Is it suggested that if the manslayer is not accused and convicted, the law has no control over him? Glotz and Müller would find in such quotations a proof of their theory of the legality of ‘private settlement.’ But it is absurd to examine as it were microscopically such passages as this. They must be interpreted, as far as possible, in the light of other parallel references, and accepted or rejected according to the criterion of consistency. We admit of course that Demosthenes is not always consistent; he was essentially an orator, and as an orator he placed rhetoric before logic, persuasion before truth. But in legal quotations he had to respect the legal knowledge of his audience. Hence such quotations contain of necessity an important element of truth. In the passage which we have just cited there is an apparent discrepancy which militates somewhat against its logical value. We may ask: ‘How can the law be said to be master of everybody and everything if it guarantees to the relatives of the slain the right to refuse “appeasement,” even if there be only one dissentient?’ A law of Dracon prescribed that ‘all must agree or let one objector hold the field.’ Was not this objector, then, κύριος τοῦ ἀνδροφόνου? What control had the law over such an objector? On the very face of it, therefore, this statement of Demosthenes seems inconsistent with itself! But perhaps Plato will help us to solve the problem. We have already[72] quoted Plato’s account of the penalty for manslaughter. The legend, which he mentions, ‘of priests of old’ concerning the temporary anger of the dead shows the religious significance which the exile penalty possessed for Plato: he understood the meaning of the ‘customary rites’ of cleansing and purgation which the manslayer had to perform on his return. In his penal code, Plato differentiates between different degrees of guilt in involuntary homicide: and it is significant that the penalties vary correspondingly—not in the extent of the ‘appeasement,’ but in the duration of the period of exile. Thus he says[73]: ‘If anyone kills a freeman in a passion, let him be of necessity an exile for two years.’ In this case there is an element of guilt, but there is no deliberation or intent to kill. He goes on to say: ‘He who in a passion but with a certain degree of intent (μετ’ ἐπιβουλῆς) slays a person, ... let him be an exile for three years ... being punished during a longer period because of the greater seriousness of his passion.’ ‘It is difficult,’ he continues, ‘to give laws on such matters with accuracy. Of all such matters, therefore, it is right for the guardians of the laws to have cognisance: and when the period of the exile shall have expired for each offender, it is right to send twelve judges to the civic boundaries who having considered still more clearly meanwhile the condition (or conduct—πραξεῖς) of the exiles, will be the final arbiters (δικαστάς) of