[51]
Who is there who ought more to be pardoned, (since you bring me back to the Twelve Tables,) than a man who without being aware of it kills another? No one, I think. For this is a silent law of humanity, that punishment for intentions, but not for fortune, may be exacted of a man. Still our ancestors did not pardon even this. For there is a law in the Twelve Tables, “If a weapon escapes from the hand”
Who is there who ought more to be pardoned, (since you bring me back to the Twelve Tables,) than a man who without being aware of it kills another? No one, I think. For this is a silent law of humanity, that punishment for intentions, but not for fortune, may be exacted of a man. Still our ancestors did not pardon even this. For there is a law in the Twelve Tables, “If a weapon escapes from the hand”
Pro M. Tullio. M. Tullius Cicero. Charles Duke Yonge (Translator). London. 1856.
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