Chapter II: The Pelasgian System (2)

We find a reference to the exile penalty _for kin-slaying_ in Homer.[107] We are told that Tlepolemus, son of Hercules by Astyocheia, came to Troy from Rhodes, whither he had fled, because when grown to manhood he had slain his father’s maternal uncle, an old man, Likymnius, of the stock of Ares. ‘Then with speed he built ships and gathered much folk together and went fleeing across the deep, because the other sons and grandsons of the mighty Hercules threatened him.’ So he came to Rhodes, a wanderer, and his folk settled by kinship in three tribes and were loved by Zeus.’ Leaf would probably regard this passage as non-Homeric, since it happens to occur in the ‘Catalogue’: but this will not vitiate our argument, as the predominant atmosphere of post-Homeric Greece was, in Leaf’s view, that of the ‘group-system’ and there was no break in the custom of tribal wergeld. We may assume[108] that the family of Hercules was Pelasgian. Homer does not mention the place where the slaying took place, but it was, possibly, Mycenae, of which Electryon, father of Likymnius, was at one time king. Likymnius was a half-brother of Alcmene, the mother of Hercules, whose birth, according to Homer,[109] took place at Thebes. Likymnius was, therefore, a maternal uncle of Hercules and grand-uncle of Tlepolemus. In a normal clan the avengers of Likymnius must have included the brothers of Tlepolemus, since the homicide affected the whole kindred-group. The case is remarkably similar to that described in _Beowulf_, and referred to by F. Seebohm,[110] but Beowulf took no part in the quarrel between his maternal and paternal kindreds and the quarrel was in violation of tribal usage. This is precisely the kind of event which would have tested to the utmost the solidarity of the kindred; for there was a clan law that all the members who were akin either paternally or maternally had to act together in the avenging of a kinsman. The murder of Likymnius—who was not a kinsman of Amphitryon, grandfather of Tlepolemus, but who was akin to Hercules, to Tlepolemus and the brothers of Tlepolemus—was a crucial test, as it involved a conflict between loyalty to clan law and loyalty to one’s nearer relatives. When Homer speaks of the avengers of Likymnius as the ‘sons and grandsons of the mighty Hercules,’ it does not follow that the family of Hercules were the sole avengers, but that, as the nearest relatives of Tlepolemus, their action was the most important, seeing that they were the kinsmen whose obedience to clan law was most difficult and, therefore, most appreciated.

Glotz[111] does not seem to us to have rightly interpreted this passage. He refuses to believe that the duty of vengeance was so strict as to compel a man to exercise it against a relative of the paternal line, in the interest of a victim of the maternal line. Moreover, he argues that the sons of Hercules are not the avengers of Likymnius, for, if they were, they would not have allowed him to depart. Here, we believe, Glotz is confusing the exile penalty of Pelasgian tribes with the Achaean exile, which was a flight from death. They let him go, says Glotz, because they wish to avoid a feud within the clan—‘Ils veulent seulement que le meurtrier s’en aille, parce qu’ils entendent ne pas se brouiller avec des alliés.’[112] We think, on the contrary, that the case of Tlepolemus furnishes a splendid instance of the solidarity of the clan. There was no question of wergeld—nor, we think, of slavery. It was a question of exile or death. The brothers of Tlepolemus appear to lead the avengers. From this we need not infer that Likymnius, an old man, had no sons or grandsons or brothers living at the time. We have said that a clan conflict was averted by the decision of the sons of Hercules to join in avenging. Rather than tolerate in the clan society, in the worship of common ancestors, the slayer of a kinsman, the brothers of Tlepolemus would, if necessary, have killed him. It is with _death_ that they threatened him, if he remained. But his exile was not a flight from death: he was granted a certain time in which to build himself ships. Such delay is characteristic of Pelasgian but not of Achaean vengeance. There would be some difficulty in interpreting the reference to the people whom he carried with him into exile, were it stated, as fortunately it is not, that they were his kinsmen. His companions were hangers-on, lackland men who were content to join a powerful ‘exile’ emigrant. He founded in Rhodes a city, in typical Pelasgian fashion,[113] dividing the folk by kinship into three tribes. It is perhaps because he was a son of Hercules that his exile appears to be no excessive penalty but a mere inconvenience. It is perhaps for the same reason that he was loved by Zeus, the father of Hercules.[114]

For the Pelasgian penalty of exile as an alternative to wergeld for homicide _outside the kindred_, the most relevant, though indirect, Homeric reference is a passage in the _Iliad_[115] which we have already discussed, in which we hear of a man-slayer who abides among his people when he has paid a goodly wergeld. We have already argued that this passage refers to the tribal customs of the Pelasgians, and that the Achaean Ajax, who uses the words, is borrowing, for rhetorical purposes, a sentiment which did not characterise the Achaean attitude to homicide.[116] We may now point out furthermore that the vagueness of the description of the wergeld payment, both in this passage and in that which relates to the Shield of Achilles, suggests, if it does not prove, that the description proceeds from Achaeans who were not familiar with the details of the system, but had merely become acquainted with its outstanding principles. When Homer says ‘a man has been known to accept a blood-price for the death of a brother or a son,’ the statement is only a vague description, as anyone who is familiar with real wergeld will admit. We have seen that a large number of people participated both in the payment and in the satisfaction. Whether Homer can be taken to mean that exile would have absolved the murderer’s kindred from all payment, as it did in the laws of King Edmund of England,[117] or whether it merely acquitted the murderer of his share of the debt,[118] are questions which, owing to the vagueness of our Homeric references, cannot here be decided.

