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statute.“LawIf a man kill another unintentionally in an athletic contest, or
overcoming him in a fight on the highway, or unwittingly in battle, or in
intercourse with his wife, or mother, or sister, or daughter, or concubine
kept for procreation of legitimate children, he shall not go into exile as a
manslayer on that account.”Many
statutes have been violated, men of Athens, in the drafting of this decree, but none more gravely
than that which has just been read. Though the law so clearly gives permission
to slay, and states under what conditions, the defendant ignores all those
conditions, and has drawn his penal clause without any suggestion as to the
manner of the slaying.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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