Chapter 36

407Plato, Legg. xi. p. 913 D.

Modes of acquiring property — legitimate and illegitimate.

Various modes of acquiring property are first forbidden as illegitimate. The maxim408— “That which you have not put down, do not take up” — is rigorously enforced:any man who finds a buried treasure is prohibited from touching it, though he find it by accident and though the person who buried it be unknown. If a man violates this law, every one, freeman or slave, is invited and commanded to inform against him. Should he be found guilty, a special message must be sent to the Delphian oracle, to ask what is to be done both with the treasure and with the offender. So again, an article of property left on the highway is declared to be under protection of the Goddess or Dæmon of the Highway: whoever finds and takes it, if he be a slave, shall be severely flogged by any freeman above thirty years of age who meets him: if he be a freeman, he shall be disgraced and shall pay, besides, ten times its value to the person who left it.409These are average specimens of Plato’s point of view and manner of handling offences respecting property.

408Plato, Legg. xi. p. 913 C. Ἃ μὴ κατέθου, μὴ ἀνελῇ. This does not include, however, what has been deposited by a man’s father or grandfather.

409Plato, Legg. xi. p. 914. Seemingly, if any man found a treasure buried in the ground, or a purse lying on the road without an owner, he was not considered by most persons dishonest if he appropriated it; to do so was looked upon as an admissible piece of good luck. See Theophrastus, περὶ Μεμψιμοιρίας. From Plato’s language we gather that the finder sometimes went to consult the prophets what he should do, p. 913 B — μήτε τοῖς λεγομένοις μάντεσιν ἀνακοινώσαιμι: his phrase is not very respectful towards the prophets.

Plato’s general regulations leave little room for disputes about ownership.

The general constitution of Plato’s community restricts within comparatively narrow limits the occasions of proprietary dispute. His 5040 lots of land are all marked out, unchangeable, and indivisible, each possessed by one citizen. No man is allowed to acquire or possess movable property to a greater value than four times the lot of land: every article of property possessed by every man is registered by the magistrates. Disputes as to ownership, if they arise, are settled by reference to this register.410If the disputed article be not registered, the possessor is bound to produce the seller or donor from whom he received it. All purchases and sales are required to take place in the public market before the Agoranomi: and all for ready-money, or by immediate interchange and delivery. If a man chooses to deliver his property, without receiving the consideration, or in any private place, he does so at his own risk: he has no legal claim against the receiver.411So likewise respectingthe Eranoi or Associations for mutual Succour and Benefit. Plato gives no legal remedy to a contributor or complainant respecting any matter arising out of these associations. He requires that every man shall contribute at his own risk: and trust for requital to the honesty or equity of his fellow-contributors.412

410Plato, Legg. xi. p. 914 D.

411The same principle is laid down by Plato, Republic, viii. p. 556 A, and was also laid down by Charondas (Theophrast. ap. Stobæum Serm. xliv. 21, p. 204). Aristotle alludes to some Grecian cities in which it was the established law. K. F. Hermann, Privat-Alterthümer der Griechen, s. 71, n. 10.

412Plato, Legg. xi. p. 915 D-E.

Plato’s principles of legislation, not consistent — comparison of them with the Attic law about Eranoi.

