[45]
The
answer is that the legislator regarded every deed of violence as a public
offence, committed against those also who are not directly concerned. For force
belongs to the few, but the laws to all alike; and the man who agreed to the
transaction can right himself privately, but the victim of violence needs relief
at the hands of the State. On this principle, for the actual assault the law
grants everyone the right to prosecute, but makes over the whole of the fine to
the State. The legislator considered that the State, as well as the injured
party, was wronged by the author of the outrage, and that his punishment was
sufficient compensation for the victim, who ought not to make money for himself
out of such wrongs.
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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