e that there may be no
need of them; also to control the bad, whose hardness of heart will not
be hindered from crime. The uttermost penalty will fall upon those who
lay violent hands upon a parent, having no fear of the Gods above, or of
the punishments which will pursue them in the world below. They are
too wise in their own conceits to believe in such things: wherefore the
tortures which await them in another life must be anticipated in this.
Let the law be as follows:--

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
que