A remark must here be made upon Plato’s refusal to allow any legal redress in such matters as sale on credit, or payments for the purpose of mutual succour and relief. Such refusal appears to contradict his general manner of proceeding: for his usual practice is, to estimate offences not according to the mischief which they inflict, but according to the degree of wickedness or impiety which he supposes them to imply in the doer. Now the contributor to an association for mutual succour, who, after paying his contributions for the aid of his associates, finds that they refuse to contribute to his aid when the hour of his necessity arrives — suffers not only heavy calamity but grievous disappointment: which implies very bad dispositions on the part of those who, not being themselves distressed, nevertheless refuse. Of such dispositions Plato takes no notice in the present case. He does not expatiate (as he does in many other cases far more trifling and disputable) upon the displeasure of the Gods when they see a man who has been benefited in distress by his neighbour’s contributions, refusing all requital at the time of that neighbour’s need. Plato indeed treats it as a private affair between friends. You do a service to your friend, and you must take your chance whether he will do you a service in return: you must not ask for legal redress, if he refuses: what you have contributed was a present voluntarily given, not a loan lent to be repaid. This is an intelligible point of view, but it excludes those ethical and sentimental considerations which Plato usually delights in enforcing.413His ethics here show themselves by leading him toturn aside from that which takes the form of a pecuniary contract. It was in this form that the Eranoi or Mutual Assurance Associations were regarded by Attic judicature: that is, they seem to have been considered as a sort of imperfect obligation, which the Dikastery would enforce against any citizen whose circumstances were tolerably prosperous, but not against one in bad circumstances. Such Eranic actions before the Attic Dikastery were among those that enjoyed the privilege of speedy adjudication (ἔμμηνοι δίκαι).414

413In Xenophon’s ideal legislation, or rather education of the Persian youth, in the Cyropædia, he introduces legal trial and punishment for ingratitude generally (Cyropæd. i. 2, 7). The Attic judicature took cognizance of neglect or bad conduct towards parents, which Xenophon ranks as a sort of ingratitude — but not of ingratitude towards any one else (Xenoph. Memor. ii. 2, 13). There is an interesting discussion in Seneca (De Beneficiis, iii. 6-18) about the propriety of treating ingratitude as a legal offence.

414Respecting the ἐρανικαὶ δίκαι at Athens, see Heraldus, Animadversiones in Salmasium, vi. 1, p. 407 seq.; Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, p. 540 seq.; K. F. Hermann, Staats Alterth. s. 146, not. 9.The word ἔρανος meant very different things — a pic-nic banquet, a club for festive meetings kept up by subscription with a common purse, a contribution made to relieve a friend in distress, carrying obligation on the receiver to requite it if the donor fell into equal distress. This last sense is the prevalent one in the Attic orators, and is brought out well in the passage of Theophrastus — Περὶ Μεμψιμοιρίας. Probably the Attic ἐρανικαὶ δίκαι took cognizance of complaints arising out of ἔρανος in all its senses.

The word ἔρανος meant very different things — a pic-nic banquet, a club for festive meetings kept up by subscription with a common purse, a contribution made to relieve a friend in distress, carrying obligation on the receiver to requite it if the donor fell into equal distress. This last sense is the prevalent one in the Attic orators, and is brought out well in the passage of Theophrastus — Περὶ Μεμψιμοιρίας. Probably the Attic ἐρανικαὶ δίκαι took cognizance of complaints arising out of ἔρανος in all its senses.

Regulations about slaves, and about freedmen.

As to property in slaves, Plato allows any owner to lay hold of a fugitive slave belonging either to himself or to any friend. If a third party reclaims the slave as being not rightfully in servitude, he must provide three competent sureties, and the slave will then be set free until legal trial can be had. Moreover, Plato enacts, respecting one who has been a slave, but has been manumitted, that such freedman (ἀπελεύθρος), if he omits to pay “proper attention” to his manumitter, may be laid hold of by the latter and re-enslaved. Proper attention consists in: 1. Going three times per month to the house of his former master, to tender service in all lawful ways. 2. Not contracting marriage without consulting his former master. 3. Not acquiring so much wealth as to become richer than his former master: if he should do so the latter may appropriate all that is above the limit. The freed man, when liberated, does not become a citizen, but is only a non-citizen or metic. He is therefore subject to the same necessity as all other metics — of departing from the territory after a residence of twenty years,415and of never acquiring more wealth than is possessed by the second class of citizens enrolled in the Schedule.

415Plato, Legg. xi. p. 915 A-B.

