Book 9
867
Ath. Returning, then, to our task, let us make this pronouncement:—If a man with his own hand slay a free man, and the deed be done in rage without deliberate intent, he shall suffer such other penalties as it is proper for the man to suffer who has slain without passion, and he shall be compelled to go into exile for two years, thereby chastising his own passion. And he that slays in passion and with deliberate intent shall be treated in other respects like the former, but shall be exiled for three years—instead of two, like the other,—receiving a longer period of punishment because of the greatness of his passion. As regards the return home, in such cases it shall be on this wise. (It is a difficult matter to legislate for with exactness; for sometimes the more dangerous of the two murderers in the eye of the law might prove the more gentle and the gentler the more dangerous, and the latter might have committed the murder more savagely, the former more gently; though as a rule matters turn out in the way we have stated: so, regarding all these regulations the Law-wardens must act as supervisors). When the period of exile in each case has elapsed, they must send twelve of their number to the borders of the country to act as judges—they having made during the interval a still closer investigation into the actions of the exiles;
