ABSTRACT
Athenian law lay down that certain kinds of killing were lawful: killing in self-defence, killing a man caught stealing at night, and so on; made a list in Athenian Homicide Law. The usual application of the legal expression was quite different: a person was guilty of unintentional homicide if he committed an act which was not intended to result in someone's death, but did. For instance, there was the woman who gave a man a drink which she thought was a love-potion, but it killed him. This plainly does not apply to Theseus's case; when he invoked Poseidon, he certainly intended Hippolytos's death. There is some evidence that another type of homicide could be called unintentional: homicide which one was compelled by someone else to commit. First there is a sentence of Lysias's speech Against Agoratos. Finally, there is a piece of facetious dialogue surviving from a lost play of Aristophanes, referring to the court at the Palladion.
