"There is a well know passage in Exodus, which we will have to remember later: "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit." When we turn from the Jews to the Greeks, we find the principal just quoted erected into a system. Plutarch, in his Solon, tells us that a dog that had bitten a man was to be delivered up bound to a log four cubits long. Plato made elaborate provisions in his Laws for many such cases..."
Harvard Law 101, The Common Law.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2449/2449-h/2449-h.htm#link2H_4_0001