26
Moreover he argued that before the trial is held such expressions as if a man kill, if a man rob a temple, if a man commit treason, and the like, are merely phrases of accusation: they become definitions of crime only after trial and conviction. To a formula of accusation he thought it proper to attach not punishment, but only trial; and therefore, when enacting that, if one man killed another, the Council should take cognizance, he did not lay down what should be done to the culprit if found guilty.
27
So much for the legislator; but what of the author of the decree? If any man kill Charidemus, he says. So he defines the injury in the same phrase, if any man kill, as the legislator; but the sequel is not the same. He struck out submission to trial, and made the culprit liable to immediate seizure; he passed by the tribunal appointed by law, and handed over to the accusers, to be dealt with as they chose, a man untried, a man whose guilt is not yet proven.
28
When they have got him, they are to be allowed to torture him, or maltreat him, or extort money from him. Yet the next ensuing statute directly and distinctly forbids such treatment even of men convicted and proved to be murderers. Read to the jury the statute that follows.
28
Statute.
28
It shall be lawful to killi.e. if they resist capture. murderers in our own territory, or to arrest them as directed on the first turning-table,Solon’s laws were inscribed on square tablets, attached (by hinges?) to an upright post. These posts stood in the Agora, accessible to all. but not to maltreat or amerce them, on penalty of a payment of twice the damage inflicted. The Archons, according to their several jurisdictions, shall bring cases into court; for any man who so desires and the court of Heliaea shall adjudicate.
