If a man, being in his right mind, dare to smite his father and mother,
or his grandfather and grandmother, let the passer-by come to the
rescue; and if he be a metic or stranger who comes to the rescue, he
shall have the first place at the games; or if he do not come to the
rescue, he shall be a perpetual exile. Let the citizen in the like
case be praised or blamed, and the slave receive freedom or a hundred
stripes. The wardens of the agora, the city, or the country, as the
case may be, shall see to the execution of the law. And he who is an
inhabitant of the same place and is present shall come to the rescue, or
he shall fall under a curse.
If a man be convicted of assaulting his parents, let him be banished for
ever from the city into the country, and let him abstain from all sacred
rites; and if he do not abstain, let him be punished by the wardens of
the country; and if he return to the city, let him be put to death. If
any freeman consort with him, let him be purified before he returns to
the city. If a slave strike a freeman, whether citizen or stranger, let
the bystander be obliged to seize and deliver him into the hands of the
injured person, who may inflict upon him as many blows as he
pleases, and shall then return him to his master. The law will be as
follows:--The slave who strikes a freeman shall be bound by his master,
and not set at liberty without the consent of the person whom he has
injured. All these laws apply to women as well as to men.
BOOK X. The greatest wrongs arise out of youthful insolence, and the
greatest of all are committed against public temples; they are in the
second degree great when private rites and sepulchres are insulted; in
the third degree, when committed against parents; in the fourth degree,
when they are done against the authority or property of the rulers; in
the fifth degree, when the rights of individuals are violated. Most
of these offences have been already considered; but there remains the
question of admonition and punishment of offences against the Gods. Let
the admonition be in the following terms:--No man who ever intentionally
did or said anything impious, had a true belief in the existence of the
Gods; but either he thought that there were no Gods, or that they did
not care about men, or that they were easily appeased by sacrifices and
prayers. 'What shall we say or do to such persons?' My good sir, let us
first hear the jests which they in their superiority will make upon us.
'What will they say?' Probably something of this kind:--'Strangers you
are right in thinking that some of us do not believe in the existence of
the Gods; while others assert that they do not care for us, and others
that they are propitiated by prayers and offerings. But we want you to
argue with us before you threaten; you should prove to us by reasonable
evidence that there are Gods, and that they are too good to be bribed.
Poets, priests, prophets, rhetoricians, even the best of them, speak