In Artistotelian literature, it is written that even since ancient civilized society the established order functions very similar to how it does today. In those times, the poor and wicked were often judged and tried by a court usually composed of people from the nobility, or what today would be the top 1 percent of people in any given country. It’s worthwhile to note that much of documented philosophical ponderings of the time were aimed at higher ideological offenses, that would often make a person sick to their stomach as to the arrogance of people who indulged in their self perceived superiority over the masses, as even an offense to a person’s ego would be considered punishable by death, only because one had the power to make this happen over many others.
In one case Aristotle writes of Myron of Athens, whose accusations were more of a religious and ideological nature, whereby the court ultimately siding with his accusation, declared that those who had been previously killed as part of a heretic uprising being quelled would have offended the upper echelons of society so much so, that the punishment for this “sacrilege”, as they would call it, would be to desecrate the graves of those who had already been executed for their crimes. It is also possible that these people whom were heretics were slaves, or some of a difference race than the nobility, which is why Aristotle writes that once the dead bodies were dug up out of their graves and possibly even mutilated as further punishment for their offenses, their “race was banished evermore”. One would speculate as to how literal of a nature this sentence has, for the nobility might consider anyone lowlier than themselves to be of a completely different race, the same way human races would be distinguished amongst each other by physical characteristics in the 21st century.
In response to this, the semi-mythical figure Epimenides the Cretan, a sheep herder whom legend has it was bestowed upon with the gift of prophecy after wandering into a cave sacred to the ancient Greek god Zeus, falling asleep for 57 years in the cave and suddenly waking up with this gift, had ordered a purification of Athens. Whether or not this purification was a religious ritual more so than a genocide targeted at certain groups and individuals throughout the city is relatively unclear.