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The executive of Plato's Laws, like the Athenian, was different from that of a modern civilized state. The difference chiefly consists in this, that whereas among ourselves there are certain persons or classes of persons set apart for the execution of the duties of government, in ancient Greece, as in all other communities in the earlier stages of their development, they were not equally distinguished from the rest of the citizens. The machinery of government was never so well organized as in the best modern states. The judicial department was not so completely separated from the legislative, nor the executive from the judicial, nor the people at large from the professional soldier, lawyer, or priest. To Aristotle (Pol.) it was a question requiring serious consideration—Who should execute a sentence? There was probably no body of police to whom were entrusted the lives and properties of the citizens in any Hellenic state. Hence it might be reasonably expected that every man should be the watchman of every other, and in turn be watched by him. The ancients do not seem to have remembered the homely adage that, 'What is every man's business is no man's business,' or always to have thought of applying the principle of a division of labour to the administration of law and to government. Every Athenian was at some time or on some occasion in his life a magistrate, judge, advocate, soldier, sailor, policeman. He had not necessarily any private business; a good deal of his time was taken up with the duties of office and other public occupations. So, too, in Plato's Laws. A citizen was to interfere in a quarrel, if older than the combatants, or to defend the outraged party, if his junior. He was especially bound to come to the rescue of a parent who was ill-treated by his children. He was also required to prosecute the murderer of a kinsman. In certain cases he was allowed to arrest an offender. He might even use violence to an abusive person. Any citizen who was not less than thirty years of age at times exercised a magisterial authority, to be enforced even by blows. Both in the Magnesian state and at Athens many thousand persons must have shared in the highest duties of government, if a section only of the Council, consisting of thirty or of fifty persons, as in the Laws, or at Athens after the days of Cleisthenes, held office for a month, or for thirty-five days only. It was almost as if, in our own country, the Ministry or the Houses of Parliament were to change every month. The average ability of the Athenian and Magnesian councillors could not have been very high, considering there were so many of them. And yet they were entrusted with the performance of the most important executive duties. In these respects the constitution of the Laws resembles Athens far more than Sparta. All the citizens were to be, not merely soldiers, but politicians and administrators.
(ii) There are numerous minor particulars in which the Laws of Plato resemble those of Athens. These are less interesting than the preceding, but they show even more strikingly how closely in the composition of his work Plato has followed the laws and customs of his own country.
(1) Evidence. (a) At Athens a child was not allowed to give evidence (Telfy). Plato has a similar law: 'A child shall be allowed to give evidence only in cases of murder.' (b) At Athens an unwilling witness might be summoned; but he was not required to appear if he was ready to declare on oath that he knew nothing about the matter in question (Telfy). So in the Laws. (c) Athenian law enacted that when more than half the witnesses in a case had been convicted of perjury, there was to be a new trial (anadikos krisis—Telfy). There is a similar provision in the Laws. (d) False-witness was punished at Athens by atimia and a fine (Telfy). Plato is at once more lenient and more severe: 'If a man be twice convicted of false-witness, he shall not be required, and if thrice, he shall not be allowed to bear witness; and if he dare to witness after he has been convicted three times,...he shall be punished with death.'
(2) Murder. (a) Wilful murder was punished in Athenian law by death, perpetual exile, and confiscation of property (Telfy). Plato, too, has the alternative of death or exile, but he does not confiscate the murderer's property. (b) The Parricide was not allowed to escape by going into exile at Athens (Telfy), nor, apparently, in the Laws. (c) A homicide, if forgiven by his victim before death, received no punishment, either at Athens (Telfy), or in the Magnesian state. In both (Telfy) the contriver of a murder is punished as severely as the doer; and persons accused of the crime are forbidden to enter temples or the agora until they have been tried (Telfy). (d) At Athens slaves who killed their masters and were caught red-handed, were not to be put to death by the relations of the murdered man, but to be handed over to the magistrates (Telfy). So in the Laws, the slave who is guilty of wilful murder has a public execution: but if the murder is committed in anger, it is punished by the kinsmen of the victim.
(3) Involuntary homicide. (a) The guilty person, according to the Athenian law, had to go into exile, and might not return, until the family of the man slain were conciliated. Then he must be purified (Telfy). If he is caught before he has obtained forgiveness, he may be put to death. These enactments reappear in the Laws. (b) The curious provision of Plato, that a stranger who has been banished for involuntary homicide and is subsequently wrecked upon the coast, must 'take up his abode on the sea-shore, wetting his feet in the sea, and watching for an opportunity of sailing,' recalls the procedure of the Judicium Phreatteum at Athens, according to which an involuntary homicide, who, having gone into exile, is accused of a wilful murder, was tried at Phreatto for this offence in a boat by magistrates on the shore. (c) A still more singular law, occurring both in the Athenian and Magnesian code, enacts that a stone or other inanimate object which kills a man is to be tried, and cast over the border (Telfy).
(4) Justifiable or excusable homicide. Plato and Athenian law agree in making homicide justifiable or excusable in the following cases:—(1) at the games (Telfy); (2) in war (Telfy); (3) if the person slain was found doing violence to a free woman (Telfy); (4) if a doctor's patient dies; (5) in the case of a robber (Telfy); (6) in self-defence (Telfy).
(5) Impiety. Death or expulsion was the Athenian penalty for impiety (Telfy). In the Laws it is punished in various cases by imprisonment for five years, for life, and by death.
(6) Sacrilege. Robbery of temples at Athens was punished by death, refusal of burial in the land, and confiscation of property (Telfy). In the Laws the citizen who is guilty of such a crime is to 'perish ingloriously and be cast beyond the borders of the land,' but his property is not confiscated.
(7) Sorcery. The sorcerer at Athens was to be executed (Telfy): compare Laws, where it is enacted that the physician who poisons and the professional sorcerer shall be punished with death.
(8) Treason. Both at Athens and in the Laws the penalty for treason was death (Telfy), and refusal of burial in the country (Telfy).
