of kin to the dead man and the homicide, and compel the one to exact, and the other to pay, a double penalty.  If a slave kill his master, or a freeman who is not his master, in anger, the kinsmen of the murdered person may do with the murderer whatever they please, but they must not spare his life.  If a father or mother kill their son or daughter in anger, let the slayer remain in exile for three years; and on the return of the exile let the parents separate, and no longer continue to cohabit, or have the same sacred rites with those whom he or she has deprived of a brother or sister.  The same penalty is decreed against the husband who murders his wife, and also against the wife who murders her husband.  Let them be absent three years, and on their return never again share in the same sacred rites with their children, or sit at the same table with them.  Nor is a brother or sister who have lifted up their hands against a brother or sister, ever to come under the same roof or share in the same rites with those whom they have robbed of a child.  If a son feels such hatred against his father or mother as to take the life of either of them, then, if the parent before death forgive him, he shall only suffer the penalty due to involuntary homicide; but if he be unforgiven, there are many laws against which he has offended; he is guilty of outrage, impiety, sacrilege all in one, and deserves to be put to death many times over.  For if the law will not allow a man to kill the authors of his being even in self-defence, what other penalty than death can be inflicted upon him who in a fit of passion wilfully slays his father or mother?  If a brother kill a brother in self-defence during a civil broil, or a citizen a citizen, or a slave a slave, or a stranger a stranger, let them be free from blame, as he is who slays an enemy in battle.  But if a slave kill a freeman, let him be as a parricide.  In all cases, however, the forgiveness of the injured party shall acquit the agents; and then they shall only be purified, and remain in exile for a year.

Enough of actions that are involuntary, or done in anger; let us proceed to voluntary and premeditated actions.  The great source of voluntary crime is the desire of money, which is begotten by evil education; and this arises out of the false praise of riches, common both among Hellenes and barbarians; they think that to be the first of goods which is really the third.  For the body is not for the sake of wealth, but wealth for the body, as the body is for the soul.  If this were better understood, the crime of murder, of which avarice is the chief cause, would soon cease among men.  Next to avarice, ambition is a source of crime, troublesome to the ambitious man himself, as well as to the chief men of the state.  And next to ambition, base fear is a motive, which has led many an one to commit murder in order that he may get rid of the witnesses of his crimes.  Let this be said as a prelude to all enactments about crimes