So, gentlemen, that I am not to blame for any of these occurrences has, I conceive, been sufficiently proved. And observe the spirit in which I treat quarrels arising from this sort of affair: although I had suffered a variety of outrages at Simon’s hands, and had even had my head broken by him, I could not bring myself to denounce him, as I felt it extravagant, just because of a mutual rivalry over a child, to press for a man’s expulsion from his native land.

Besides, I did not see that there was any premeditation of wounding in the case of a man who gave a wound without meaning to kill. For who is so simple as to premeditate a long time ahead how some enemy of his shall come by a wound?

Why, it is clear that even the makers of our laws did not think well, when people happened in a fight to break each other’s heads, to make it a case for banishment from their country; else they would have exiled a goodly number. But in the case of any persons who, designing to kill, wounded others without being able to kill them, they appointed the punishment in that degree of severity, judging it meet that where they had shown design and premeditation they should pay the penalty: though if they might not have succeeded, none the less their best efforts had been exerted.Cf. Plat. Laws 9.876e ff.