These are the only Homeric references to the exile penalty for homicide which can be definitely associated with Pelasgian customs. There is a passage in the _Odyssey_[119] in which the penalty is referred to, but we think it wiser to interpret the passage as an Achaean reference, and to regard the exile as a flight from death. Odysseus, having slain the suitors—an action characterised by arbitrary Achaean hypervengeance—urges his son Telemachus to consult with him and take joint measures to prevent retaliation from the relatives of the slain. He says to Telemachus: ‘A man who has slain a single individual amongst the folk (ἐνὶ δήμῳ) goes into exile and leaves his connexions and his native land, even when the slain man has not many “helpers” left behind: but we have slain the mainstay of the city, those who were noblest of the youths in Ithaca, so I bid thee take thought upon the matter.’ The outlook of the Achaean over-lord is clearly indicated in this passage, in the importance which Odysseus seems to attach to the numbers or military strength of the avenging relatives. For the Achaeans, murder went unavenged if there were no avengers or if the avengers were not sufficiently powerful to retaliate. Blood was rarely shed in vengeance, because the murderer usually fled and took precautions against pursuit. The idea of fleeing when the fear of ‘reprisals’ was negligible was not very intelligible to an Achaean, and it is mentioned here as an instance of unusual caution, in order to emphasise the danger for Telemachus and Odysseus who remain unprepared at home surrounded by a host of powerful and hostile Ithacans. Later on, Odysseus suggests that music and dancing should resound in the house to prevent the rumour of the slaughter being disseminated until he has time to prepare his plans.[120] When, eventually, the truth became known, the relatives of the suitors took counsel together,[121] in the manner of an Achaean council of war, but not as a Pelasgian clan or tribe assembled to judge of guilt or innocence. Some said that Odysseus was justified in his act; others prepare for war. The fight ensues, and many are slain.[122] Athene[123] intervenes to reconcile the feud; she acts not as the patron of clan law but as the symbol of Achaean military discipline. Odysseus does not depart into exile: the covenant which the outraged relatives submissively enter into came from the throne of Zeus, and pledged them to serve the king for all his days.[124]

Neither can we put forward as evidence for the Pelasgian exile penalty for homicide the passage in the _Iliad_[125] in which Priam’s inexplicable appearance before Achilles and his friends evokes in them an emotion which Homer compares to the amazement (θάμβος) felt when a man ‘slays one in his country and goes into exile to the house of a rich man[126] and wonder possesses them that look at him.’ The amazement here described would be equally natural whether the stranger was an exiled Pelasgian or, as Leaf suggests,[127] an Achaean fleeing for his life. Moreover, suspicion has been thrown upon the whole passage by the reference, in two scholia, to ‘purification,’ which has led Müller[128] to infer that the scholiasts read, in their texts, ἁγνιτέω instead of ἀφνειοῦ. We hope to show later[129] the error of Müller’s view that purification for homicide was a characteristic of the Homeric age, and hence we maintain that either the whole passage is a later interpolation or that the reading ἁγνιτέω found its way into some Homeric texts from a marginal gloss of post-Homeric origin, suggested by a false interpretation of the word ἄτη in a preceding verse.

Hence, while the poems of Homer indicate beyond reasonable doubt the existence of a genuine Pelasgian exile penalty, it is significant that the poet of the Achaeans tends to ignore the exile[130] alternative as he tends also to ignore the wergeld alternative, in the system of penalties for homicide adopted by a tribal people outside the Achaean caste.

VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY HOMICIDE

It is generally[131] asserted that primitive societies recognise no distinction either between wilful murder and manslaughter (which presumes a certain degree of guilt), or even between wilful murder and accidental slaying. The reason assigned is that bloodshed, even in comparatively advanced civilisations, is a ‘civil’ rather than a ‘criminal’ offence—a matter for damages and compensation rather than for exemplary punishment. Thus Glotz[132] says: ‘L’intention n’est rien: le fait est tout. Pas de circonstances atténuantes. Nulle différence entre l’assassinat lâchement prémédité et l’homicide involontaire.’ To the possible objection that the distinction is found in Greek legends, as given by Aeschylus, Apollodorus, Pausanias and others, he replies that these legends are of late origin—a view which is not quite consistent with his usual attitude.[133] He thinks that those legends were invented by the Athenians to restore the history of the Areopagus, the Palladium, and the Delphinium courts.[134] He attributes the moral distinction, which these courts are assumed to imply, between voluntary and involuntary homicide to a period ‘not much anterior to Dracon,’ but he admits that the idea was being developed before that time in ‘family law’—that is, in clan justice. He seems to us rather inconsistent in holding that ‘dans les lois sur l’homicide (de Dracon) apparaît pour la première fois la distinction du meurtre prémédité et du meurtre involontaire,’ and in maintaining at the same time that it was a ‘principe lentement élaboré dans la justice sociale.’[135] The distinction was developed, he thinks, not from any philanthropic motives but only because private vengeance was abolished and the newly established power of the State sought thereby to restrain the taste for blood. Now we may admit, with Glotz,[136] that the distinction is a late development in most races whose social customs are known to us—for instance, amongst the Germans, the Slavs, the Celts, the Scandinavians, and the Ossetes. France does not seem to have recognised the distinction in its written laws before A.D. 819. In feudal England it does not make its appearance before the time of Henry VIII.[137] But Seebohm[138] shows that in the Lex Wisigothorum (about A.D. 650) ‘a homicide committed unknowingly (_nesciens_) is declared to be ... no cause of death. “Let the man who has committed it depart secure.”’ The introduction of Roman law may have caused this innovation, for Roman law admitted the distinction from the time of the Twelve Tables[139] onwards, and this code was still operative amongst Gallic peoples when they were conquered by the Wisigoths.[140] From _Beowulf_, however, Seebohm[141] infers that in Scandinavia within the clan ‘accidental homicide does not seem to be followed even by exile.’ The poem says[142]: ‘Hæthcyn by arrow from hornbow brought him (Herebeald) down, his near kinsman. He missed the target and shot his brother. One brother killed the other with bloody dart. That was a wrong past compensation.... Any way and every way it was inevitable that the Etheling must quit life unavenged.’ In this case, of course, there could be no question of wergeld.

In the ‘Canones Wallici’[143] (Celtic laws of the period A.D. 700-800), which are based on the tribal wergeld system as adopted by the Church, we find this clause: ‘Si quis homicidium ex intentione commiserit, ancillas III et servos III reddat.’ This implies a different penalty when murder was not _ex intentione_.

The Brehon laws[144] contain minute distinctions of payment in different cases of wounding. If a bishop’s blood was shed in certain quantities, the guilty person had to be hanged or to pay seven _cumhals_ (slaves)—or their equivalent in silver and gold: if a less quantity of blood was shed, the aggressor was condemned to lose his hand. If the blood of a priest was shed in certain quantities, the criminal’s hand was cut off or seven _ancillae_ paid, if the act was intentional; if it was not intentional, one _ancilla_ sufficed for compensation. It is clear then that this distinction is not always absent even in a wergeld system where the crime of bloodshed is particularly objective. We have seen[145] that wergeld often carried with it an ‘honour-price,’ an atonement for the insult, which was caused by homicide. This price, it seems to us, could easily admit of a modification of the penalty. Moreover, it is possible that wergeld is not always to be regarded as a measure of the loss sustained by a clan, but as also to some extent a ransom of the prisoner’s life. ‘Partout,’ says Glotz,[146] ‘la composition varie selon le rang de la victime: et selon le rang du coupable: elle est à la fois la rançon du meurtrier et le prix du sang versé.’ For the Germans, according to Coulanges,[147] ‘la composition est un rachat, non pas rachat de la victime mais rachat de la vie du coupable.’[148] Is it not natural to suppose that a system of compensation for homicide which contains such minute differentiations would leave the road open for a discrimination as to degrees of guilt?

It is time to ask whether Homer has anything to say of this distinction. We will admit that he says nothing which is directly relevant to the question. But we will examine two passages with a view to showing that the distinction was known outside the Achaean caste.

The first passage is from the _Odyssey_[149] and is concerned with King Oedipus the parricide and with his punishment. Odysseus narrates how, in Hades, he saw Epicaste, and how ‘he that had slain his father wedded her and straightway the gods made known these things to men. Yet he abode in pain in pleasant Thebes, ruling the Cadmeans, by reason of the baneful devices of the gods. She indeed went down to Hades ... but for him she left behind many a woe, such as the Erinnyes of a mother bring to pass.’ Of all forms of homicide, that by which a son deprived a parent of life was regarded as the most horrible. Probably even the Achaeans, as we shall see presently, felt a certain horror at the thought of parricide. Homer, then, cannot understand why the gods, who had taken the trouble of revealing the crimes of Oedipus, nevertheless permitted, if they did not encourage, his continued rule over the Cadmeans. All other parricides of whom Homer had ever heard had taken to flight! And what was the pain which Oedipus endured? Was it remorse of conscience? Or was it his self-inflicted blindness? Euripides[150] tells how the sons of Oedipus confined their father under bolts and hid him away that his sad fate might be forgotten. We shall see, later, when we analyse the Oedipodean legends as given by the Attic dramatists, how Oedipus is filled with natural grief, but is free from that sense of moral guilt which we should expect him to have felt. He constantly pleads that he did not know that the man whom he slew was Laius, his father. Was this plea invented in later years, or was it part of the original legend? Seebohm[151] has told us that in primitive clan societies ‘accidental homicide within the kindred does not seem to be followed even by exile.’ Was it, then, because of ‘accidental’ or involuntary[152] parricide that Oedipus continued to rule over the Cadmeans? Oedipus was not an Achaean. Minoan or Cadmean, which was he? It does not matter, for our purpose, if he obeyed the ‘dooms’ of private vengeance in tribal society. Homer is equally vague about the working of the mother’s curse. Why did Epicaste curse Oedipus? The Attic dramatists do not mention this. Oedipus is cursed in Homer for one reason, and, as we think, for one reason only. It is because other slayers of kinsmen who did not suffer punishment were usually cursed. Thus Meleager, who in a quarrel slew his uncle, was cursed by his mother Althaea.[153] It is an Homeric maxim that the Erinnyes command men to honour their parents.[154]

