A Treatise on Those Special Laws Which Are Referrible to Two Commandments in the Decalogue, the Sixth and Seventh, Against Adulterers and All Lewd Per

 I. (1) There was once a time when, devoting my leisure to philosophy and to the contemplation of the world and the things in it, I reaped the fruit of

 II. (7) And since of the ten commandments which God himself gave to his people without employing the agency of any prophet or interpreter, five which

 III. (12) Moreover the law has laid down other admirable regulations with regard to carnal conversation for it commands men not only to abstain from

 IV. (22) There follows after this a command not to espouse one's sister: which is an injunction of great excellence, and one which contributes very gr

 V. (26) On which account our lawgiver has also forbidden other matrimonial connections, commanding that no man shall marry his granddaughter, whether

 VI. (32) And there are particular periods affecting the health of the woman when a man may not touch her, but during that time he must abstain from al

 VII. (37) Moreover, another evil, much greater than that which we have already mentioned, has made its way among and been let loose upon cities, namel

 VIII. (43) But some persons, imitating the sensual indulgences of the Sybarites and of other nations more licentious still, have in the first place de

 IX. (51) Again, according to the injunctions of the sacred scriptures the constitution of the law does not recognise a harlot as being a person alien

 X. (52) The law has pronounced all acts of adultery, if detected in the fact, or if proved by undeniable evidence, liable to the punishment of death

 XI. (64) But if any one should offer violence to a widow after her husband is dead, or after she has been otherwise divorced from him, and defile her,

 XII. (72) Some people think that a licensed concubinage is an offence something between seduction and adultery, when the two parties come together, an

 XIII. (76) Therefore justice in every case pursues the man who has committed violence, nor is his iniquity excused by the difference of the place, so

 XIV. (79) There are also some persons easily sated with their connection with the same woman, being at once both mad for women and women haters, full

 XV. (83) The name of homicide is that affixed to him who has slain a man but in real truth it is a sacrilege, and the very greatest of all sacrileges

 XVI. (90) Therefore, since they have heaped iniquity upon iniquity, adding lawlessness and impiety to murder, they must be dragged out of the temple t

 XVII. (92) But some persons who have slain others with swords, or spears, or darts, or clubs, or stones, or something of that kind, may possibly have

 XVIII. (100) Now the true magical art, being a science of discernment, which contemplates and beholds the books of nature with a more acute and distin

 XIX. (104) This may be sufficient to say on the present occasion concerning poisoners and magicians. Moreover, we ought also not to be ignorant of thi

 XX. (110) On account of this commandment he also adds another proposition of greater importance, in which the exposure of infants is forbidden, which

 XXI. (120) The sacred law says that the man, who has been killed without any intention that he should be so on the part of him who killed him, has bee

 XXII. (124) And the cause of the first of these injunctions was this. The tribe which has been mentioned received these cities as a reward for a justi

 XXIII. (128) Therefore the lawgiver enjoins that the man who has committed an unintentional murder should flee to some one of the cities which this tr

 XXIV. (134) Such, then, is the reason which it is fitting should be communicated to the ears of the younger men. But there is another which may be wel

 XXV. This is enough to say concerning free men and citizens. The lawgiver proceeds in due order to establish laws concerning slaves who are killed by

 XXVI. (144) If a bull gore a man and kill him, let him be Stoned.[Ex 21:28.] For his flesh may not be either offered in sacrifice by the priests, nor

 XXVII. (147) Some persons are accustomed to dig very deep pits, either in order to open springs which may bubble up, or else to receive rain water, an

 XXVIII. (150) The law expressly enjoins that it shall not be lawful to take any ransom from murderers who ought to be put to death, for the purpose of

 XXIX. (153) Moreover, there is this further commandment given with great propriety, that the fathers are not to die in behalf of their sons, nor the s

 XXX. (157) But these men have this to say in excuse of themselves, that they are not pursuing any private advantage for themselves, and also that they

 XXXI. (169) Market places, and council chambers, and courts of justice, and large companies and assemblies of numerous crowds, and a life in the open

 XXXII. (178) And this is the cause which is often mentioned by many people. But I have heard another also, alleged by persons of high character, who l

 XXXIII. (181) And any one may here fitly blame those who appoint that punishments, in nowise corresponding to the offences, are to be inflicted on the

 XXXIV. (185) Now it would take a long time to enumerate all the necessities which the eyes supply to, and all the services which they perform for, the

 XXXV. (195) If therefore any one has ever plotted against this most excellent and most dominant of all the outward senses, namely sight, so as ever to

 XXXVI. (198) The law also commands that if any one strike out the tooth of a slave he shall bestow his freedom on the slave why is this? because life

