he Gods, associate with the good, avoid the wicked; and if
you are cured of the fatal impulse, well; but if not, acknowledge death
to be better than life, and depart.

These are the accents, soft and low, in which we address the would-be
criminal. And if he will not listen, then cry aloud as with the sound of
a trumpet: Whosoever robs a temple, if he be a slave or foreigner shall
be branded in the face and hands, and scourged, and cast naked beyond
the border. And perhaps this may improve him: for the law aims either
at the reformation of the criminal, or the repression of crime. No
punishment is designed to inflict useless injury. But if the offender be
a citizen, he must be incurable, and for him death is the only fitting
penalty. His iniquity, however, shall not be visited on his children,
nor shall his property be confiscated.

As to the exaction of penalties, any person who is fined for an offence
shall not be liable to pay the fine, unless he have property in excess
of his lot. For the lots must never go uncultivated for lack of means;
the guardians of the law are to provide against this. If a fine is
inflicted upon a man which he cannot pay, and for which his friends
are unwilling to give security, he shall be imprisoned and otherwise
dishonoured. But no criminal shall go unpunished:--whether death, or
imprisonment, or stripes, or fines, or the stocks, or banishment to a
remote temple, be the penalty. Capital offences shall come under the
cognizance of the guardians of the law, and a college of the best of the
last year's magistrates. The order of suits and similar details we shall
leave to the lawgivers of the future, and only determine the mode of
voting. The judges are to sit in order of seniority, and the proceedings
shall begin with the speeches of the plaintiff and the defendant; and
then the judges, beginning with the eldest, shall ask questions and
collect evidence during three days, which, at the end of each day, shall
be deposited in writing under their seals on the altar of Hestia; and
when they have evidence enough, after a solemn declaration that they
will decide justly, they shall vote and end the case. The votes are to
be given openly in the presence of the citizens.

Next to religion, the preservation of the constitution is the first
object of the law. The greatest enemy of the state is he who attempts to
set up a tyrant, or breeds plots and conspiracies; not far below him in
guilt is a magistra