Laws

Ath. In all cases where one man causes damage to another by acts of robbery or violence, if the damage be great, he shall pay a large sum as compensation to the damaged party, and a small sum if the damage be small; and as a general rule, every man shall in every case pay a sum equal to the damage done, until the loss is made good; and, in addition to this, every man shall pay the penalty which is attached to his crime by way of corrective. The penalty shall be lighter in the case of one who has done wrong owing to another’s folly—the wrong-doer being over-persuaded because of his youth or for some such reason; and it shall be heavier when man has done wrong owing to his own folly, because of his incontinence in respect of pleasures and pains and the overpowering influence of craven fears or of incurable desires, envies and rages. And he shall pay the penalty, not because of the wrongdoing,—for what is done can never be undone,—but in order that for the future both he himself and those who behold his punishment may either utterly loathe his sin or at least renounce to a great extent such lamentable conduct. For all these reasons and with a view to all these objects, the law, like a good archer, must aim in each case at the amount of the punishment, and above all at its fitting amount; and the judge must assist the lawgiver in carrying out this same task, whenever the law entrusts to him the assessment of what the defendant is to suffer or pay, while the lawgiver, like a draughtsman, must give a sketch in outline of cases which illustrate the rules of the written code. And that, O Megillus and Clinias, is the task which we must now execute as fairly and well as we can: we must state what penalties should be ordained for all cases of robbery and violence, in so far as the gods and sons of gods may suffer us to ordain them by law. If any be a madman, he shall not appear openly in the city; the relatives of such persons shall keep them indoors, employing whatever means they know of, or else they shall pay a penalty; a person belonging to the highest property-class shall pay a hundred drachmae, whether the man he is neglecting be a free man or a slave,—one belonging to the second class shall pay four-fifths of a mina—one of the third class, three-fifths,—and one of the fourth class, two-fifths. There are many and various forms of madness: in the cases now mentioned it is caused by disease, but cases also occur where it is due to the natural growth and fostering of an evil temper, by which men in the course of a trifling quarrel abuse one another slanderously with loud cries— a thing which is unseemly and totally out of place in a well-regulated State. Concerning abuse there shall be this one law to cover all cases:—No one shall abuse anyone. If one is disputing with another in argument, he shall either speak or listen, and he shall wholly refrain from abusing either the disputant or the bystanders.