Against Meidias

First then, all the laws of damage—to take these first—order the offender to pay the amount twice over if the damage is willful, but only once if it is involuntary. This is reasonable, because, while the injured party is in any case entitled to relief, the law does not ordain that the resentment against the aggressor should be the same, whether his act is voluntary or involuntary. Again, the laws of homicide punish willful murder with death, perpetual exile, and confiscation of goods, but accidental homicide they treat with much consideration and charity.

It is not only in these, but in all cases, that the laws may be seen to be severe against premeditated outrages. For how is it that if a man who has lost his case fails to pay, the law thereupon is not content with a private suit for ejectment, but directs the imposition of a further fine to the treasury? Or again, how is it that if a man takes from another by mutual consent a sum of one, two, or ten talents, and then fraudulently withholds it, the State has no concern with him; but if a man, taking something that would merit only a trifling fine, keeps it back by force, then the laws direct the jury to impose an additional fine for the treasury equal to that paid to the private owner?

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.