Plato (De Legg. ix. pp. 871-874), in his copious penal suggestions to deal with homicide, both intentional and accidental, concurs in general with the old Attic law (see Matthiæ, Miscellanea Philologica, vol. i. p. 151): and as he states with sufficient distinctness the grounds of his propositions, we see how completely the idea of a right to private or family revenge is absent from his mind. In one particular case, he confers upon kinsmen the privilege of avenging their murdered relative (p. 871); but generally, he rather seeks to enforce upon them strictly the duty of bringing the suspected murderer to trial before the court. By the Attic law, it was only the kinsmen of the deceased who had the right of prosecuting for murder,—or the master, if the deceased was an οἰκέτης (Demosthen. cont. Euerg. et Mnesibul. c. 18); they might by forgiveness shorten the term of banishment for the unintentional murderer (Demosth. cont. Makart. p. 1069). They seem to have been regarded, generally speaking, as religiously obliged, but not legally compellable, to undertake this duty; compare Plato, Euthyphro, capp. 4 and 5. [160] Lysias, cont. Agorat. Or. xiii. p. 137. Antiphon. Tetralog. i. 1, p. 629. Ἀσύμφορον δ᾽ ὑμῖν ἐστὶ τόνδε, μιαρὸν καὶ ἄναγνον ὄντα, εἰς τὰ τεμένη τῶν θεῶν εἰσιόντα μιαίνειν τὴν ἅγνειαν αὐτῶν, ἐπὶ δὲ τὰς αὐτὰς τραπέζας ἰόντα συγκαταπιμπλάναι τοὺς ἀναιτίους· ἐκ γὰρ τούτωον αἵ τε ἀφορίαι γίνονται, δυστυχεῖς θ᾽ αἱ πράξεις καθίστανται. The three Tetralogies of Antipho are all very instructive respecting the legal procedure in cases of alleged homicide: as also the Oration De Cæde Herodis (see capp. 1 and 2)—τοῦ νόμου κειμένου, τὸν ἀποκτείναντα ἀνταποθανεῖν, etc. The case of the Spartan Drakontius, one of the Ten Thousand Greeks who served with Cyrus the younger, and permanently exiled from his country in consequence of an involuntary murder committed during his boyhood, presents a pretty exact parallel to the fatal quarrel of Patroklus at dice, when a boy, with the son of Amphidamas, in consequence of which he was forced to seek shelter under the roof of Pêleus (compare Iliad, xxiii. 85, with Xenoph. Anabas. iv. 8, 25).