As to the exaction of penalties, any person who is fined for an offence
shall not be liable to pay the fine, unless he have property in excess
of his lot. For the lots must never go uncultivated for lack of means;
the guardians of the law are to provide against this. If a fine is
inflicted upon a man which he cannot pay, and for which his friends
are unwilling to give security, he shall be imprisoned and otherwise
dishonoured. But no criminal shall go unpunished:--whether death, or
imprisonment, or stripes, or fines, or the stocks, or banishment to a
remote temple, be the penalty. Capital offences shall come under the
cognizance of the guardians of the law, and a college of the best of the
last year's magistrates. The order of suits and similar details we shall
leave to the lawgivers of the future, and only determine the mode of
voting. The judges are to sit in order of seniority, and the proceedings
shall begin with the speeches of the plaintiff and the defendant; and
then the judges, beginning with the eldest, shall ask questions and
collect evidence during three days, which, at the end of each day, shall
be deposited in writing under their seals on the altar of Hestia; and
when they have evidence enough, after a solemn declaration that they
will decide justly, they shall vote and end the case. The votes are to
be given openly in the presence of the citizens.
Next to religion, the preservation of the constitution is the first
object of the law. The greatest enemy of the state is he who attempts to
set up a tyrant, or breeds plots and conspiracies; not far below him in
guilt is a magistrate who either knowingly, or in ignorance, fails to
bring the offender to justice. Any one who is good for anything will
give information against traitors. The mode of proceeding at such trials
will be the same as at trials for sacrilege; the penalty, death. But
neither in this case nor in any other is the son to bear the iniquity of
the father, unless father, grandfather, great-grandfather, have all of
them been capitally convicted, and then the family of the criminal
are to be sent off to the country of their ancestor, retaining their
property, with the exception of the lot and its fixtures. And ten are to
be selected from the younger sons of the other citizens--one of whom is
to be chosen by the oracle of Delphi to be heir of the lot.
Our third law will be a general one, concerning the procedure and the
judges in cases of treason. As regards the remaining or departure of the
family of the offender, the same law shall apply equally to the traitor,
the sacrilegious, and the conspirator.