Poine: a study in ancient Greek blood-vengeance

Section I

Less than a hundred years[1] after the Trojan war, and some time about the year 1100 B.C., the great and glorious rule of the Achaeans over Greece came to an end. ‘Greece,’ as Leaf puts it,[2] ‘relapsed from the temporary union imposed upon it by its rulers into its normal congeries of loosely coherent cantons.’ The Achaeans did not, of course, entirely disappear, but they ceased to maintain that unified control and domination over Greece which they had enjoyed for two or three centuries. The causes of this change are variously estimated. Historical analogies, such as that of the Normans in England and in Sicily,[3] suggest in general the brief duration of such a hegemony. ‘The domination of a small military caste over a large subject population contains of necessity,’ says Leaf,[4] ‘the germs of its own destruction....’ ‘The Iliad itself gives us vividly, in the portrait of Agamemnon, the inherent weakness of all hereditary military despotisms.... The time came ... whether through the effort of the Trojan war which had reduced their numbers, or through lack of moral grit following on too long a tenure of power, when the Achaeans had to cast in their lot with their former vassals ... the group system resumed its sway and the Achaeans were drawn into it.’[5] Ridgeway, arguing from analogous instances, attributes the decay of Achaean vigour partly to climatic influences, partly to the enervating effects of luxury and power. In regard to this latter factor, he says[6]: ‘It is a known fact that the upper classes in all countries have an inevitable tendency to die out ... the dwindling of the master races in the Mediterranean, whether they were Achaeans, Celts, Goths, Norsemen or Turks, must be in part accounted for by the mere fact that they formed in each case the upper and ruling class, and could therefore afford to lead a life of luxury which was the very bane of their race.’ For our part we are convinced with Leaf[7] that ‘an invasion of Southern Greece by rude tribes from the north or north-west swept away the Achaean civilisation after the Homeric age’; that a military confederation of hereditary monarchs and nobles, such as that of the Achaeans, could not have lost its unified control if these inherent factors of disintegration had not been supplemented by an invasion from without.

O. Müller[8] has pointed out that in Thessaly, the former realm of Peleus and Achilles, there existed in historical times three strata of social and political privilege: (1) the Thessalians, post-Homeric immigrants, who ruled directly over the central territory, including the towns of Larissa, Crannon, Pharsalus, Iolcus. (2) Perioeci or semi-independent vassals, such as the Perrhaebians, the Magnesians, and the Phthiotian Achaeans, who paid tribute and were bound to assist in war. (3) Penestae, of Pelasgian stock, like the Helots of Sparta, who cultivated the land and served in war, who had private rights but no political privileges, who were, in a word, serfs, but not slaves. He mentions, further,[9] that the Achaeans of the north coast of the Peloponnese remained in towns and fortified strongholds, keeping entirely aloof from the natives; they were still conquerors here, though they had become vassals elsewhere. In Sparta there appears to have been a mingling of Achaeans and Dorians. Thucydides says[10] that here ‘the few rule over the many, having obtained sovereignty by victory in the field.’ That this victory was not very decisive is suggested by the view, which is commonly held,[11] that one of the two Royal families of Sparta was Achaean. The Perioeci of Laconia were always considered Achaeans[12]; there were about a hundred towns of Laconian Perioeci, both inland and on the coast; they paid tribute to Sparta, but they had a monopoly of trade and commerce, and in the time of Nabis were liberated and federated as independent states of the Achaean league.[13] The Helots, of course, were serfs. They tilled the soil, and lived in hamlets which made up the greater part of the town of Sparta. They were probably Pelasgians, though they are called Achaeans by Theopompus.[14] Similarly, in Argos and in Corinth there are traces of pre-Dorian peoples who can probably be regarded as including some remnants of the Homeric Achaeans.[15]

Leaf suggests[16] that the Dorians may have followed methods of conquest similar to those of the Achaeans, yet he has no doubt that they were identical in social organisation with the Pelasgians.[17] ‘Hellenism as we know it,’ he says, ‘is founded on tribal distinctions, beginning with the great racial divisions of Dorian, Ionian, and Aeolian in the wide sense—the general name for all which did not belong to the other two;—passing thence to the local state, Athenian, Spartan and the rest. Each of these again is divided internally by tribe, clan, and family systems of the most complicated nature. Upon these ramifying subdivisions is based the polity, and largely the religion, of classical Greece.’