The second passage which we shall cite is from the _Iliad_,[155] a passage in which the ghost of Patroclus tells Achilles how his father Menoitius brought him away from home to the realm of Peleus on the day when he slew the son of Amphidamas, though he was but a boy and did not intend it, and was angry over dice.[156] As this is the only passage in Homer which contains an explicit reference to involuntary homicide, and as the slayer is compelled to flee for ever precisely as if the act had been wilful murder, this passage has been quoted[157] as a proof that in early Greece there was no distinction made between murder and manslaughter. If, however, we are right in our discrimination between the Pelasgian and the Achaean attitudes to homicide, it would almost seem as if the passage could be regarded, not indeed as a proof, but perhaps as an indication, of the existence of this distinction in Homeric Greece. May we not suppose that the words of Patroclus are not an expression of subjective innocence by a member of a caste which regarded only objective facts, but a ‘reminiscence’ of a higher ethical code which obtained in the tribal villages around the fortress, and which had enshrined itself in the language which the Achaeans learned from the Pelasgians? In the words of Patroclus we think we can find an echo of a distinction which, in later times, is made the basis of grades of penalties in certain laws of homicide. Plato, whose penal code is probably modelled on the unwritten laws of tribal institutions, points out that a person who slays another in a passion but with intent to kill shall be exiled for a period of three years, while a person who slays in a passion without intent to kill is punished by exile for two years. He adds that ‘it is difficult to give laws on such matters with accuracy.... Of all these matters, therefore, let the guardians of the laws have cognisance ... and let the exiles acquiesce in the decisions of such magistrates.’ We cannot, of course, ignore the main fact given by Homer that Patroclus was compelled to flee from death because of involuntary or quasi-involuntary homicide. But Patroclus was an Achaean and we do not associate with the Achaeans any tendency to discriminate between degrees of guilt. The Achaean system of military control within a small dominant caste was merely capable of preventing indefinite retaliations. It was not interested in homicide as an offence against the stability of social organisations. It had no homicide tribunals, no elaborate code of penalties. We could not expect it to manifest any subtle power of delicate discrimination. It is possible that the military system of historical Sparta was equally crude in its conceptions of homicide-guilt as it was, apparently, equally severe in its punishment.[158]

We shall see, later,[159] when we analyse the laws of Plato’s homicide-code and of the ancient Hebrew code that the distinction between voluntary and involuntary slaying was much more likely to have arisen in the tribal customs of village-communities accustomed to the most minute differentiations in their wergeld system than in systems emanating from centralised political or religious authority. The Homeric poems give us, it is true, no reliable evidence which would help us to arrive at a definite decision on the existence of such a distinction in early Greece, but from the passages we have cited we may at least extract a suggestion that the distinction was really appreciated, and we have suggested a source from which that sentiment may very easily have sprung.

JUSTIFIABLE AND UNJUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE

We come now to a kindred problem, namely, the question whether the Pelasgians[160] were aware of a difference between justifiable and non-justifiable slaying? Most writers will admit that there was no vengeance set in motion by death on the field of battle. It was a recognised challenge of strength, an ἄγων, the issue of which was accepted as the will of the gods. But in local blood-vengeance, arising, let us suppose, out of failure to pay wergeld, or when the murderer’s clan defended him at home or did not expel him and feud followed, was there no distinction between murder and just revenge? Glotz, as we should expect, holds that there was no distinction between murder and revenge.[161] ‘Coupable ou non coupable, il est responsable. Qui a versé du sang doit du sang.’ It is thus, certainly, with modern Montenegrins, Albanians and others. But are the creators of Mycenaean civilisation to be compared with these? Glotz conceives the blood-vengeance of early Greece to be what we have called unrestricted vendetta, but this mode of vengeance is not usually associated with settled tribal communities who are otherwise known to accept wergeld, and we maintain that the Pelasgians had reached this stage at the dawn of Greek history. Glotz bases his view for the most part[162] on those numerous ‘flights’ of murderers which Homer records. Now, these references concern murderers, not avengers of murder; and there is no instance, in Homer, of an avenger of blood becoming in turn the object of vengeance. The non-Homeric instances cited by Glotz,[163] such as the trial of Ares for the murder of Halirrhothius, who had dishonoured his daughter; the flight of Hyettos from Argos to Orchomenus, after slaying Molouros, who was caught in adultery with his wife, are derived from Pausanias, Apollodorus, or Euripides, and are therefore irrelevant for the interpretation of the Homeric age.