The duties imposed by Plato on the freedman towards hisformer master — involving a formal recognition at least of the prior dependence, and some positive duties besides — are deserving of remark, as we know so little of the condition or treatment of this class of persons in antiquity.

Provisions in case a slave is sold, having a distemper upon him.

Regulations are made to provide for the case where a slave, sold by his master, is found to be distempered or mad, or to have committed a murder. If the sale has been made to a physician or a gymnast, Plato holds that these persons ought to judge for themselves about the bodily condition of the slave bought: he therefore grants them no redress. But if the buyer be a non-professional man, he may within one month restore the distempered slave (or within one year, if the distemper be the Morbus Sacer), and may cause a jury of physicians to examine the case. Should they decide the distemper of the slave to be undoubted, the seller must take him back: repaying the full price, if he be a private man — double the price, if he be a professional man, who ought to have known, and perhaps did know, the real condition of the slave sold.416

416Plato, Legg. xi. p. 916 B-C.

Retailers. Strict regulations about them. No citizen can be a retailer.

In regard to Retail Selling, and to frauds committed either in sale or in barter, Plato provides or enjoins strict regulations. The profession of the retailer, and the function of money as auxiliary to it, he pronounces to be useful and almost indispensable to society, for the purpose of rendering different articles of value commensurable with each other, and of ensuring a distribution suitable to the requirements of individuals. This could not be done without retailers, merchants, hired agents, &c.417But though retailing is thus useful, if properly conducted, it slides easily and almost naturally into cheating, lying, extortion, &c., from the love of money inherent in most men. Such abuses must be restrained: at any rate they must not be allowed to corrupt the best part of the community. Accordingly, none of the 5040 citizens will be allowed either to practise retailing, or to exercise any hired function, except under his own senior relatives, and of a dignified character. The discrimination of what is dignified and notdignified must be made according to the liking or antipathy of a court of honour, composed of such citizens as have obtained prizes for virtue.418None must be permitted to sell by retail except metics or non-citizens: and these must be kept under strict watch by the Nomophylakes, who, after enquiring into the details of each article, will fix its price at such sum as will afford to the dealer a moderate profit.419

417Plato, Legg. xi. p. 918 B. The like view of retail trade is given in the Republic, ii. p. 371. It indicates just and penetrating social observation, taken in reference to Plato’s age.

418Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 918-919. 919 E: τὸ δ’ ἐλευθερικὸν καὶ ἀνελεύθερον ἀκριβῶς μὲν οὐ ῥᾴδιον νομοθετεῖν, κρινέσθω γε μὴν ὑπὸ τῶν τὰ ἀριστεῖα εἰληφότων τῷ ἐκείνωνμίσει τε καὶ ἀσπασμῷ.

419Plato, Legg. xi. p. 920 B-C.

Frauds committed by sellers — severe punishments on them.

If there be any fraud committed by the seller (which is nearly akin to retailing),420Plato prescribes severe penalty. The seller must never name two prices for his article during the same day. He must declare his price: and if no one will give it, he must withdraw the article for the day.421He is not allowed to praise his own articles, or to take any oath respecting them. If he shall take any oath, any citizen above thirty years of age shall be held bound to thrash him, and may do so with impunity: such citizen, if he neglect to thrash the swearer, will himself be amenable to censure for betraying the laws. If the seller shall sell a spurious or fraudulent article, the magistrates must be informed of it by any one cognizant. The informer, if a slave or a metic, shall be rewarded by having the article made over to him. If he be a citizen, he will receive the article, but is bound to consecrate it to the Gods who preside over the market: if being cognizant he omits to inform, he shall be proclaimed a wicked man, for defrauding the Gods of that to which they are entitled. The magistrates, on receiving information, will not only deprive the seller of the spurious article, but will cause him to be flogged by the herald in the market-place — one stripe for every drachma contained in the price demanded. The herald will publicly proclaim the reason why the flogging is given. Besides this, the magistrates will collect and write up in the market-place bothregulations of detail for the sellers, and information to put buyers on their guard.422

420Plato, Legg. xi. p. 920 C. τῆς κιβδηλείας πέρι, ξυγγενοῦς τούτῳ (καπηλείᾳ) πράγματος, &c.Plato is more rigorous on these matters than the Attic law. See K. F. Hermann, Griech. Privat-Alterthümer, s. 62.