This statement is of first-rate importance for our theories concerning post-Homeric homicide. It means, in effect, that, in spite of conflicts and migrations, the dominant Hellenic or post-Homeric Greek society was based on clan and tribal organisations similar to those of the early Pelasgians. The militarist Achaeans of the Iliad and the Odyssey must then be regarded as a solitary accidental ephemeral phantom which crossed the stage of Grecian history never to return. The Achaeans who survived the invasions either remained in isolated groups as in Achaea and in South Thessaly, where they seem to have preserved for a time their military character,[18] though they may, in course of centuries, have evolved the mechanism of clan life: or they became subject Perioeci, and were rapidly merged in tribal organisations, or they were accepted as partners in government, as at Sparta, at Argos, at Corinth, and at Sicyon, and, like the Roman Patres minorum gentium, developed along the lines of tribal society. Their peculiar Homeric character disappeared: they were Hellenised—which is to say, with Leaf,[19] that they were ‘drawn into’ the ‘group-system,’ which, after Homer, ‘resumed its sway.’

It was perhaps because of special circumstances that Sparta developed along peculiar lines of a quasi-Achaean and non-Hellenic kind. Thus, Müller holds[20] that the Spartans represent a continuation of the heroic age, a system of military rule over agricultural classes. So Holm[21] says that ‘The Spartan monarchy was a continuation of that of the Homeric age, only its authority was more strictly defined and became gradually more limited.’ Grote,[22] criticising the opinion of Müller, who holds that the Spartans were typical Dorians, maintains that the ‘institutions of Sparta were peculiar to herself, distinguishing her not less from Argos, Corinth, Megara ... than from Athens or Thebes.’ Crete, he says, was ‘the only other portion of Greece in which there prevailed institutions in many respects analogous, yet still dissimilar.’ The creator or inventor of the peculiar Spartan character, was, he thinks, Lycurgus. We consider these opinions much more probable than that of Gilbert,[23] who believes that the three Dorian tribes, known as Hylleis, Dymanes, Pamphyloi, existed in the earlier days, at Sparta, as a social organisation. The reference of Demetrius of Scepsis (about 100 B.C.) to the existence of twenty-seven phratries and nine tribes at Sparta, gives, of course, no basis for assuming their existence in post-Homeric times. We have a special reason for emphasising the peculiarity of Spartan institutions. A solitary reference in Xenophon[24] to a penalty of perpetual exile for involuntary homicide at Sparta, in contrast with the well-known penalty of temporary exile at Athens, has been taken to justify the opinion that the murder-laws of Athens were peculiar to herself. But, in our view, the peculiarity of Sparta[25] militates against the validity of such a conclusion. We hope to prove more clearly at a later stage that this conclusion is false.

The social evolution of post-Homeric Boeotia is a subject on which a wide diversity of opinions appears to exist. Ridgeway[26] thinks that the Boeotians were Achaeans: Leaf[27] supposes that they were Thessalians: Müller[28] believes that they were Pelasgian Aeolians driven out of the land which was afterwards called Thessaly, by invading Thessalians. Leaf argues[29] that the Achaeans did not occupy Boeotia at the time of their domination in Greece, but we do not see why they may not have occupied that district at a later date. Bury[30] contrasts the ‘Boeotian conquerors’ with the ‘older Greek inhabitants’ of Boeotia: Hogarth[31] distinguishes between Aryan Boeotians and the non-Aryan Asiatic Cadmeans of Thebes. We cannot attempt to decide between these various opinions, and, fortunately, it is not necessary that we should do so. We have indicated the probable fate of the Achaeans after the fall of Troy, and for the rest we may be satisfied with the description of Thucydides.[32]

