a sister, and is found guilty, death shall be the
penalty. And if a husband wound a wife, or a
wife a husband, with intent to kill, let him or her
undergo perpetual exile; if they have sons or daughters
who are still young, the guardians shall take care
of their property, and have charge of the children
as orphans. If their sons are grown up, they shall
be under no obligation to support the exiled parent,
but they shall possess the property themselves.
And if he who meets with such a misfortune has no
children, the kindred of the exiled man to the degree
of sons of cousins, both on the male and female side,
shall meet together, and after taking counsel with
the guardians of the law and the priests, shall appoint
a 5040th citizen to be the heir of the house, considering
and reasoning that no house of all the 5040 belongs
to the inhabitant or to the whole family, but is the
public and private property of the state. Now
the state should seek to have its houses as holy and
happy as possible. And if any one of the houses
be unfortunate, and stained with impiety, and the owner
leave no posterity, but dies unmarried, or married
and childless, having suffered death as the penalty
of murder or some other crime committed against the
Gods or against his fellow-citizens, of which death
is the penalty distinctly laid down in the law; or
if any of the citizens be in perpetual exile, and
also childless, that house shall first of all be purified
and undergo expiation according to law; and then let
the kinsmen of the house, as we were just now saying,
and the guardians of the law, meet and consider what
family there is in the state which is of the highest
repute for virtue and also for good fortune, in which
there are a number of sons; from that family let them
take one and introduce him to the father and forefathers
of the dead man as their son, and, for the sake of
the omen, let him be called so, that he may be the
continuer of their family, the keeper of their hearth,
and the minister of their sacred rites with better
fortune than his father had; and when they have made
this supplication, they shall make him heir according
to law, and the offending person they shall leave
nameless and childless and portionless when calamities
such as these overtake him.
Now the boundaries of some things do not touch one
another, but there is a borderland which comes in
between, preventing them from touching. And we
were saying that actions done from passion are of this
nature, and come in between the voluntary and involuntary.
If a person be convicted of having inflicted wounds
in a passion, in the first place he shall pay twice
the amount of the injury, if the wound be curable,
or, if incurable, four times the amount of the injury;
or if the wound be curable, and at the same time cause
great and notable disgrace to the wounded person, he
shall pay fourfold. And whenever any one in wounding
another injures not only the sufferer, but also the
city, and makes him incapable of defending his country