at the hands of his parents, no law will allow to kill
his father or his mother who are the authors of his being, and whom the
legislator will command to endure any extremity rather than do this--how
can he, I say, lawfully receive any other punishment? Let death then be
the appointed punishment of him who in a fit of passion slays his father
or his mother. But if brother kills brother in a civil broil, or under
other like circumstances, if the other has begun, and he only defends
himself, let him be free from guilt, as he would be if he had slain an
enemy; and the same rule will apply if a citizen kill a citizen, or
a stranger a stranger. Or if a stranger kill a citizen or a citizen a
stranger in self-defence, let him be free from guilt in like manner; and
so in the case of a slave who has killed a slave; but if a slave have
killed a freeman in self-defence, let him be subject to the same law
as he who has killed a father; and let the law about the remission
of penalties in the case of parricide apply equally to every other
remission. Whenever any sufferer of his own accord remits the guilt of
homicide to another, under the idea that his act was involuntary, let
the perpetrator of the deed undergo a purification and remain in exile
for a year, according to law.

Enough has been said of murders violent and involuntary and committed in
passion: we have now to speak of voluntary crimes done with injustice of
every kind and with premeditation, through the influence of pleasures,
and desires, and jealousies.

CLEINIAS: Very good.

ATHENIAN: Let us first speak, as far as we are able, of their various
kinds. The greatest cause of them is lust, which gets the mastery of the
soul maddened by desire; and this is most commonly found to exist where
the passion reigns which is strongest and most prevalent among the mass
of mankind: I mean where the power of wealth breeds endless desires of
never-to-be-satisfied acquisition, originating in natural disposition,
and a miserable want of education. Of this want of education, the
false praise of wealth which is bruited about both among Hellenes and
barbarians is the cause; they deem that to be the first of goods which
in reality is only the third. And in this way they wrong both posterity
and themselves, for nothing can be nobler and better than that the truth
about wealth should be spoken in all states--namely, that riches are for
the sake of the body, as the body is for the sake of t