Chapter 33

295Plato, Legg. ix. p. 860 D-E.

296Plato, Legg. ix. p. 861 B. ἃ δὴ κατὰ πάσας τὰς πόλεις ὑπὸ νομοθετῶν πάντων τῶν πώποτε γενομένων ὡς δύο εἴδη τῶν ἀδικημάτων ὄντα, τὰ μὲν ἑκούσια, τὰ δὲ ἀκούσια, ταύτῃ καὶ νομοθετεῖται.The eighth chapter, fifth Book, of Aristotle’s Nikomachean Ethics, discusses this question more instructively than Plato.

The eighth chapter, fifth Book, of Aristotle’s Nikomachean Ethics, discusses this question more instructively than Plato.

297Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 861-862.

Damage may be voluntary or involuntary — Injustice is shown often by conferring corrupt profit upon another — Purpose of punishment, to heal the distemper of the criminal.

The real distinction therefore (according to Plato) is not between voluntary and involuntary injustice, but between voluntary and involuntary damage. Voluntary damage is injustice, but it is not voluntary injustice. The unjust agent, so far forth as unjust, acts involuntarily: he is under the perverting influenceof mental distemper. He must be compelled to make good the damage which he has done, or to offer such requital as may satisfy the feelings of the person damaged: and he must besides be subjected to such treatment as will heal the distemper of his mind, so that he will not be disposed to do farther voluntary damage in future. And he ought to be subjected to this treatment equally, whether his mental distemper (injustice) has shown itself in doing wilful damage to another, or in conferring corrupt profit on another — in taking away another man’s property, or in giving away his own property wrongfully.298The healing treatment may be different in different cases: discourses addressed, or works imposed — pleasures or pains, honour or disgrace, fine or otherwise. But in all cases the purpose is one and the same — to heal the distemper of his mind, and to make him hate injustice. If he be found incurable, he must be put to death. It is a gain for himself to die, and a still greater gain for society that he should die, since his execution will serve as a warning to others.299

298Plato, Legg. ix. p. 862 B. οὔτ’ εἴ τίς τῳ δίδωσί τι τῶν ὄντων οὔτ’ εἰ τοὐναντίον ἀφαιρεῖται, δίκαιον ἁπλῶς ἢ ἄδικον χρὴ τὸ τοιοῦτον οὕτω λέγειν, ἀλλ’ ἐὰν ἤθει καὶ δικαίῳ τρόπῳ χρώμενός τις ὠφελῇ τινά τι καὶ βλάπτῃ, τοῦτό ἐστι τῷ νομοθέτῃ θεατέον, καὶ πρὸς δύο ταῦτα δὴ βλεπτέον, πρός τε ἀδικίαν καὶ βλαβήν.

299Plato, Legg. ix. p. 862 C-E.

Three distinct causes of misguided proceedings. 1. Painful stimulus. 2. Pleasurable stimulus. 3. Ignorance.

Of misguided or erroneous proceeding there are in the human mind three producing causes, acting separately or conjointly:— 1. The painful stimulus — Anger, Envy, Hatred, or Fear. 2. The seductive stimulus, of Pleasure or Desire. 3. Ignorance. Ignorance is twofold:— 1. Ignorance pure and simple. 2. Ignorance combined with the false persuasion of knowledge. This last again is exhibited under two distinguishable cases:— 1. When combined with power; and in this case it produces grave and enormous crimes. 2. When found in weak persons, children or old men, in which case it produces, nothing worse than slight and venial offences, giving little trouble to the lawgiver.300

300Plato, Legg. ix. p. 863 C. Τρίτον μὴν ἄγνοιαν λέγων ἄν τις τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων αἰτίαν οὐκ ἂν ψεύδοιτο.

The unjust man is under the influence either of the first or second of these causes, without controul of Reason. If he acts under controul of Reason, though the Reason be bad, he is not unjust.

