Draco

, an eminent legislator of Athens, succeeded Triptolemus in the 39th olympiad, 324 years B.C. When the laws of Triptolemus were found insufficient for the regulation of the state, Draco instituted a new code, which was so extremely rigorous, that his Jaws were said to be written in blood. Under his system of legislation, death was the penalty for every kind of offence, in vindication of which he alleged, that as small faults seemed to him worthy of death, he could find no severer punishment for the greatest crimes. Such, however, was his abhorrence of the crime of taking away life, that he directed a prosecution to be instituted even against inanimate things which had been instrumental to this purpose, and sentenced a statue, which had fallen upon a man and killed him, to be banished an absurdity which shews the rude state of le-? gislation in his time. Some of his laws were the result of age and experience, and owed their effect to the opinion that was entertained of his virtue and patriotism, but the Athenians could not endure the rigour of others, and the legislator himself was obliged to withdraw to the island of Ægina, where he suffered as severely from his friends, as he could from his enemies, being, as we are told, suffocated at the public theatre, amidst the applauses of the people. The rigour of his discipline was in some measure relaxed by Solon, in the 46th olympiad. ¹