Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 29 August 2009

The ancient Greeks would have smelt a rat about releasing a murdered ‘on compassionate grounds’.

issue 29 August 2009

The ancient Greeks would have smelt a rat about releasing a murdered ‘on compassionate grounds’.

Al-Megrahi, being partly responsible for the murder of 270 people on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, has been released by Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill ‘on compassionate grounds’. Ancient Greeks would have smelled a rat.

Mytilene, a city-state on the island of Lesbos, revolted against Athens in 427 bc, and was brought to heel. The Athenian Assembly voted to punish them by executing all the adult males and enslaving the women and children. Next day, however, there was a change of feeling about such a ‘cruel and unprecedented’ act directed against innocent and guilty alike, and a second Assembly was called. Thucydides reports the two main speeches: Cleon for holding the line, Diodotus for executing only the guilty.

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