[74]
Besides these two tribunals
there is also a third, whose usages are still more sacred and awe-inspiring, for
cases in which a man admits the act of slaying, but pleads that he slew
lawfully. That is the court held at the Delphinium. It appears to me, gentlemen
of the jury, that the first inquiry made by those who originally defined the
rules of jurisprudence in these matters was, whether we are to regard no act of
homicide as righteous, or whether any kind of homicide is to be accounted
righteous; and that, arguing that Orestes, having slain his own mother,
confessing the fact, and finding gods to adjudge his case, was acquitted, they
formed the opinion that there is such thing as justifiable
homicide,—for gods could not have given an unjust verdict. Having
formed this opinion, they immediately set down in writing an exact definition of
the conditions under which homicide is lawful.
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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