentioned, and has ordained that the doer of such a deed must of necessity suffer the same as he has done: if ever a man has slain his father, he must endure to suffer the same violent fate at his own children’s hands in days to come; or if he has slain his mother, he must of necessity come to birth sharing in the female nature, and when thus born be removed from life by the hands of his offspring in afterdays;