As Jess has noted previously, there’s more to Renault than meets the eye. It’s not all about ancient Greece. It’s topical, too. For example:
“As for justice,” Theramenes said, “they have as much notion of it as the guts of a mullet. I tell you, my dear Myron, this very night I could raise a drunken brawl here, strike you before all these witnesses, wound your slaves; and if you would only come to court looking and behaving like a gentleman, I undertake you would lose your case. I, you see, should put on the old tunic I wear on my farm, and have a speech written for an honest poor fellow, which I should con till it came like nature to me. I should bring my children along, borrowing some little ones as the youngest is ten; and we should all rub our eyes with onion. I assure you, in the end it would be you who would pay the fine, for plying your simple friend with stronger stuff than he could afford at home, and trying to profit by it. They would spit on you as you left.”
When I read this, I immediately thought of the despicable “gay rage defence,” whereby someone could quite assuredly and with impunity, take the life of a gay man, and not suffer the consequences under law. Walk free! How? Their defence case would state that they were propositioned for sexual favours by the said gay man (even when this wasn’t the case); that the defendant was so traumatised by these “unnatural advances,” he took the life of the gay man, in an attempt to defend himself against being violated. It was self defence, his attorney would claim.
This actually happened many times. Murderers walked free. It took the judicial system a long time to realise that it wasn’t self-defence at all. It was murder.
Mary Renault was a gay woman. I wonder if she is eluding to “gay rage defence” here.