Poine: a study in ancient Greek blood-vengeanceTreston, Hubert Joseph
History
Poine: a study in ancient Greek blood-vengeance
Treston, Hubert Joseph
Criminal law (Greek law); Greece -- Civilization; Greek drama (Tragedy) -- History and criticism; Homicide (Greek law); Vendetta
jurisdiction and execution were different from those of Greece, we should
be slow to base any theory upon such an anecdote. We read in Livy[205]
that a certain P. Horatius, the father of a famous warrior who in a
moment of passionate triumph slew his sister, and who was in consequence
arraigned before the King and the Duumviri, said to the judges that he
considered his daughter was justly slain, and that otherwise he would
have punished his son by right of his parental authority.
Again, Livy tells us[206] how a certain Cassius, a consul, as soon as
he went out of office, was sentenced to death and executed. ‘There are
some who say that his father inflicted the punishment, that after putting
him on trial in private he scourged him and put him to death.’ Such
passages illustrate the well-known _patria potestas_ of a Roman father.
Yet even in Rome the State could interfere in such matters, since we find
that a Decemvir ordered the arrest and the imprisonment of a certain
Virginius who had slain his daughter.[207] Rome, however, can give us
no really valid evidence for Greek law. The power of a father to sell
his daughter as a slave, which Solon abolished, was a remnant of _patria
potestas_.[208] But Solon’s interference in such matters proves that the
sacred jurisdiction and power of the family had been already in his time
invaded by the State. All matters which concerned public morality and
utility, all matters which were affected by national or international
religion, had naturally passed out of the exclusive control of the
kindred. We have already indicated[209] the survival in historical Greece
of clan-courts and of local religious corporations. We have also quoted
Plato[210] for the operation of local jurisdictions in cases of ‘wounding
in a passion,’ between members of the same kindred.
But the religious doctrine of pollution placed the actual slaying of
kinsmen on an altogether different plane. Moreover, we believe that the
evolution of State execution affected the question of the penalty for
kin-slaying. Demosthenes, in two passages[211] recently cited, makes his
client Diodorus say that if Androtion had succeeded in the indictment for
impiety which he had brought against the uncle of Diodorus, he himself,
as a result of the indictment, would not only have lost his property but
would also have lost his life. Now such a confiscation of property must
have been a State confiscation: and the only authority which could decree
or execute such a confiscation was a State court and State officials. It
is therefore natural to assume that the death penalty would also have
been carried out by the State.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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