We admit, with Glotz, that in cases of adultery and seduction slaying was unjustifiable in Homer which would have been justifiable in historical Greece. Glotz[164] points out that the system of compensation for adultery and seduction which is found in the laws of Gortyn recalls, in a certain manner, the custom applied by Hephaestus to Ares in the _Odyssey_.[165] He says of this system: ‘Nous y retrouvons aussi, exprimées avec précision, quelques-unes des règles que les coutumes ont transmises aux législations[166].... Entre la ποινή de Gortyne et celle de la fin des temps Homériques la ressemblance est frappante.’[167] This is as much as to say that ‘towards the close of the Homeric epoch’ custom (or, as we should say, tribal unwritten law) compelled the husband of an adulterous wife to accept, in certain cases, compensation from the paramour, and to arrest, but not to slay him. In the _Odyssey_,[168] Hephaestus, having surprised Ares in the arms of his wife, decides to imprison them, saying ‘the snare and the bond will hold them till her sire give back to me the gifts of wooing.’ The other gods, among whom ‘laughter unquenchable arose,’ say that ‘Ares owes the adulterer’s fine’ (μοιχάγρι’ ὀφέλλει). In the _Iliad_[169] the wife of Proetus falsely accused Bellerophon of attempted adultery,[170] and begged her husband to slay the offender. But Homer tells us that Proetus feared to slay him, and sent him forth to Lycia with the famous σήματα λυγρά—a written injunction to the King of Lycia to put Bellerophon to death—an act which suggests that the death penalty for adultery was not customary in Greece.[171] And surely the existence of a prescribed μοιχάγρια suggests that even amongst the Achaeans the slaying of an adulterer was unjustifiable. We may further infer that amongst the Pelasgians there existed some authority, whether tribal tradition, or clan-custom, which discriminated between the cases in which death could and those in which it could not be inflicted with impunity. The collective execution of death in case of refusal to obey clan-laws regarding the payment of wergeld, or μοιχάγρια, is a clear manifestation of that social justice which claims the right to decide between justifiable and unjustifiable slaying.

We cannot, of course, find any evidence in the Homeric poems for a tabulation of instances of justifiable homicide such as is found in the laws of Dracon.[172] But the Homeric poems present us with a picture which is mainly, if not exclusively, Achaean, and we cannot infer from the absence of Homeric evidence that the Pelasgian tribes which had developed, as we think,[173] a capacity for discriminating between degrees of homicide guilt, had not also evolved a definite conception of the distinction between just and unjust slaying. We shall see[174] later that even the Achaeans recognised at least a distinction between murder and just revenge. Thus, the Achaean Orestes who slew his mother to avenge his father is said by Homer to have ‘gained renown amongst all men.’[175] In the _Odyssey_,[176] Amphinomus, one of the suitors, refuses to join a conspiracy to murder Telemachus without consulting the gods: ‘I for one would not choose to kill Telemachus: it is a fearful thing to slay one of the stock of kings: nay, first let us seek the counsel of the gods, and if the oracles (θέμιστες) of great Zeus approve, myself I will slay him and bid all the rest to aid; but if the gods are disposed to avert it, I bid you, too, refrain.’ The θέμιστες here attributed to Zeus must be regarded as a reflex of the public opinion of the Achaean caste, which, therefore, had evolved a distinction between just and unjust slaying. In another place[177] Eupeithes, the father of a slain suitor, says ‘It is a scorn if we avenge not ourselves on the slayers of our sons and brothers; rather would I die!’ It is obvious that an act which is a duty prescribed by caste or law or custom cannot be regarded as a crime. So,[178] when the feud arose between Odysseus, who regarded himself as justified in slaying the suitors who had insulted his family, and the suitors, who were contriving what they considered a just revenge, Homer tells us that Odysseus would have slain them all, had not Athene intervened and ordered both sides to desist and to enter into a solemn covenant of reconciliation. This act of Athene[179] signifies that in her opinion both sides are justified in shedding blood, and hence that the feud can be cancelled without disturbing the balance of justice. Now Glotz[180] rightly points out that the ancients attributed to their gods such opinions as they themselves professed; and if Achaeanised Athene acted thus, how can we avoid assuming the existence of at least as high a standard amongst the Pelasgians? In Homer then we may conclude that there existed some distinction between just and unjust slaying. For Glotz, this distinction arises only when the State takes justice into its own hands and legitimatises private vengeance after trial. The date of this evolution, he thinks, is the age of Dracon. But we maintain that, long before Dracon, or perhaps even before Homer, there existed, in Greece, States within States, that is, clans and tribes and phratries, whose interest it was, at the dawn of civilised society, to create the distinction between justifiable and unjustifiable bloodshed, which is so vital to domestic peace.

