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
The malicious wounding of a husband by his wife or of a wife by her
husband did not, apparently, involve such a confiscation but did involve
perpetual exile. This identical penalty is applied by Lysias to ordinary
cases of malicious wounding.[225] Hence Plato is quite authentic when
he says[226] ‘If a woman wounds her husband with intent to kill, or a
husband his wife, let (the offender) undergo a perpetual exile ... let
guardians manage the property and take care of the children as if they
were orphans.... In case there are no children let the kindred, as far as
cousins, on the male and female side, come together and appoint an heir.’
It is in cases of involuntary homicide or of homicide in a passion,
between man and wife, that the influence of the pollution doctrine
is especially apparent. The penalty for such deeds, as Plato assures
us, was perpetual exile from the family and temporary exile from the
State. Now, temporary exile, in ordinary cases of involuntary homicide,
was terminated by the ‘appeasement’ of the relatives of the slain.
The primeval tribal law in which ‘appeasement’ ultimately originated
recognised the payment of material retribution in cases of husband-wife
slaying. But the ‘pollution’ doctrine prevented the survival, in
historical times, of ‘appeasement’ in cases of this kind. Plato[227]
assures us that such offenders could never, in any circumstances, return
to dwell in their old homes with their children.
We have now completed our review of the murder-laws of Dracon. We have
not referred in this connexion to the law which related to the seizure
of hostages in default of extradition (ἀνδροληψία) because this law has
already[228] been discussed and explained. We have also omitted many
legal details, of which some will find a place in our next chapter, which
deals with Attic murder-courts, and others have not been considered
sufficiently important or sufficiently relevant to our main purpose—which
is, in effect, the philosophical explanation of the origin and evolution
of Greek homicide law.
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