the border; and if any freeman assist to bury him, he shall be liable to a suit for impiety.  But the sins of the father shall not be visited upon his children, who, like other orphans, shall be educated by the state.  Further, let there be a general law which will have a tendency to repress impiety.  No man shall have religious services in his house, but he shall go with his friends to pray and sacrifice in the temples.  The reason of this is, that religious institutions can only be framed by a great intelligence.  But women and weak men are always consecrating the event of the moment; they are under the influence of dreams and apparitions, and they build altars and temples in every village and in any place where they have had a vision.  The law is designed to prevent this, and also to deter men from attempting to propitiate the Gods by secret sacrifices, which only multiply their sins.  Therefore let the law run:—­No one shall have private religious rites; and if a man or woman who has not been previously noted for any impiety offend in this way, let them be admonished to remove their rites to a public temple; but if the offender be one of the obstinate sort, he shall be brought to trial before the guardians, and if he be found guilty, let him die.

Book xi.  As to dealings between man and man, the principle of them is simple—­Thou shalt not take what is not thine; and shalt do to others as thou wouldst that they should do to thee.  First, of treasure trove:—­May I never desire to find, or lift, if I find, or be induced by the counsel of diviners to lift, a treasure which one who was not my ancestor has laid down; for I shall not gain so much in money as I shall lose in virtue.  The saying, ‘Move not the immovable,’ may be repeated in a new sense; and there is a common belief which asserts that such deeds prevent a man from having a family.  To him who is careless of such consequences, and, despising the word of the wise, takes up a treasure which is not his—­what will be done by the hand of the Gods, God only knows,—­but I would have the first person who sees the offender, inform the wardens of the city or the country; and they shall send to Delphi for a decision, and whatever the oracle orders, they shall carry out.  If the informer be a freeman, he shall be honoured, and if a slave, set free; but he who does not inform, if he be a freeman, shall be dishonoured, and if a slave, shall be put to death.  If a man leave anywhere anything great or small, intentionally or unintentionally, let him who may find the property deem the deposit sacred to the Goddess of ways.  And he who appropriates the same, if he be a slave, shall be beaten with many stripes; if a freeman, he shall pay tenfold, and be held to have done a dishonourable action.  If a person says that another has something of his, and the other allows that he has the property in dispute, but maintains it to be his own, let the ownership be proved out of the registers of property.  If the