Now the unjust man (Plato tells us) is he in whose mindeither one or other of the two first causes are paramount, and not controuled by Reason: either Hatred, Anger, Fear — or else Appetite and the Desire of Pleasure. What he does under either of these two stimuli is unjust, whether he damages any one else or not. But if neither of these two stimuli be prevalent in his mind — if, on the contrary, both of them are subordinated to the opinion which he entertains about what is good and right — then everything which he does is just, even though he falls into error. If in this state of mind he hurts any one else, it will be simplyhurt, not injustice. Those persons are incorrect who speak of it as injustice, but as involuntary injustice. The proceedings of such a man may be misguided or erroneous, but they will never be unjust.301

301Plato, Legg. ix. p. 864 A. τὴν δὲ τοῦ ἀρίστου δόξαν, ὅπῃ περ ἂν ἔσεσθαι τοῦτο ἡγήσωνται πόλις εἴτε ἰδιῶταί τινες, ἐὰν αὔτη κρατοῦσα ἐν ψυχῇ διακοσμῇ πάντα ἄνδρα, κἂν σφάλληταί τι, δίκαιον μὲν πᾶν εἶναι τὸ ταύτῃ πραχθὲν καὶ τὸ τῆς τοιαύτης ἀρχῆς γιγνόμενον ὑπήκοον ἑκάστων, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἅπαντα ἄνθρώπων βίον ἄριστον.

All these three causes may realise themselves in act under three varieties of circumstances: 1. By open and violent deeds. 2. By secret, deceitful, premeditated contrivance. 3. By a combination of both the two. Our laws must make provision for all the three.302

302Plato, Legg. ix. p. 864 C.

Reasoning of Plato to save his doctrine — That no man commits injustice voluntarily.

Such is the theory here advanced by Plato to reconcile his views and recommendations in the Leges with a doctrine which he had propounded and insisted upon elsewhere:— That no man commits injustice voluntarily — That all injustice is involuntary, arising from ignorance — That every one would be just, if he only knew wherein justice consists — That knowledge, when it exists in the mind, will exercise controul and preponderance over the passions and appetites.303

303Compare Legg. v. p. 731 C; Timæus, p. 86 D; Republic, ix. p. 589 C; Protagoras, pp. 345 D — 352 D.

The distinction whereby Plato here proposes to save all inconsistency, is a distinction between misconduct or misguided actions (ἁμαρτήματα, or ἁμαρτανόμενα), and unjust actions (ἀδικήματα). The last of these categories is comprised by himin the first, as one species or variety thereof. That is, all ἀδικήματα are ἁμαρτήματα: but all ἁμαρτήματα are not ἀδικήματα. He reckons three distinct causes of ἁμαρτήματα: two belonging to the emotional department of mind; one to the intellectual. Those ἁμαρτήματα which arise from either of the two first causes are also ἀδικήματα: those which arise from the third are not ἀδικήματα.

This is the distinction which Plato here draws, with a view to save consistency in his own doctrine — at least as far as I can understand it, for the reasoning is not clear. It proceeds upon a restricted definition, peculiar to himself, of the wordinjustice— a restriction, however, which coincides in part with that which he gives of Justice in the Republic,304where he treats Justice as consisting in the controul exercised over Passion and Appetite (the emotional department) by Reason (the intellectual): each of the three departments of the soul or each of the three separate souls, keeping in its own place, and discharging its own appropriate functions. Every act which a man does under the influence of persuasion or opinion of the best, is held by Plato to bejust— whatever his persuasion may be — whether it be true or false305If he be sincerely persuaded that he is acting for the best, he cannot commit injustice.

304Plato, Republ. iv. pp. 443-444.

305Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 863 C, 864 A.

Peculiar definition of Injustice. A man may do great voluntary hurt to others, and yet not be unjust, provided he does it under the influence of Reason, and not of Appetite.

