It has been observed that the purpose of the Hebrew law of sanctuary was not merely to protect the involuntary manslayer from blood-revenge, but at the same time to punish him and compel him to expiate the blood he has shed.[56] If he left the city of refuge before the death of the high-priest, the avenger of blood might kill him without incurring blood-guiltiness; and he was not permitted to purchase an earlier return to his possession with a money ransom.[57] [Footnote 56: Goitein, _Das Vergeltungsprincip im biblischen und talmudischen Strafrecht_, p. 25 _sq._ Keil, _Manual of Biblical Archæology_, ii. 371.] [Footnote 57: _Numbers_, xxxv. 26 _sqq._] According to the Laws of Manu, "he who damages the {225} goods of another, be it intentionally or unintentionally, shall give satisfaction to the owner and pay to the king a fine equal to the damage";[58] and various rites of expiation are prescribed for a person who kills a Brâhmana by accident,[59] whereas the intentional slaying of a Brâhmana is inexpiable.[60] [Footnote 58: _Laws of Manu_, viii. 288.] [Footnote 59: _Ibid._ xi. 73 _sqq._] [Footnote 60: _Ibid._ xi. 90. _Gautama_, xxi. 7. According to some authorities, however, the wilful slaying of a Brâhmana was expiable by a penance of greater severity (Bühler's note, in his translation of the 'Laws of Manu,' _Sacred Books of the East_, xxv. 449).] Demosthenes praises the Athenian law for making the penalty of unintentional homicide less than that of intentional. The punishment for murder was death, from which, however, before the sentence was passed, the murderer was at liberty to escape by withdrawing from his country and remaining in perpetual exile. But he who was convicted of involuntary homicide had to leave the country only for some shorter time, until he had appeased the relatives of the deceased.[61] As will be seen subsequently, the real object of this law was not so much to punish the involuntary manslayer, as to save him from being persecuted by the dead man's ghost, and to rid the community of a pollution. However, the Athenian law does not represent the ideas of early times. As Dr. Farnell observes, the constitution and the legend about the foundation of the court at the Palladium, which was established to try cases of unintentional blood-shedding, shows that the ancient practice was susceptible of improvement.[62] Nor does the Roman law, which, in its developed shape, with such a remarkable consistency carried out the Cornelian principle, "in maleficiis voluntas spectatur non exitus,"[63] seem to have been equally discriminate in early times.[64] In the Law of the Twelve Tables there are still some faint traces left of the notion that expiation was required of a person who accidentally shed human blood.[65] [Footnote 61: Demosthenes, _Contra Aristocratem_, 71 _sq._ p. 643 _sq._] [Footnote 62: Aristotle, _De republica Atheniensium_, 57. Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, i. 304.]