420Plato, Legg. xi. p. 920 C. τῆς κιβδηλείας πέρι, ξυγγενοῦς τούτῳ (καπηλείᾳ) πράγματος, &c.

Plato is more rigorous on these matters than the Attic law. See K. F. Hermann, Griech. Privat-Alterthümer, s. 62.

421Plato, Legg. xi. p. 917 B-C. I do not quite see how this is to be reconciled with Plato’s direction that the prices of articles sold shall be fixed by the magistrates; but both of the two are here found.

422Plato, Legg. xi. p. 917 B-D.

Comparison with the lighter punishment inflicted by Attic law.

Compare this enactment in Plato with the manner in which the Attic law would have dealt with the like offence. The defrauded buyer would have brought his action before the Dikastery against the fraudulent seller, who, if found guilty, would have been condemned in damages to make good the wrong: perhaps fined besides. The penalties inflicted by the usual course of law at Athens were fine, disfranchisement, civil disability of one kind or other, banishment, confiscation of property: occasionally imprisonment — sometimes, though rarely, death by the cup of hemlock in prison.423Except in very rare cases, an accused person might retire into banishment if he chose, and might thus escape any penalty worse than banishment and confiscation of property. But corporal punishment was never inflicted by the law at Athens. The people, especially the poorer citizens, were very sensitive on this point,424regarding it as one great line of distinction between the freeman and the slave. At Sparta, on the contrary, corporal chastisement was largely employed as a penalty: moreover the use of the fist in private contentions, by the younger citizens, was encouraged rather than forbidden.425

423See Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, B. iv. Chap. 13, 740.

424See Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2, 58.

425Xenophon, Hellen. iii. 3, 11: De Republ. Laced. ii. 8, iv. 6, ix. 5; Aristophanes, Aves, 1013.

Plato follows the analogy of Sparta in preference to that of Athens. Here, as elsewhere, he employs corporal punishment abundantly as a penalty. Here, as elsewhere, he not only prescribes that it shall be inflicted by a public agent under the supervision of magistrates, but also directs it to be administered, against certain offenders, by private unofficial citizens. I believe that this feature of his system would have been more repugnant than any other, to the feelings of all classes of Athenian citizens — to all the different types of character represented by Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Isokrates, Demosthenes, and Sokrates. Abstinence from manual violence was characteristic of Athenian manners. Whatever licence might be allowed to the tongue, it was at least a substitute for the aggressive employment of the arm and hand.Athens exhibited marked respect for the sanctity of the person against blows — much equality of dealing between man and man — much tolerance, public as well as private, of individual diversity in taste and character — much keenness of intellectual and oral competition, liable to degenerate into unfair stratagem in political, forensic, professional, and commercial life, as well as in rhetorical, dialectical, and philosophical exercises. All these elements, not excepting even the first, were distasteful to Plato. But those who copy the disparaging judgment which he pronounces against Athenian manners, ought in fairness to take account of the point of view from which that judgment is delivered. To a philosopher whose ideal is depicted in the two treatises De Republicâ and De Legibus, Athenian society would appear repulsive enough. We learn from these two treatises what it was that a great speculative politician of the day desired to establish as a substitute.

Regulations about Orphans and Guardians: also about Testamentary powers.

