Full Idea
The distinction of punishment from revenge must be regarded as one of the most momentous of the conceptual discoveries ever made by humanity in the course of its slow, tortuous, precarious, emergence from barbaric tribalism. Protagoras originated it.
Gist of Idea
Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge
Source
report of Protagoras (fragments/reports [c.441 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.187
Book Reference
Vlastos,Gregory: 'Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher' [CUP 1992], p.187
Related Ideas
Idea 7340 Mosaic law was the first to embody the rule of law, and equality before the law [Johnson,P]
Idea 7810 The 'Eumenides' of Aeschylus shows blood feuds replaced by law [Aeschylus, by Grayling]