What is interesting here is that the law gives protection to all, but a penalty can be exacted only through a citizen’s intervention. This is similar a slave would expect court to play out for them, they would rely on their master to represent them in court. With this law metic’s inferior status is marked out. They had to rely on someone else’s intervention in court, and in the case of this law he or she was no better off than a slave; with the Athenian citizen being their master. Penalties were also significantly different, a killer of a metic was exiled while the murderer of a citizen was sent to death. The penalty for murdering a metic could still be harsh, and rightly so, but the message was clear: the life of a citizen was of more value.