Plato next goes on to make regulations about orphans and guardians, and in general for cases arising out of the death of a citizen. The first question presenting itself naturally is, How far is the citizen to be allowed to direct by testament the disposition of his family and property? What restriction is to be placed upon his power of making a valid will? Many persons (Plato says) affirmed that it was unjust to impose any restriction: that the dying man had a right to make such dispositions as he chose, for his property and family after his death. Against this view Plato enters his decided protest. Each man — and still more each man’s property — belongs not to himself, but to his family and to the city: besides which, an old man’s judgment is constantly liable to be perverted by decline of faculties, disease, or the cajoleries of those around him.426Accordingly Plato grants only a limited liberty of testation. Here, as elsewhere, he adopts the main provisions of the Attic law, with such modifications as were required by the fundamental principles of his Magnêtic city: especially by the fixed total of 5040 lots orfundi, each untransferable and indivisible. The lot, together with the plant orstock for cultivating it,427must descend entire to one son: but the father, if he has more than one son, may determine by will to which of them it shall descend. If there be any one among the sons whom another citizen (being childless) is disposed to adopt, such adoption can only take place with the father’s consent. But if the father gives his consent, he cannot bequeath his own lot to the son so adopted, because two lots cannot be united in the same possessor. Whatever property the father possesses over and above his lot and its appurtenances, he may distribute by will among his other sons, in any proportion he pleases. If he dies, leaving no sons, but only daughters, he may select which of them he pleases; and may appoint by will some suitable husband, of a citizen family, to marry her and inherit his lot. If a citizen (being childless) has adopted a son out of any other family, he must bequeath to that son the whole of his property, except one-tenth part of what he possesses over and above his lot and its appurtenances: this tenth he may bequeath to any one whom he chooses.428

426Plato, Legg. xi. p. 923 B.It is to be observed that Plato does not make any allusion to these misguiding influences operating upon an aged man, when he talks about the curse of a father against his son being constantly executed by the Gods: xi. p. 931 B.

426Plato, Legg. xi. p. 923 B.

It is to be observed that Plato does not make any allusion to these misguiding influences operating upon an aged man, when he talks about the curse of a father against his son being constantly executed by the Gods: xi. p. 931 B.

427Plato, Legg. xi. p. 923 D. πλὴν τοῦ πατρῴου κλήρου καὶ τῆς περὶ τὸν κλῆρον κατασκεύης πάσης.

428Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 923-924. The language of Plato seems to imply that this childless citizen would not be likely to make any will, but that having adopted a son, the son so adopted would hardly be satisfied unless he inherited the whole.

If the father dies intestate, leaving only daughters, the nearest relative who has no lot of his own shall marry one of the daughters, and succeed to the lot. The nearest is the brother of the deceased; next, the brother of the deceased’s wife (paternal and maternal uncles of the maiden); next, their sons; next, the parental and maternal uncle of the deceased father, and their sons. If all these relatives be wanting, the magistrates will provide a suitable husband, in order that the lot of land may not remain unoccupied.429If a citizen die both intestate and childless, two of his nearest unmarried relatives, male and female, shall intermarry and succeed to his property: reckoning in the order of kinship above mentioned.430In thus imposing marriage as a legal obligation upon persons in a certain degree of kinship, Plato is aware that there will be individual cases of great hardship and of repugnance almostinsurmountable. He treats this as unavoidable: providing however that there shall be a select judicial Board of Appeal, before which persons who feel aggrieved by the law may bring their complaints, and submit their grounds for dispensation.431

429Plato, Legg. xi. p. 924-925.

430Plato, Legg. xi. p. 925 C-D. These provisions appear to me not very clear.

431Plato, Legg. xi. p. 926 B-D. He directs also (p. 925 A) that the Dikasts shall determine the fit season when these young persons become marriageable by examining their naked bodies: that is, the males quite naked, the females half naked. A direction seemingly copied from Athenian practice, and illustrating curiously the language of Philokleon in Aristophanes, Vesp. 598. See K. F. Hermann, Vestig. Juris Domestici ap. Platonem cum Græciæ Institutis Comparata, p. 27.

Plato’s general coincidence with Attic law and its sentiment.

