E. M. Cope, Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle

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πρὸς οὓς δὲ διώρισται, διχῶς διώρισται, Vulg.—δίχα ὥρισται A^{c}, adopted by Bekker and Spengel [ed. 1867], omitting the first διώρισται: in Rhetores Graeci [1853] he reads [διώρισται] διχῶς διώρισται, in conformity with § 1. (I do not myself see why the first διώρισται need be omitted without manuscript authority.) ‘In respect of the persons to whom it is referred, this division of law is twofold, for the right and wrong, justice and injustice, in acts, are referred to (severally determined by, divided in relation to) either the public, society in general, the whole community (against whom the offence is supposed to be directed), or an individual member of it. And therefore just and unjust acts are divided into two classes, according as they are directed against a single and definite individual, or the community at large. Adultery and assault are injuries or wrongs to the indi viduals, refusal to serve, or desertion, is a wrong to the entire community or nation’. This is the basis of the distinction in Attic jurisprudence between the δίκη, the private civil action or suit of man against man, and the γραφή, or public, criminal prosecution; since the latter is a state offence, common to the whole community, a public prosecution may be conducted by ὁ βουλόμενος, ‘any one that pleases’, provided, that is, he be a qualified Athenian citizen. See further on this subject, in Introd. I 13, p. 187, and Meier u. Schömann, Der Attische Process, Bk. III. § 2. Buttmann ad Dem. Med. § 9.

Accordingly ὁ τύπτων is liable to a δίκη αἰκίας; ὁ μὴ στρατευόμενος, one that either declines to serve altogether, and so fails in his duty to society and his country, or a deserter, to a γραφὴ ἀστρατείας or λειποταξίου. μοιχεία is here included with αἰκία in the class of wrongs that are the subject of a δίκη or δίκη ἰδία; under the ordinary classification it exposed the offender to a γραφή, a criminal prosecution, which, as it could be carried on by the husband or one of the near relations, might also properly be called ἰδία. Meier u. Schömann, u. s., p. 163—4, 327 seq. In this case the state, as well as the husband, considered itself aggrieved as the guardian of public morals. In illustration of this twofold aspect of a crime, Victorius quotes Cic. in Verrem, V (III) 69, 161, quibus in rebus. non solum filio, Verres, sed etiam reipublicae fecisti iniuriam: susceperas enim liberos non solum tibi sed etiam patriae.