Categoria: Leis IX

LAWS – BOOK IX The remaining books of the Laws, IX-XII, are chiefly concerned with criminal offences. In the first class are placed offences against the Gods, especially sacrilege or robbery of temples: next follow offences against the state,—conspiracy, treason, theft. The mention of thefts suggests a distinction between voluntary and involuntary, curable and incurable…

Ath. Next to all the matters which have preceded in the natural order of legislation will come suits of law. Of suits those which relate to agriculture have been already described, but the more important have not been described. Having mentioned them severally under their usual names, we will proceed to say what punishments are…

Ath. Among our citizens there may be those who cannot be subdued by all the strength of the laws ; and for their sake, though an ungracious task, I will proclaim my first law about the robbing of temples, in case any one should dare to commit such a crime. I do not expect or…

Cle. What makes you say, Stranger, that a theft is all one, whether the thief may have taken much or little, and either from sacred or secular places — and these are not the only differences in thefts : — seeing, then, that they are of many kinds, ought not the legislator to adapt himself…

Having begun to speak of homicide, let us endeavour to lay down laws concerning every different kind of homicides, and, first of all, concerning violent and involuntary homicides. If any one in an athletic contest, and at the public games, involuntarily kills a friend, and he dies either at the time or afterwards of the…

Thus much as to the nurture and education of the living soul of man, having which, he can, and without which, if he unfortunately be without them, he cannot live ; and also concerning the punishments : — which are to be inflicted for violent deaths, let thus much be enacted. Of the nurture and…

All the preceding injuries and every kind of assault are deeds of violence ; and every man, woman, or child ought to consider that the elder has the precedence of the younger in honour, both among the Gods and also among men who would live in security and happiness. Wherefore it is a foul thing…