COLLECTIVITY IN VENGEANCE

Nothing that has been said in this chapter is incompatible with the view that punishment, in early societies, tends to be collective and hereditary. Feuds of blood must have occasionally occurred amongst the early Pelasgian folk, but we cannot ignore the control of tribal authority, and the Achaean domination which may have acted as a check. However, it is one thing to declare war on a group which refuses to fulfil the law of a district or of a tribe; it is quite another thing to refuse the ‘satisfaction’ prescribed by custom, and to make a single murder an invariable cause of incessant bloodshed. This is the state of Homeric society as conceived by Glotz, and by most writers on the subject of early Greek homicide. We prefer to emphasise the triumph of reason over passion which is symbolised by a wergeld system of local vengeance, by the worship of common ancestors, real or fictitious, by the early political synoekism of many Greek districts, and by international Amphictyonies of immemorial antiquity. We think that it was in post-Homeric times, when the Achaean control was removed, and the Migrations broke up the solidarity of Pelasgian clans, that Greek societies developed unrestricted vendetta. Glotz[181] has difficulties about the Homeric age. He has to admit that there is no infallible system of collective punishment in Homer. ‘Dans l’Iliade et dans l’Odyssée,’ he says, ‘les querelles strictement personnelles ne lient plus infailliblement au sort de l’offenseur tous les siens. On n’y voit point, après un meurtre ἐμφύλιος, les vengeurs du sang poursuivre la famille du meurtrier.’ The difficulty is obviated by our theory of Achaean restricted vendetta. The vengeance of Achilles[182] for the death of Patroclus is no objection to our theory, as it is not revenge for homicide proper: war is distinct from peace. Achaean kings confiscate property, transfer and destroy whole cities[183]: this is but the autocracy of a quasi-feudal militarism; it is not a punishment of moral guilt.

Euripides[184] makes Tyndareus utter a sentiment regarding the legitimate modes of homicide-vengeance which seems to us to be very applicable to early Greek societies. Tyndareus objects to the infliction of death as a penalty for the slaying of Agamemnon, on the ground that such penalties, in the absence of State-control, would inevitably lead to an indefinite series of retaliations. ‘Right well,’ he says, ‘did our ancestors in olden times enact these ordinances ... they punished (the murderer) with exile, but they suffered no one to slay him in return, for (in that eventuality) each successive avenger would be liable for bloodshed.... I will support the law, and try to check this brutal murderous practice destructive alike of individual States and of the world.’ We shall see later[185] that Euripides is either consciously archaising in this passage or that the view of Tyndareus was somehow preserved in the legend which the dramatist follows. In either case, it seems to us to contain a valuable principle regarding the fear of unrestricted vendetta, of collective and hereditary punishment, which is found in civilised tribal societies in a condition of private vengeance. Such societies have either to abandon civilisation, and to fall back into a chronic state of chaotic barbarism, or to adopt a system of ‘social justice’ which, by definite rules and regulations, expressive of tribal authority, by public opinion and religious sanctions, prevents, as far as possible, the innocent from suffering with the guilty.

The penalty of wergeld was, in a certain sense, collective because it was diffused throughout the kindred. But this penalty is clearly far removed from the collective punishment of a barbarous hypervengeance. It arises, we have said, from the simple fact that property, in early society, was to a great extent collective or common; and also from the fact that the individual of tribal life was not the isolated personality which feudal and modern civilisations have evolved, but was rather a branch of one great wide-spreading tree in which he lived and moved and had his being. Finally, in regard to the Homeric society, we must remember that the Achaeans stood on quite a separate plane. Amongst them there is little or no suggestion of collective punishment. Achaean military discipline prevented it. Such traces of this punishment as are found in many later legends must be attributed, as we shall see, to post-Homeric influences.

FOOTNOTES

[1] See _Blutrache bei den Griechen_, chapter i.

[2] See _History of Greece_ (second edition), p. 172.

[3] _History of Greece_, vol. ii. p. 32.

[4] See _Manual of Greek Antiquities_, p. 407.

[5] P. 408.

[6] _La Solidarité de la Famille_, Book I. (_passim_).

[7] See _s.v._ φόνος, p. 439.

[8] See _supra_, p. 11.

[9] _Loc. cit._ p. 440.

[10] See, _e.g._, Glotz, _loc. cit._ pp. 56-7: ‘Les Grecs ont toujours senti et manifesté avec une vivacité extrême le bonheur de se venger. Le cannibalisme qu’ils avaient pratiqué à l’époque de la sauvagerie primitive, resta dans leur langue, s’il disparut de leurs mœurs.’ On p. 57 they are compared to Montenegrins and Arabs.

[11] Pp. 253-5.

[12] _Il._ xxiii. 85.

[13] _Il._ ix. 565.

[14] _Il._ xv. 334; _Il._ xxiv. 480.

[15] _Il._ xviii. 490-508.

[16] P. 516.

[17] See also _J.H.S._ xiii. 123-6 (1887). The view was first suggested by Müncher (1829); see Glotz, p. 116.

[18] See _infra_, p. 37 ff.

[19] See _supra_, p. 21.

[20] _Op. cit._ p. 162 ff.

[21] _Op. cit._ p. 105.

[22] Pott, Corssen, Curtius, quoted by Glotz, _loc. cit._

[23] _E.g._ _Il._ ix. 131-2, ἀπερείσι’ ἄποινα.