XXX. (157) But these men have this to say in excuse of themselves, that they are not pursuing any private advantage for themselves, and also that they are influenced by excessive affection for their nearest relations, for the sake of the preservation of whom they will cheerfully submit to die. (158) But who, I will not say of moderate men, but even of those who are very inhuman indeed in their dispositions, would not reject such barbarous and actually brutally disposed persons as those who, either by secret contrivance or by open audacity, inflict the greatest calamities on one person as a punishment for the faults of another, putting forward as a pretext the plea of friendship, or of relationship, or of fellowship, or something of that kind, as a justification for the destruction of those who have done no wrong? And at times they even do these things without having suffered any injury at all out of mere covetousness and a love of rapine. (159) Not long ago a certain man who had been appointed a collector of taxes in our country, when some of those who appeared to owe such tribute fled out of poverty, from a fear of intolerable punishment if they remained without paying, carried off their wives, and their children, and their parents, and their whole families by force, beating and insulting them, and heaping every kind of contumely and ill treatment upon them, to make them either give information as to where the fugitives had concealed themselves, or pay the money instead of them, though they could not do either the one thing or the other; in the first place, because they did not know where they were, and secondly, because they were in still greater poverty than the men who had fled. (160) But this tax-collector did not let them go till he had tortured their bodies with racks and wheels, so as to kill them with newly invented kinds of death, fastening a basket full of sand to their necks with cords, and suspending it there as a very heavy weight, and then placing them in the open air in the middle of the market place, that some of them, being tortured and being overwhelmed by all these afflictions at once, the wind, and the sun, and the mockery of the passers by, and the shame, and the heavy burden attached to them, might faint miserably; and that the rest, being spectators, might be grieved and take warning by their punishment, (161) some of whom, having a more acute sense of such miseries in their minds than that which they could receive though their eyes, since they sympathised with these unfortunates as if they were themselves suffering in the persons of others, put an end to their own lives by swords, or poison, or halters, thinking it a great piece of good luck for persons, liable to such misery, to be able to meet with death without torture. (162) But those who did not make haste to kill themselves, but who were seized before they could do so, were led away in a row, as in the case of actions for inheritance, according to their nearness of kindred, the nearest relations first, then those next to them in succession, in the second or third place, till they came to the last; and then, when there were no relations left, the cruelty proceeded on to the friends and neighbours of the fugitives; and sometimes it was extended even into the cities and villages, which soon became desolate, being emptied of all their inhabitants, who all quitted their homes, and dispersed to places where they hoped that they might escape detection. (163) But perhaps it is not wonderful if men, barbarians by nature, utterly ignorant of all gentleness, and under the command of despotic authority, which compelled them to give an account of the yearly revenue, should, in order to enforce the payment of the taxes, extend their severities, not merely to properties but also to the persons, and even to the lives, of those from whom they thought they could exact a vicarious payment. (164) But now, even those persons who are the very standard and rule of justice, the lawgivers themselves, having a regard to appearance rather than to truth, have endured to become, instead, standards of injustice, commanding the children of a traitor to be put to death with the traitor himself, and in the case of tyrants the five families most nearly related to them. (165) Why is this I should say? For if indeed they have shared in their wickedness, then let them likewise share in their punishment; but if they have not participated in that, and if they have not been imitators of such actions, and if they have not been elated by the prosperity of their kinsmen, so as to exult in it, why should they be put to death? Is it for this reason alone, that they are their relations? Are the punishments then inflicted for the relationship, or for the lawless conduct? (166) Perhaps you yourselves, O you venerable lawgivers, have had virtuous relations; but suppose they had been wicked, then it seems to me that you not only would never yourselves have devised any such commandments as this, but would have been furious with any one else who proposed such a law, because [...][there appears to be an hiatus in the text here. There is clearly a want of connection and coherence in the rest of the sentence as it stands now.] taking care to avoid all liability to terrible calamity, and desiring to live in security, is now in great danger, and is exposed to an equal degree of misfortune. For the one condition is liable to fear, which, though a person may guard against for himself, he will still not despise the safety of another, but the other state is free from all apprehension, and by it men have often been persuaded to neglect the safety of innocent men. (167) Therefore our lawgiver, considering these things and perceiving the errors of others, rejects them and hates them as destructive of the most excellent constitution, and consigns to punishment all those who give way to such, whether it be out of indifference, or out of inhumanity and wickedness, and never permits any of their countrymen or friends to be substituted for them, making themselves an addition to the crimes which the others have already committed; (168) on which account he has expressly forbidden sons to be put to death instead of their parents, or parents instead of their sons, thinking it right that they who have committed the crimes should also bear the punishment, whether it be a pecuniary fine, or stripes, and more severe personal chastisement, or even wounds and mutilation, and dishonour, and exile, or any other judicial sentence; for though he only names one kind of punishment, forbidding one person to be put to death for another, he also comprises other kinds, which he does not expressly mention.

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