Injustice being thus restricted to mean the separate and unregulated action of emotional impulse — and such unregulated action being, as a general fact, a cause of misery to the agent — Plato’s view is, that no man is voluntarily unjust: for no man wishes to be miserable. Every man wishes to be happy: therefore every man wishes to be just: because some controul of impulse by reason is absolutely essential to happiness. When once such controul is established, a man becomes just: he no longer commits injustice. But he may still commit misconduct, and very gross misconduct: moreover, this misconduct will be, or may be, voluntary. For though the rational soul be now preponderant and controuling over the emotional (which controul constitutesjustice), yet therational soul itself may be imperfectly informed (ignorance simple); or may not only be ignorant, but preoccupied besides with false persuasions and prejudices. Under such circumstances the just man may commit misconduct, and do serious hurt to others. What he does may be done voluntarily, in full coincidence with his own will: for the will postulates only the controul of reason over emotion, and here that condition is fulfilled, the fault lying with the controuling reason itself.

Plato’s purpose in the Laws is to prevent or remedy not only injustice but misconduct.

Plato’s reasoning here (obscure and difficult to follow) is intended to show that there can be no voluntaryinjustice, but that there is much both of voluntarymisconduct, and voluntarymischief. His purpose as lawgiver is to prevent or remedy not only (what he calls)injustice, but also misconduct and mischief. As a remedy for mischief done, he prescribes that the agent thereof shall make full compensation to the sufferer. As an antidote to injustice, he applies his educational discipline as well as his penal and remuneratory treatment, to the emotions, with a view to subdue some and develop others.306As a corrective to misconduct in all its branches, he assumes to himself as lawgiver a spiritual power, applied to the improvement of the rational or intellectual man: prescribing what doctrines and beliefs shall be accredited in his city, tolerating no others, and forbidding all contradiction, or dissentient individuality of judgment.307He thus ensures that every man s individual reason shall be in harmony with the infallible reason.

306Plato, Legg. ix. p. 862 C-D.

307K. F. Hermann, in his valuable Dissertation, De Vestigiis Institutorum Veterum, imprimis Atticorum, per Platonis de Legibus libros indagandis, Marburg, 1836, p. 55, says:— “Philosophi [Platonis] manum novatricem in iis tantum agnosco, quæ de exsilii tempore pro diversis criminum fontibus diverso argutatur; qui quum omnino omnium, nisi fallor, primus in hoc ipso Legum Opere veterem usuque receptam criminum divisionem in voluntaria et invita reprehenderit, eaque secundum tres animi partes trifariam distribuerit, ita hic quoque mediam inter imprudentiam et dolum malum iracundiam inseruit, quâ quis motus cædem vel extemplo committeret vel etiam posterius animum suum sanguine explêret.”I do not conceive Plato’s reasoning exactly in the same way as Hermann. Plato denies only the reality of ἑκούσια ἀδικήματα: he considers all ἀδικήματα as essentially ἀκούσια. But he does not deny ἑκούσια ἀδικήματα (which is the large genus comprehending ἀδικήματα as one species): he recognises both ἁμαρτήματα ἑκούσια and ἁμαρτήματα ἀκούσια. And he considers the ἁμαρτήματα arising from θυμὸς to be midway between the two. But he also recognises ἁμαρτήματα as springing from the three different sources in the human mind. The two positions are not incompatible; though the whole discussion is obscured by the perplexing distinction between ἁμαρτήματα and ἀδικήματα.

I do not conceive Plato’s reasoning exactly in the same way as Hermann. Plato denies only the reality of ἑκούσια ἀδικήματα: he considers all ἀδικήματα as essentially ἀκούσια. But he does not deny ἑκούσια ἀδικήματα (which is the large genus comprehending ἀδικήματα as one species): he recognises both ἁμαρτήματα ἑκούσια and ἁμαρτήματα ἀκούσια. And he considers the ἁμαρτήματα arising from θυμὸς to be midway between the two. But he also recognises ἁμαρτήματα as springing from the three different sources in the human mind. The two positions are not incompatible; though the whole discussion is obscured by the perplexing distinction between ἁμαρτήματα and ἀδικήματα.

The peculiar sense in which Plato uses the words justice and injustice is perplexing throughout this discussion. The words, as he uses them, coincide only in part with the ordinary meaning. They comprehend more in one direction, and less in another.