[24] _Op. cit._ p. 110.

[25] _Op. cit._ p. 114.

[26] Compare the weeping of Hrethel, when his eldest son was killed by his second son—and no vengeance was possible within the ‘family.’ _Beowulf_ (2464), quoted by F. Seebohm, p. 63.

[27] _Il._ viii. 500 ff.

[28] _Il._ ix. 378-386.

[29] _Il._ ix. 625.

[30] See _infra_, p. 43.

[31] See _Iliad_ xii. 422 and _supra_, p. 17.

[32] _Op. cit._ p. 115. ‘Rien ne prouve ici que la justice sociale intervienne à quelque titre et de quelque manière que ce soit, ni pour imposer ou conseiller un accommodement, ni pour indiquer le montant de la composition.’

[33] _Il._ ix. 634 suggests an ‘arrangement’ by which either (_a_) exile absolved the clan from punishment (_cf._ _Laws of King Edmund_, Seebohm, p. 356) or (_b_) exile was accepted in lieu of the murderer’s _share_ of the wergeld (_cf._ Canones Wallici, quoted by Seebohm, _op. cit._ p. 109).

[34] See Soph. _Antigone_, 456-7.

[35] _Il._ xviii. 490-508.

[36] _Op. cit._ pp. 473-4.

[37] See his Edition of _Iliad_, vol. ii. pp. 340-1.

[38] See Monro, _loc. cit._

[39] P. 516; _supra_, p. 25.

[40] P. 312.

[41] See also _J.H.S._ xiii. pp. 123-6 (1887), and Glotz, _op. cit._ p. 116.

[42] P. 516.

[43] 490-508.

[44] ἴστωρ, see _infra_, p. 43.

[45] _E.g._ Hofmeister, Leist, Dareste; see Glotz, _loc. cit._

[46] _Op. cit._ p. 116.

[47] P. 312 ff.

[48] For a fine illustration of Achaean ‘arbitration’ in homicide, see Euripides, _Hecuba_ (1130 ff.).

[49] P. 258.

[50] Minoans or Achaeans.

[51] _Cf._ Glotz, _op. cit._ p. 122. Aussi celui, qui traite au nom d’une famille lésée, doit avoir pleins pouvoirs d’agir au nom de tous ou en référer au groupe qu’il représente.

[52] See _Das Attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren_, Einleitung, pp. iv. ff.

[53] That is, if he was proved to be innocent of the crime.

[54] See Leaf’s note in edition of _Iliad_ (1902), p. 611 ff.

[55] _Od._ xv. 388.

[56] _Od._ xv. 429.

[57] _Od._ xv. 452.

[58] _Il._ x. 378.

[59] _Il._ xxi. 41-80.

[60] _Il._ ix. 264.

[61] _Od._ iv. 525.

[62] See _supra_, p. 10; Seebohm, _op. cit._ p. 123 ff.

[63] _Ancient Law_, p. 313. See Leaf, edition of _Iliad_ (1902), p. 612.

[64] _Op. cit._ p. 119.

[65] Seebohm, _op. cit._ pp. 43-5.

[66] See _supra_, p. 11; Seebohm, _op. cit._ pp. 328, 356.

[67] See _supra_, p. 7.

[68] λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον.

[69] ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί.

[70] κήρυκες δ’ ἄρα λαὸν ἐφήτυον.

[71] Seebohm, _op. cit._ p. 356.

[72] Leaf, edition of _Iliad_ (1902) p. 611; Glotz, _op. cit._ p. 118 ff.

[73] _Op. cit._ p. 118.

[74] Seebohm, _op. cit._ pp. 203-5; 409-11.

[75] _Il._ ix. 634.

[76] _Op. cit._ p. 129.

[77] Glotz, _op. cit._ p. 118.

[78] _Cf._ also _Il._ xxi. 41; _Od._ xv. 388, 452.

[79] _Il._ ii. 666.

[80] _Op. cit._ p. 162.

[81] _Op. cit._ p. 163.

[82] _Op. cit._ p. 29, and Plutarch, _Solon_, 23.

[83] P. 130.

[84] Pp. 164, 173.

[85] iii. 4. 2.

[86] Hesiod, _Theog._ 937.

[87] P. 173.

[88] Apollod. iii. 10. 4. _Cf._ Euripides, _Alcestis_, 1-10.

[89] Apollod. ii. 6. 2.

[90] _Il._ xxi. 442 ff.

[91] The same remark applies to _Od._ xv. 388, 452, where the ‘ransom’ and temporary bondage are connected with kidnapping by pirates.

[92] A murderer’s children are condemned to bondage for two or three generations in the Salic Law. Seebohm, _op. cit._ p. 164.

[93] _Cf._ the Chrenecruda of Salic Law by which poorer members throw the burden on the richer. Seebohm, p. 141.

[94] Seebohm, p. 328.

[95] Seebohm, p. 323.

[96] Seebohm, pp. 93-4.

[97] P. 42.

[98] P. 71.

[99] P. 129.

[100] P. 19.

[101] P. 22.

