An Athenian will regard locking a criminal up for a term
of years as a very foolish and expensive proceeding. If he has nothing
wherewith to pay a round fine, why, simply send him into exile. This
penalty is direful indeed to a Greek. The exile has often no protector,
no standing in the courts of the foreign city, no government to avenge
any outrage upon him. He can be insulted, starved, stripped, nay,
murdered, often with impunity. Worse still, he is cut off from his
friends with whom all his life is tied up; he is severed from the
guardian gods of his childhood,—"the City," the city of his
birth, hopes, longings, exists no more for him. If he dies abroad, he is
not sure of a decent funeral pyre; and meanwhile his children may be
hungering at home. So long as the Athenians have this tremendous penalty
of exile at their disposal, they do not feel the need of penitentiaries.
William Davis, A Day in Old Athens
