ON ABSTINENCE

...[legis]lators, so that they might not only give no occasion for others to voluntarily imitate the deeds of those who had acted unwillingly That is, to prevent people from using "accidents" as an excuse for intentional harm., but also to guard against the occurrence of many such things that were truly involuntary. For this was not beneficial original: "conferebat," meaning it did not contribute to the common good., for the same reasons that we said it was forbidden for people to voluntarily destroy one another. Therefore, since among involuntary acts, some are committed due to an uncertain cause—of such a kind that cannot be avoided by human nature—while others arise from our negligence negligence (negligentia): a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances and carelessness, because we do not pay attention to what is important: in order to prevent others from being harmed by our laziness, they did not leave even an involuntary action unpunished. Instead, they restrained the frequency of such sins through the terror of penalties.

And indeed, I believe that the requirement for certain customary expiations expiations (expiationibus): ritual cleansings or ceremonies intended to remove the spiritual "stain" of an action—even for killings permitted by law—was instituted by those first lawgivers for no other reason than their desire to keep people as far as possible from voluntary killing. For they needed some form of prohibition from every side, lest people should so recklessly slip into perpetrating things that are not useful.

For this reason, those who first observed these things did not only establish fines fines (mulctas): monetary penalties imposed as punishment for an offense; they also introduced another kind of "irrational terror," declaring that those who had killed a human being in any manner whatsoever Even if the killing was accidental or legally justified, such as in self-defense or war. were contaminated original: "contaminatos," referring to the ancient concept of "miasma" or religious pollution., unless they purged themselves with certain atonements atonements (piaculis): specific sacrifices or rituals performed to appease divine anger or purify a person after a death. For in this way...