Plato now proceeds to promulgate laws in respect to homicide, wounds, beating, &c.

Varieties of homicide — modes of dealing with them penally.

Homicide, however involuntary and unintentional, taints the person by whose hands it is committed. He must undergo purification, partly by such expiatory ceremonies as the Exêgêtæ may appoint, partly by a temporary exile from the places habitually frequented by the person slain: who even after death (according to the doctrine of an ancient fable, which Plato here ratifies308), if he saw the homicidal agent among his prior haunts, while the occurrence was yet recent, would be himself disturbed, and would communicate tormenting disturbance to the agent. This latter accordingly is commanded to leave the territory for a year, and to refrain from visiting any of the sacred precincts until he has been purified. If he obeys, the relatives of the person slain shall forgive him; and he shall, after his year’s exile, return to his ordinary abode and citizenship. But if he evades obedience, these relatives shall indict him for the act, and he shall incur double penalties. Should the nearest relative, under these circumstances, neglect to indict, he may himself be indicted by any one who chooses, and shall be condemned to an exile of five years.309

308Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 865 A-D — 866 B.Compare Antiphon. Accus. Cæd. p. 116, and Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 301. The old law of Drako is given in substance in Demosthen. adv. Leptin. p. 505. Ἀπενιαυτισμός, compulsory year of exile. K. F. Hermann, Griechische Privat-Alterthümer, s. 61, not. 23.

308Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 865 A-D — 866 B.

Compare Antiphon. Accus. Cæd. p. 116, and Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 301. The old law of Drako is given in substance in Demosthen. adv. Leptin. p. 505. Ἀπενιαυτισμός, compulsory year of exile. K. F. Hermann, Griechische Privat-Alterthümer, s. 61, not. 23.

309Plato, Legg. ix. p. 866.

Homicide involuntary — Homicide under provocation.

Plato provides distinct modes of proceeding for this same act of involuntary homicide, under varieties of persons and circumstances — citizens, metics, strangers, slaves, &c. He especially lays it down that physicians, if a patient dies under their hands, they being unwilling — shall be held innocent, and shall not need purification.310

310Plato, Legg. ix. p. 865 B.

After involuntary homicide, Plato passes to the case of homicide committed under violent passion or provocation; which he ranks as intermediate between the involuntary and the voluntary —approaching the one or the other, according to circumstances:311according as it is done instantaneously, or with more or less of interval and premeditation. If the act be committed instantaneously, the homicide shall undergo two years’ exile: if after time for deliberation, the time of exile must be extended to three years.312But if the slain person before his death shall have expressed forgiveness, the case shall be dealt with as one of involuntary homicide.313Special enactments are made for the case of a slave killed by a citizen, a citizen killed by a slave, a son killed by his father, a wife by her husband, &c., under the influence of passion or strong provocation. Homicide in self-defence against a previous aggressor is allowed universally.314

311Plato, Legg. ix. p. 866 E. θυμῷ καὶ ὅσοι προπηλακισθέντες λόγοις ἢ καὶ ἀτίμοις ἔργοις … μεταξύ που τοῦ τε ἑκουσίου καὶ ἀκουσίου.

312Plato, Legg. ix. p. 867 D.

313Plato, Legg. ix. p. 869 D.

314Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 868-869 C.

Homicide voluntary.