‘The country which is now called Hellas was not,’ he says, ‘regularly settled in ancient times. The people were migratory and readily left their homes whenever they were overpowered by numbers. There was no commerce ... the several tribes cultivated their own soil just enough to obtain a maintenance from it. They were always ready to migrate. The richest districts were most constantly changing their inhabitants.’ Thucydides mentions, as rich districts, Thessaly, Boeotia and the Peloponnese (except Arcadia). Attica, however, of which the soil was poor and thin, enjoyed, he says, a long freedom from civil strife and retained its original inhabitants. Hence ‘... the Athenians[33] were the first who laid aside arms and adopted an easier and more luxurious mode of life.’ Again he points out[34] that ‘... Even in the age which followed the Trojan War, Hellas was still in a state of ferment and settlement and had no time for peaceful growth. The return of the Hellenes from Troy after their long absence caused many changes; quarrels too arose in every city, and those who were expelled went and founded other cities ... a considerable time elapsed before Hellas became finally settled ... after a while she recovered tranquillity and began to send out colonies.’

Glotz[35] paints a lurid picture of the homicide customs of what he calls the Middle Ages of Hellenism (Le Moyen Age hellénique). ‘Passé, le temps où toutes les forces du groupe se coalisaient spontanément, instantanément, contre toute agression, d’où qu’elle vint. Le meurtrier riche et puissant n’avait plus à craindre un aussi grand nombre de vengeurs: il n’était plus contraint de fuir par un aussi formidable soulèvement de haines.... Le meurtrier d’un parent pouvait avoir des accomplices ou trouver des complaisants parmi ses plus proches.... Ainsi les homicides commis à l’intérieur d’une famille étaient moins sûrement punis à l’époque où s’organisèrent les tribunaux de l’Etat que dans la période précédente, où la justice du γένος avait encore toute son efficacité.... Il y eut un moment où vraiment, dans certains cas, le parricide n’avait rien à redouter d’aucune justice.’ The references which Glotz here makes to the control exercised by the clan in cases of kin-slaying are quite in harmony with our theory of the nature of Pelasgian homicide customs, but they are quite inconsistent with Glotz’s general hypothesis as to the nature of Homeric blood-vengeance. This inconsistency is to be explained by the absence of that distinction between the Achaean and the Pelasgian attitude to homicide which we have made the basis of our reasoning. Moreover, Glotz is not quite sound in supposing that the age of chaos began about the year 800 B.C. The date of Hesiod is now generally regarded as approximately 850 B.C., and the condition of things which he depicts must have existed for a considerable time before that date. It was not a temporary or spasmodic condition of things. Substituting, therefore, the dates 1100 B.C.-700 B.C. for Glotz’s figures 800 B.C.-600 B.C. as the time-limits of the age of chaos, we may accept as trustworthy Glotz’s description of the Dark Ages. He quotes a Hesiodic passage to which we have already called attention.[36] ‘Rien que désunion de père à enfants, d’hôte à hôte, d’ἑταῖρος à ἑταῖρος: plus d’amour fraternel, comme jadis. Vite on jette l’opprobre sur les parents qui vieillissent: on leur parle un langage dur et insultant, impie, sans souci de la vindicte divine: on refuse à la vieillesse de parents les vivres qu’on a reçus d’eux dans l’enfance: car on ne connaît que le droit de la force.... Pas d’égards pour la bonne foi, la justice, la vertu: au crime et à la violence tous les honneurs.’ Into this chaotic condition, he says,[37] came the new religious doctrine of homicide as a pollution. ‘La religion force la société à intervenir dans les affaires de sang intrafamiliales, et la société agit non pas contre le coupable mais contre la famille qui refuse d’agir.... Une idée nouvelle se fait jour dans l’esprit des Grecs, l’idée de la souillure qui s’attache à l’homicide ... la purification du meurtrier n’est pas une coutume primitive ... n’était pas connue à l’époque homérique.’

