In regard to adultery, we have already[102] suggested that the right to kill _in flagrante delicto_ must not be regarded as a relic of a primeval custom which decreed the death penalty for adulterers in all circumstances. The Gortyn laws and the Homeric customs which are denoted by the word μοιχάγρια support our view that the right to kill _in flagrante delicto_ was an innovation of the period of synoekism and of centralised government. Philippi[103] thinks that there is a strong probability of correctness in Pausanias’ view[104] that the age of Theseus represents the point at which the distinction of justifiable homicide could be applied in such matters. But our reading of Pausanias suggests that in his view the distinction was first applied to adultery in the time of Dracon.[105] We believe the distinction, thus applied, was as late as the seventh century, and we agree with Pausanias that the penalty thus decreed was severe. WILFUL MURDER We have seen that the restored Draconian inscription contains no reference to wilful murder. Demosthenes quotes a law which merely mentions the crime and which is mainly concerned with the allocation of trials for wilful murder to the Areopagus court which normally had jurisdiction in such cases. We shall discuss this law when we come to describe the Athenian homicide courts. The actual penalties for murder can only be inferred from the wording of other Draconian laws, and from other sources, such as Plato. Thus we may infer from the law[106] which declared inviolable the person and property of involuntary slayers, who are described as ‘those who have gone into exile and whose property is not confiscate,’ that in the graver kinds of homicide, such as murder, the criminal’s property was confiscated to the State. Again, from the law[107] which forbade the slaying of a murderer ‘whilst he keeps away from the markets on State-boundaries and from public games and Amphictyonic festivals,’ and from the further law[108] which permitted the slaying of a murderer found, after conviction, in his native territory, we may infer that death was the normal penalty for any murderer who did not go into perpetual exile. Demosthenes, in the speech _against Meidias_,[109] says that ‘the laws punish those who have slain with intent by death _or_ (καί) perpetual exile _and_ (καί) confiscation of property.’ Plato[110] is quite lucid in his account of wilful murder, but he omits to mention confiscation of property. ‘Whoever,’ he says, ‘deliberately and unjustly shall kill with his own hand any of his fellow citizens (τῶν ἐμφυλίων), let him be debarred from civic and religious privileges (τὰ νόμιμα) and let him not “pollute” the temples or ports or other public meeting-place ... let him who is convicted pay the penalty of death and let him not be buried in the native land of the slain [or in his own, if that is different]: but if he goes into exile without wishing to challenge a verdict (κρίσιν ὑποσχεῖν) let him remain in