Thirdly, Plato passes to the case of homicide voluntary, the extreme of injustice, committed under the influence of pleasure, appetite, envy, jealousy, ambition, fear of voluntary divulgation of dangerous secrets, &c. — homicide premeditated and unjust. Among all these causes, the chief and most frequent is love of wealth; which gets possession of most men, in consequence of the untrue and preposterous admiration ofwealthimbibed in their youth from the current talk and literature. The next in frequency is the competition of ambitious men for power or rank.315Whoever has committed homicide upon a fellow-citizen, under these circumstances, shall be interdicted from all the temples and other public places, and shall be indicted by the nearest relatives of the deceased. If found guilty, he shall be put to death: if he leave the country to evade trial, he must be banished in perpetuity. The nearest relative is bound to indict, otherwise he draws down upon himself the taint, and may himself be indicted. Certain sacrifices and religious ceremonies will be required in such cases, to accompany the legal procedure. These, together with the names of the Gods proper to invoke, will be prescribed by the Nomophylakes, in conjunction with the prophets and the Exêgêtæ, or religious interpreters.316The Dikasts before whom such trials will take place are the Nomophylakes, together with some select persons from the magistrates of the past year: the same as in thecase of sacrilege and treason.317The like procedure and penalty will be employed against any one who has contrived the death of another, not with his own hands, but by suborning some third person: except that this contriver may be buried within the limits of the territory, while the man whose hands are stained with blood cannot be buried therein.318

315Plato, Legg. ix. p. 870.

316Plato, Legg. ix. p. 871.

317Plato, Legg. ix. p. 871 D.

318Plato, Legg. ix. p. 872 A.

Homicide between kinsmen.

For the cases of homicide between kinsmen or relatives, Plato provides a form of procedure still more solemn, and a still graver measure of punishment. He also declares suicide to leave a taint upon the country, which requires to be purified as the Exêgêtæ may prescribe: unless the act has been committed under extreme pain or extreme disgrace. The person who has killed himself must be buried apart without honour, not in the regular family burying places.319The most cruel mode of death is directed to be inflicted upon a slave who has voluntarily slain, or procured to be slain, a freeman. If a slave be put to death without any fault of his own, but only from apprehension of secrets which he may divulge, the person who kills him shall be subjected to the same trial and sentence as if he had killed a citizen.320If any animal, or even any lifeless object, has caused the death of a man, the surviving relatives must prosecute, and the animal or the object must be taken away from the country.321

319Plato, Legg. ix. p. 873.

320Plato, Legg. ix. p. 872 D.

321Plato, Legg. ix. p. 873 E. He makes exception of the cases in which death of a man is caused by thunder or some such other missile from the Gods — πλὴν ὅσα κεραυνὸς ἢ τι παρὰ θεοῦ τοιοῦτον βέλος ἰόν.

Homicide justifiable — in what cases.

Justifiable Homicide.— Some special cases are named in which he who voluntarily kills another, is nevertheless perfectly untainted. A housebreaker caught in act may thus be rightfully slain: so also a clothes-stealer, a ravisher, a person who attacks the life of any man’s father, mother, or children.322

322Plato, Legg. ix. p. 874 C.

Infliction of wounds.

Wounds.— Next to homicide, Plato deals with wounds inflicted: introducing his enactments by a preface on the general necessity of obedience to law.323Whosoever, having intended to kill another (except in the special cases wherein homicide is justifiable), inflicts a wound which provesnot mortal, is as criminal as if he had killed him. Nevertheless he is not required to suffer so severe a punishment, inasmuch as an auspicious Dæmon and Fortune have interposed to ward off the worst results of his criminal purpose. He must make full compensation to the sufferer, and then be exiled in perpetuity.324The Dikastery will decide how much compensation he shall furnish. In general, Plato trusts much to the discretion of the Dikastery, under the great diversity of the cases of wounds inflicted. He would not have allowed so much discretion to the numerous and turbulent Dikasteries of Athens: but he regards his select Dikastery as perfectly trustworthy.325Peculiar provision is made for cases in which the person inflicting the wound is kinsman or relative of the sufferer — also for homicide under the same circumstances. Plato also directs how to supply the vacancy which perpetual banishment will occasion in the occupation of one among the 5040 citizen-lots.326If one man wounds another in a fit of passion, he must pay simple, double, or triple, compensation according as the Dikasts may award: he must farther do all the military duty which would have been incumbent on the wounded man, should the latter be disabled.327But if the person inflicting the wound be a slave and the wounded man a freeman, the slave shall be handed over to the wounded freeman to deal with as he pleases. If the master of the slave will not give him up, he must himself make compensation for the wound, unless he can prove before the Dikastery that the case is one of collusion between the wounded freeman and the slave; in which case the wounded freeman will become liable to the charge of unlawfully suborning away the slave from his master.328

323Plato, Legg. ix. p. 875.