These provisions deserve notice as showing how largely Plato coincides with the prevalent Attic sentiment respecting family and relationship. He does not award the slightest preference to primogeniture, among brothers: he grants to agnates a preference over cognates: he regards it as a public misfortune that any house shall be left empty, so as to cause interruption of the sacred rites of the family: lastly, he ensures that the family, in default of lineal male heirs, shall be continued by inter-marriage with the nearest relatives — and he especially approves the marriage of an heiress with her paternal or maternal uncle. On these points Plato is in full harmony with his countrymen, though he dissents widely from modern sentiment.

Tutelage of Orphans — Disagreement of Married Couples — Divorce.

Respecting tutelage of orphans, he makes careful provision against abuse, as the Attic law also did: he tries also to meet the cases of family discord, where father and son are in bitter wrath against each other. A father may formally renounce his son, but not without previously obtaining the concurrence of aconseil de famille: if the father has become imbecile with age, and wastes his substance, the son may institute a suit as for lunacy, but not without the permission of the Nomophylakes.432Respecting disagreement between married couples, ten of the Nomophylakes, together with ten women chosen as supervisors of marriages, are constituted a Board of reference,433to obtain a reconciliation, if it be possible: but if this be impossible, then to divorce the couple, and unite each with some more suitable partner. The lawgiver must keep in view, as far as he can, to obtain from each married couple a sufficiency of children —that is, one male and one female child from each, whereby the total of 5040 lots may be kept up.434If a husband loses his wife before he has these two children, the law requires him to marry another wife: but if he becomes a widower, having already the sufficiency of children, he is advised not to marry a second wife (who will become stepmother), though not prohibited from doing so, if he chooses. So also, if a woman becomes a widow, not having the sufficient number of children, she must be compelled to marry again: if she already has the sufficient number, she is directed to remain in the house, and to bring them up. In case she is still young, and her health requires a husband, her relatives will apply to the Female Supervisors of Marriage, and will make such arrangements as may seem advisable.435

432Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 928-929.

433Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 929-930.

434Plato, Legg. xi. p. 930 D. παίδων δὲ ἱκανότης ἀκριβὴς ἄῤῥην καὶ θήλεια ἔστω τῷ νόμῳ.

435Plato, Legg. xi. p. 930 C.

Neglect of Parents.

Against neglect of aged parents by their children, Plato both denounces the most stringent legal penalties, and delivers the most emphatic reproofs: commending with full faith the ancient traditional narratives, that the curse of an offended parent against his sons was always executed by the Gods, as in the cases of Œdipus, Theseus, Amyntor, &c.436In the event of lunacy, he directs that the lunatic shall be kept in private custody by his relatives, who will be fined if they neglect the duty.437

436Plato, Legg, xi. p. 931-932.

437Plato, Legg, xi. p. 934 D.

Hurt or damage, not deadly, done by one man to another. — Plato enumerates two different modes of inflicting damage:— 1. By drugs (applied externally or internally), magic, or sorcery. 2. By theft or force.438

438Plato, Legg. xi. p. 932 E-933 E. Both these come under the general head ὅσα τις ἄλλος ἄλλονπημαίνει.

Poison — Magic — Incantations — Severe punishment.

As to the first mode, if the drug be administered by a physician, he must be put to death: if by one not a physician, the Dikasts will determine the nature of his punishment. And in the case of magical arts, or incantations, if the person who resorts to them be a prophet, or an inspector of prodigies, he must be put to death: another person doing the same will be punished at the discretion of the Dikasts. Here we see that the prophetis ranked as a professional person (the like appears in Homer) along with the physician,439— who must know what he is about, while another person perhaps may not know. But Plato’s own opinion respecting magical incantations is delivered with singular reserve. He will neither avouch them nor reject them. He intimates that a man can hardly find out what is true on the subject; and even if he could, it would be harder still to convince others. Most men are in serious alarm when they see waxen statuettes hung at their doors or at their family tombs; and it is useless to attempt to tranquillise them by reminding them that they have no certain evidence on the subject.440Here we see how Plato discourages the received legends and the current faith, when he believes them to be hurtful — as contrasted with his vehemence in upholding them when he thinks them useful: as in the case of the paternal curse, and the judgments of the Gods. The question of their truth is made to depend on their usefulness.441The Gods are made to act exactly as he thinks they ought to act. They are not merely invoked, but positively counted on, as executioners of Plato’s ethical sentences.

