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 question of admonition and punishment of offences against the Gods.  Let the admonition be in the following terms:—­No man who ever intentionally did or said anything impious, had a true belief in the existence of the Gods; but either he thought that there were no Gods, or that they did not care about men, or that they were easily appeased by sacrifices and prayers.  ’What shall we say or do to such persons?’ My good sir, let us first hear the jests which they in their superiority will make upon us.  ’What will they say?’ Probably something of this kind:—­’Strangers you are right in thinking that some of us do not believe in the existence of the Gods; while others assert that they do not care for us, and others that they are propitiated by prayers and offerings.  But we want you to argue with us before you threaten; you should prove to us by reasonable evidence that there are Gods, and that they are too good to be bribed.  Poets, priests, prophets, rhetoricians, even the best