324Plato, Legg. ix. p. 877 A.

325Plato, Legg. ix. p. 876 A.

326Plato, Legg. ix. p. 877.

327Plato, Legg. ix. p. 878 C.

328Plato, Legg. ix. p. 879 A.

Infliction of blows.

Beating.— The laws of Plato on the subject of beating are more peculiar. They are mainly founded in reverence for age. One who strikes a person twenty years older than himself, is severely punished: but if he strikes a person of the same age with himself, that person must defend himself as he can with his own hands — no punishment being provided.329Forhim who strikes his father or mother, the heaviest penalty, excommunication and perpetual banishment, is provided.330If a slave strike a freeman, he shall be punished with as many blows as the person stricken directs, nevertheless in such manner as not to diminish his value to his master.331

329Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 879-880.The person who struck first blow was guilty of αἰκία, Demosth. adv. Euerg. and Mnesibul. pp. 1141-1151.

329Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 879-880.

The person who struck first blow was guilty of αἰκία, Demosth. adv. Euerg. and Mnesibul. pp. 1141-1151.

330Plato, Legg. ix. p. 881.

331Plato, Legg. p. 882 A.

Plato has borrowed much from Attic procedure, especially in regard to Homicide — Peculiar view of Homicide at Athens, as to procedure.

Throughout all this Treatise De Legibus, in regard both to civil and criminal enactments, Plato has borrowed largely from Attic laws and procedure. But in regard to homicide and wounds, he has borrowed more largely than in any other department. Both the general character, and the particular details, of his provisions respecting homicide, are in close harmony with ancient Athenian sentiment, and with the embodiments of that sentiment by the lawgivers Drako and Solon. At Athens, though the judicial procedure generally, as well as the political constitution, underwent great modification between the time of Solon and that of Demosthenes, yet the procedure in the case of homicide remained without any material change. It was of a sanctified character, depending mainly upon ancient religious tradition. The person charged with homicide was not tried before the general body of Dikasts, drawn by lot, but before special ancient tribunals and in certain consecrated places, according to the circumstances under which the act of homicide was charged. The principal object contemplated, was to protect the city and its public buildings against the injurious consequences arising from the presence of a tainted man — and to mollify the posthumous wrath of the person slain. This view of the Attic procedure332against homicide is copied by the Platonic. Plato keeps prominently in view the religiousbearing and consequences of such an act; he touches comparatively little upon its consequences in causing distress and diminishing the security of life. He copies the Attic law both in the justifications which he admits for homicide, and in the sentence of banishment which he passes against both animals and inanimate objects to whom any man owes his death. He goes beyond the Attic law in the solemnity and emphasis of his details about homicide among members of the same family and relatives: as well as in the severe punishment which he imposes upon the surviving relatives of the person slain, if they should neglect their obligation of indicting.333Throughout all this chapter, Plato not only follows the Attic law, but overpasses it, in dealing with homicide as a portion of the Jus Sacrum rather than of the Jus Civile.

332The oration of Demosthenes against Aristokrates treats copiously of this subject, pp. 627-646. εἴργειν τῆς τοῦ παθόντος πατρίδος, δίκαιον εἶναι — ὅσων τῷ παθόντι ζῶντι μετῆν, τούτων εἴργει τὸν δεδρακότα, πρῶτον μὲν τῆς πατρίδος (632-633).The first of Matthiæ’s Dissertations, De Judiciis Atheniensium (Miscellanea Philologica, vol. i. pp. 145-176), collects the information on these matters: and K. F. Hermann (De Vestigiis Institutorum Veterum, imprimis Atticorum, per Platonis De Legibus Libros indagandis, Marburg, 1836) gives a detailed comparison of Plato’s directions with what we know about the Attic Law:— ”Ipsas homicidiorum religiones (Plato) ex antiquissimo jure patrio in suum ita transtulit, ut nihil opportunius ad illustranda illius vestigia inveniri posse videatur” (p. 49). … “quæ omnia Solonis Draconisve in legibus ferè ad verbum eadem inveniuntur” (p. 50). The same about τραύματα ἐκ προνοίας, pp. 58-59.

