may be perceived from this--that if the suffrages of the judges were
evenly divided, it was the custom in all the courts of Athens to
acquit the accused. The punishment of death was rare; that of atimia
supplied its place. Of the different degrees of atimia it is not my
purpose to speak at present. By one degree, however, the offender was
merely suspended from some privilege of freedom enjoyed by the
citizens generally, or condemned to a pecuniary fine; the second
degree allowed the confiscation of goods; the third for ever deprived
the criminal and his posterity of the rights of a citizen: this last
was the award only of aggravated offences. Perpetual exile was a
sentence never passed but upon state criminals. The infliction of
fines, which became productive of great abuse in later times, was
moderately apportioned to offences in the time of Solon, partly from
the high price of money, but partly, also, from the wise moderation of
the lawgiver. The last grave penalty of death was of various kinds,
as the cross, the gibbet, the precipice, the bowl--afflictions seldom
in reserve for the freemen.

As the principle of shame was a main instrument of the penal code of
the Athenians, so they endeavoured to attain the same object by the
sublimer motive of honour. Upon the even balance of rewards that
stimulate, and penalties that deter, Solon and his earlier successors
conceived the virtue of the commonwealth to rest. A crown presented
by the senate or the people--a public banquet in the hall of state--
the erection of a statue in the thoroughfares (long a most rare
distinction)--the privilege of precedence in the theatre or assembly--
were honours constantly before the eyes of the young and the hopes of
the ambitious. The sentiment of honour thus became a guiding
principle of the legislation, and a large component of the character
of the Athenians.