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(9) Sheltering exiles. 'If a man receives an exile, he shall be punished with death.' So, too, in Athenian law (Telfy.).

(10) Wounding. Athenian law compelled a man who had wounded another to go into exile; if he returned, he was to be put to death (Telfy). Plato only punishes the offence with death when children wound their parents or one another, or a slave wounds his master.

(11) Bribery. Death was the punishment for taking a bribe, both at Athens (Telfy) and in the Laws; but Athenian law offered an alternative—the payment of a fine of ten times the amount of the bribe.

(12) Theft. Plato, like Athenian law (Telfy), punishes the theft of public property by death; the theft of private property in both involves a fine of double the value of the stolen goods (Telfy).

(13) Suicide. He 'who slays him who of all men, as they say, is his own best friend,' is regarded in the same spirit by Plato and by Athenian law. Plato would have him 'buried ingloriously on the borders of the twelve portions of the land, in such places as are uncultivated and nameless,' and 'no column or inscription is to mark the place of his interment.' Athenian law enacted that the hand which did the deed should be separated from the body and be buried apart (Telfy).

(14) Injury. In cases of wilful injury, Athenian law compelled the guilty person to pay double the damage; in cases of involuntary injury, simple damages (Telfy). Plato enacts that if a man wounds another in passion, and the wound is curable, he shall pay double the damage, if incurable or disfiguring, fourfold damages. If, however, the wounding is accidental, he shall simply pay for the harm done.

(15) Treatment of parents. Athenian law allowed any one to indict another for neglect or illtreatment of parents (Telfy). So Plato bids bystanders assist a father who is assaulted by his son, and allows any one to give information against children who neglect their parents.

(16) Execution of sentences. Both Plato and Athenian law give to the winner of a suit power to seize the goods of the loser, if he does not pay within the appointed time (Telfy). At Athens the penalty was also doubled (Telfy); not so in Plato. Plato however punishes contempt of court by death, which at Athens seems only to have been visited with a further fine (Telfy).

(17) Property. (a) Both at Athens and in the Laws a man who has disputed property in his possession must give the name of the person from whom he received it (Telfy); and any one searching for lost property must enter a house naked (Telfy), or, as Plato says, 'naked, or wearing only a short tunic and without a girdle. (b) Athenian law, as well as Plato, did not allow a father to disinherit his son without good reason and the consent of impartial persons (Telfy). Neither grants to the eldest son any special claim on the paternal estate (Telfy). In the law of inheritance both prefer males to females (Telfy). (c) Plato and Athenian law enacted that a tree should be planted at a fair distance from a neighbour's property (Telfy), and that when a man could not get water, his neighbour must supply him (Telfy). Both at Athens and in Plato there is a law about bees, the former providing that a beehive must be set up at not less a distance than 300 feet from a neighbour's (Telfy), and the latter forbidding the decoying of bees.

(18) Orphans. A ward must proceed against a guardian whom he suspects of fraud within five years of the expiration of the guardianship. This provision is common to Plato and to Athenian law (Telfy). Further, the latter enacted that the nearest male relation should marry or provide a husband for an heiress (Telfy),—a point in which Plato follows it closely.

(19) Contracts. Plato's law that 'when a man makes an agreement which he does not fulfil, unless the agreement be of a nature which the law or a vote of the assembly does not allow, or which he has made under the influence of some unjust compulsion, or which he is prevented from fulfilling against his will by some unexpected chance,—the other party may go to law with him,' according to Pollux (quoted in Telfy's note) prevailed also at Athens.

(20) Trade regulations. (a) Lying was forbidden in the agora both by Plato and at Athens (Telfy). (b) Athenian law allowed an action of recovery against a man who sold an unsound slave as sound (Telfy). Plato's enactment is more explicit: he allows only an unskilled person (i.e. one who is not a trainer or physician) to take proceedings in such a case. (c) Plato diverges from Athenian practice in the disapproval of credit, and does not even allow the supply of goods on the deposit of a percentage of their value (Telfy). He enacts that 'when goods are exchanged by buying and selling, a man shall deliver them and receive the price of them at a fixed place in the agora, and have done with the matter,' and that 'he who gives credit must be satisfied whether he obtain his money or not, for in such exchanges he will not be protected by law. (d) Athenian law forbad an extortionate rate of interest (Telfy); Plato allows interest in one case only—if a contractor does not receive the price of his work within a year of the time agreed—and at the rate of 200 per cent. per annum for every drachma a monthly interest of an obol. (e) Both at Athens and in the Laws sales were to be registered (Telfy), as well as births (Telfy).

(21) Sumptuary laws. Extravagance at weddings (Telfy), and at funerals (Telfy) was forbidden at Athens and also in the Magnesian state.

There remains the subject of family life, which in Plato's Laws partakes both of an Athenian and Spartan character. Under this head may conveniently be included the condition of women and of slaves. To family life may be added citizenship.

As at Sparta, marriages are to be contracted for the good of the state; and they may be dissolved on the same ground, where there is a failure of issue,—the interest of the state requiring that every one of the 5040 lots should have an heir. Divorces are likewise permitted by Plato where there is an incompatibility of temper, as at Athens by mutual consent. The duty of having children is also enforced by a still higher motive, expressed by Plato in the noble words:—'A man should cling to immortality, and leave behind him children's children to be the servants of God in his place.' Again, as at Athens, the father is allowed to put away his undutiful son, but only with the consent of impartial persons (Telfy), and the only suit which may be brought by a son against a father is for imbecility. The class of elder and younger men and women are still to regard one another, as in the Republic, as standing in the relation of parents and children. This is a trait of Spartan character rather than of Athenian. A peculiar sanctity and tenderness was to be shown towards the aged; the parent or grandparent stricken with years was to be loved and worshipped like the image of a God, and was to be deemed far more able than any lifeless statue to bring good or ill to his descendants. Great care is to be taken of orphans: they are entrusted to the fifteen eldest Guardians of the Law, who are to be 'lawgivers and fathers to them not inferior to their natural fathers,' as at Athens they were entrusted to the Archons. Plato wishes to make the misfortune of orphanhood as little sad to them as possible.