The first of Matthiæ’s Dissertations, De Judiciis Atheniensium (Miscellanea Philologica, vol. i. pp. 145-176), collects the information on these matters: and K. F. Hermann (De Vestigiis Institutorum Veterum, imprimis Atticorum, per Platonis De Legibus Libros indagandis, Marburg, 1836) gives a detailed comparison of Plato’s directions with what we know about the Attic Law:— ”Ipsas homicidiorum religiones (Plato) ex antiquissimo jure patrio in suum ita transtulit, ut nihil opportunius ad illustranda illius vestigia inveniri posse videatur” (p. 49). … “quæ omnia Solonis Draconisve in legibus ferè ad verbum eadem inveniuntur” (p. 50). The same about τραύματα ἐκ προνοίας, pp. 58-59.

333K. F. Hermann, De Vestigiis, ut suprà, p. 54. Compare Demosthenes adv. Theokrin. p. 1331.

In respect to the offence of beating, he does not follow the Attic law, when he permits it between citizens of the same age, and throws the beaten person upon his powers of self-defence. This is Spartan, not Athenian. It is also Spartan when he makes the criminality, in giving blows, to turn upon the want of reverence for age: upon the circumstance, that the person beaten is twenty years older than the beater.334

334Plato, Legg. ix. p. 879 C. He admits the same provision as to blows between ἥλικες into his Republic (v. p. 464 E).Compare, about Sparta, Xenophon, Rep. Laced. iv. 5; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 27; Pausanias, iii. 14: Dionys. Halikarnass. Arch. Rom. xx. 2. Λακεδαιμόνιοι ὅτι τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις ἐπέτρεπον τοὺς ἀκοσμοῦντας τῶν πολιτῶν ἐν ὅτῳ δή τινι τῶν δημοσίων τόπων ταῖς βακτηρίαις παίειν.

334Plato, Legg. ix. p. 879 C. He admits the same provision as to blows between ἥλικες into his Republic (v. p. 464 E).

Compare, about Sparta, Xenophon, Rep. Laced. iv. 5; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 27; Pausanias, iii. 14: Dionys. Halikarnass. Arch. Rom. xx. 2. Λακεδαιμόνιοι ὅτι τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις ἐπέτρεπον τοὺς ἀκοσμοῦντας τῶν πολιτῶν ἐν ὅτῳ δή τινι τῶν δημοσίων τόπων ταῖς βακτηρίαις παίειν.

Impiety or outrage offered to divine things or places.

From these various crimes — sacrilege or plunder of holy places, theft, homicide, wounding, beating — Plato passes in the tenth book to insult or outrage (ὕβρις). These outrages (he considers) are essentially the acts of wild young men. Outrage may be offered towards five different subjects. 1. Public temples. 2. Private chapels and sepulchres. 3. Parents. 4. The magistrates, in their dignity or their possessions. 5. Private citizens, in respect of their civic rights and dignity.335The tenth book is devoted entirely to the two first-mentioned heads, or to impiety and its alleged sources: the others come elsewhere, not in any definite order.336

335Plato, Legg. x. pp. 884-885.

336Treatment of parents comes xi. pp. 930-931.

All impiety arises from one or other of three heresies. 1. No belief in the Gods. 2. Belief that the Gods interfere very little. 3. Belief that they may be appeased by prayer and sacrifice.

Plato declares that all impiety, either in word or deed, springs from one of three heretical doctrines. 1. The heretic does not believe in the Gods at all. 2. He believes the Gods to exist, but believes also that they do not interest themselves about human affairs; or at least that they interfere only to a small extent. 3. He believes that they exist, and that they direct every thing; but that it is perfectly practicable to appease their displeasure, and to conciliate their favour, by means of prayer and sacrifice.337

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