[102] _Op. cit._ pp. 125-126.

[103] Coulanges, _loc. cit._

[104] _Op. cit._ p. 24.

[105] See Bk. II. chap. iii.

[106] Seebohm, _op. cit._ p. 129.

[107] _Il._ ii. 662 ff.

[108] Müller, _Dorians_, i. pp. 411-46.

[109] _Il._ xix. 99 ff.

[110] P. 64.

[111] P. 170.

[112] Glotz, p. 170. See also p. 51.

[113] See Coulanges, _Ancient City_, pp. 169 ff.

[114] For the exile of Amphitryon, father of Hercules, who had slain Electryon, father of Likymnius, see Euripides, _Her. Fur._ 15 ff. For the slaying by Hercules of Iphitus, his guest, an act which appears to bring no punishment save the vengeance of the gods, _cf._ _Od._ xxi. 27.

[115] _Il._ ix. 632 ff.

[116] _Supra_, pp. 32-3.

[117] Seebohm, p. 356.

[118] _Ib._ p. 109; _supra_, p. 9.

[119] _Od._ xxiii. 118-120.

[120] _Od._ xxiii. 133 ff.

[121] _Od._ xxiv. 421 ff.

[122] _Ib._ 526.

[123] _Ib._ 533.

[124] _Ib._ 483.

[125] _Il._ xxiv. 480 ff.

[126] Reading ἀφνειοῦ.

[127] _H. and H._ p. 253.

[128] _Eumenides_, pp. 104-5.

[129] See _infra_, pp. 111 ff., 139 ff.

[130] We should perhaps also add the ‘reminiscence’ in _Il._ ix. 63, where the lover of domestic strife is said to be a lawless wretch without home or phratry. It is possible but not necessary to suppose that the wretch in question was outlawed because of homicidal tendencies which continued to manifest themselves afterwards. See Leaf, _H. and H._ p. 251. For a possible reference in the phrase ἀτίμηντος μετανάστης (_Il._ ix. 648), see Ridgeway, _J.H.S._ vol. vi.

[131] Caillemer, art. φόνος in Daremberg and Saglio, p. 439; Philippi, _Areopag und Epheten_, pp. 3-4; Eichhoff, _Blutrache_, chap. i. p. 8.

[132] P. 48.

[133] Glotz, _op. cit._ pp. 164-173.

[134] P. 48.

[135] P. 302.

[136] P. 48.

[137] _Encycl. Laws England_, ed. Renton, vol. ix. p. 32.

[138] P. 128.

[139] _Cf._ the phrase _si telum fugit magis quam iecit_.

[140] Seebohm, p. 126.

[141] P. 71.

[142] Quoted by Seebohm, _op. cit._ p. 63.

[143] Seebohm, _op. cit._ pp. 106-8.

[144] Seebohm, _op. cit._ p. 103.

[145] _Supra_, p. 7.

[146] P. 107.

[147] See _La Monarchie franque_, pp. 473-4 (Glotz, p. 107).

[148] For the contrary view of Dareste in regard to Aryan races, see his _Études d’histoire du droit_, pp. 252-275. Glotz, p. 106.

[149] xi. 271 ff.

[150] _Phoenissae_, 60 ff.

[151] P. 71.

[152] _Infra_, pp. 171, 310 ff.

[153] _Il._ ix. 563-570.

[154] _Cf._ _Il._ xv. 204 οἶσθ’ ὡς πρεσβυτέροισιν Ἐριννύες αἰὲν ἕπονται.

[155] xxiii. 88 ff.

[156] νήπιος, οὐκ ἐθέλων, ἀμφ’ ἀστραγάλοισι χολωθείς.

[157] See, _e.g._, Eichhoff, _Blutrache_, chap. i. p. 8.

[158] See Xenophon, _Anab._ iv. 8. 25.

[159] See _infra_, pp. 140 f., 197.

[160] For Attic legislation, see _infra_, p. 213 ff.

[161] P. 50.

[162] P. 51; see _infra_, ch. iii.

[163] P. 50.

[164] P. 383.

[165] viii. 318, 332.

[166] _Op. cit._ p. 385.

[167] P. 386

[168] viii. 318 ff.

[169] vi. 160 ff.

[170] For an interesting parallel _cf._ Euripides, _Hippolytus_.

[171] The subsequent solitary wandering of Bellerophon in ‘the plain of wandering,’ and the death of his sons and daughter through the anger of the gods, is not presented by Homer as a punishment for an act of adultery of which he was not guilty (200 ff.).

[172] _Infra_, pp. 193, 215 ff.

[173] _Supra_, p. 55 ff.

[174] _Infra_, p. 76.

[175] _Od._ i. 298 ff.

[176] xvi. 400 ff.

[177] _Od._ xxiv. 420.

[178] _Ib._ 530-555.

[179] See also _Od._ i. 290 ff.

[180] P. 565.

[181] P. 191.

[182] _Il._ xviii. 336, xxiii. 181.

[183] _Supra_, p. 19.

[184] _Orestes_, 500.

[185] _Infra_, p. 348 ff.