In fourth-century-BC Athens, there was a curious legal case involving an elderly immigrant woman who had been savagely beaten in an assault that took place at the home of a respectable citizen. Six days later, she died of her injuries. She was this citizen’s former nurse, whom he had invited to live with his family after she had been widowed. What makes her case so curious is that no one could be held accountable for her death; in a city that prided itself on its legal system that protected its citizens, this woman turned out to be a legal loophole, a nonentity who could be murdered at will.

What was it about this woman that made her life so worthless in the eyes of the law?