439Plato, Legg. xi. p. 933 C. ὡς πρῶτον μὲν τὸν ἐπιχειροῦντα φαρμάττειν οὐκ εἰδότα τί δρᾷ, τά τε κατὰ σώματα, ἐὰν μὴ τυγχάνῃ ἐπιστήμων ὢν ἰατρικῆς, τά τε αὖ περὶ τὰ μαγγανεύματα, ἐὰν μὴ μάντις ἢ τερατοσκόπος ὢν τυγχάνῃ.Homer, Odys. xvii. 383:—… τῶν οἳ δημιοεργοὶ ἔασι,μάντιν, ἢ ἰήτηρα κακῶν, ἢ τέκτονα δούρων,ἢ καὶ θέσπιν ἀοιδόν, &c.

Homer, Odys. xvii. 383:—

… τῶν οἳ δημιοεργοὶ ἔασι,μάντιν, ἢ ἰήτηρα κακῶν, ἢ τέκτονα δούρων,ἢ καὶ θέσπιν ἀοιδόν, &c.

440Plato, Legg. xi. p. 933 B. ἄν ποτε ἴδωσί που κήρινα μιμήματα πεπλασμένα. Compare Theokritus, Idyll, ii. 28-59.See the remarkable narrative of the death of Germanicus in Syria, supposed to have been brought about by the magical artifices wrought under the auspices of Piso (Tacitus, Ann. ii. 69).

440Plato, Legg. xi. p. 933 B. ἄν ποτε ἴδωσί που κήρινα μιμήματα πεπλασμένα. Compare Theokritus, Idyll, ii. 28-59.

See the remarkable narrative of the death of Germanicus in Syria, supposed to have been brought about by the magical artifices wrought under the auspices of Piso (Tacitus, Ann. ii. 69).

441Cicero, Legg, ii. 7, 16. “Utiles autem esse has opiniones, quis neget, cum intelligat, quam multa firmentur jurejurando,” &c.

Punishment is inflicted with a view to future prevention or amendment.

Respecting the second mode of damage — by theft or violence — Plato’s law forms a striking contrast to that which has been just set forth. The person who inflicts damage must repay it, or make full compensation for it, to the sufferer: small, if the damage be small — great, if it be great. Besides this, the guilty person must undergo some farther punishment with a view to correction or reformation. This will be smaller, if he be young and seduced by the persuasion of others; but it must be graver, if he be self-impelled by his owndesires, fears, wrath, jealousy, &c. Understand, however (adds Plato), that such ulterior punishment is not imposed on account of the past misdeed — for the past cannot be recalled or undone — but on account of the future: to ensure that he shall afterwards hate wrong-doing, and that those who see him punished shall hate it also. The Dikasts must follow out in detail the general principle here laid down.442

442Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 933-934. Compare Plato, Protagor. p. 324 B.

This passage proclaims distinctly an important principle in regard to the infliction of legal penalties: which principle, if kept in mind, might have lead Plato to alter or omit a large portion of the Leges.

Penalty for abusive words — for libellous comedy. Mendicity forbidden.

Respectingwords of abuse, or revilement, or insulting derision. — These are altogether forbidden. If used in any temple, market, or public and frequented place, the magistrate presiding must punish the offender forthwith, as he thinks fit: if elsewhere, any citizen by-stander, being older than the offender, is authorised thrash him.443No writer of comedy is allowed to ridicule or libel any citizen.

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