In many such passages Glotz implies that in the Hesiodic age there was a general weakening of tribal authority and of clan-law, a break-up of the power of control exercised by the kindred, the phratry, and the tribe over their members, in cases of homicide, and in other matters.[38] Yet when Glotz comes to discuss the Solonian legislation, we find him still speaking[39] of an anti-clan policy, of the desire of Solon to weaken the clans. ‘Solon,’ he says, ‘fut nommé par la confiance de ses concitoyens arbitre et législateur. Pour remplir cette double mission, il lui fallut de toute nécessité affaiblir les γένη dans leur action extérieure et leur constitution intime.... L’esprit même de la constitution solonienne est opposé au classement des citoyens par γένη. L’Etat se met directement en rapport avec les individus. Les groupes, il ne les détruit pas, il les ignore.... Effet indirect des lois constitutionnelles, le démembrement du γένος est le but immédiat et constant des lois civiles ... cette signature de Solon, c’est l’hostilité envers les solidarités des vieux temps.’ Again, he says[40] that at the beginning of the sixth century B.C. ‘At a time when all cities had equally suppressed tribal or clan responsibility (la responsabilité familiale) in common law, Athens surpassed all others by the vigour of the blows which it struck at the internal organisation and the civic action (l’action sociale) of the clans.’ How can these apparently different view-points be reconciled? Can we express the facts so that the apparent discrepancy will disappear?

We have seen that in post-Homeric times the long submerged group-system of tribal society resumed its sway. Though the wars and migrations of the period must for a time have weakened its power, yet ultimately, as Thucydides says, ‘Hellas recovered tranquillity, and began to send out colonies.’[41] The new doctrine of Apollo, which regarded homicide as a ‘pollution,’ was, we think, adopted about the seventh century, which was pre-eminently the period of Greek colonisation. Henceforth the homicide was conceived as an enemy not merely of the ghosts of those whom he had slain but also of the gods of the new States which had evolved out of chaos through synoekism. But Attica, almost alone of all Greek States, was immune from the chaos of migrations and invasions and retained for the most part its original inhabitants. Therefore Attica, more than any other Greek State, required, for its political unification, a more strenuous law-making, a more violent attack on the civic action of the clan.

Yet we cannot suppose that the clans and tribes of the group-system were destroyed in Attica any more than they were in other parts of Greece. All through the historical era clans and tribes continued to exercise limited powers and jurisdictions; the old ties of kindred and of neighbourhood were maintained under the form of religious corporations long after the group-system had lost its political power. All this is merely to say that the old aristocracy of birth was replaced by plutocracy and democracy. The various stages in this transition will be made clear if we give a brief sketch of the political evolution of Attica, a sketch which is all the more necessary because of the analysis which we shall have to give, at a later stage, of blood-vengeance in Attic tragedy.

Evolution of the Attic State

We need not allow ourselves to be detained by the obscure and conflicting legends which centre round the birth of the Attic nation. Coulanges[42] refers to the traditions concerning local kings of Attica before the time of Cecrops. Pausanias refers to a kind of religious amalgamation which was doubtless the concomitant of political synoekism: ‘Sacred to Athene,’ he says, ‘is all the rest’[43] of Athens and similarly all Attica; although they worship different gods in different townships, none the less do they honour Athene generally. He points out that four villages at Marathon were still in his time united in a local worship of Apollo, and that legend attributed to Cecrops a federation of Attica into twelve different states.[44] While Coulanges accepts the legend which attributes to Theseus the political unification of Attica, he thinks[45] that Plutarch[46] and Thucydides[47] are in error in supposing that Theseus abolished the local prytanies and magistracies. ‘If he attempted this,’ he says, ‘he certainly did not succeed; for a long while after him we still find the local worships, the assemblies, and the kings of the tribes.’

In theory the four tribes of ancient Attic society were Ionian tribes which, in the days of oligarchic power, imposed their will upon the rest of Attica. Müller[48] points out that there is a distinct change in Attic mythology when we come to the Ionian Kings, Aegeus and Theseus. But Leaf thinks it possible that the adoption of the four Ionian tribes in Attica does not represent an Ionian conquest, but was due to the fictitious self-inclusion of Attica in the Ionian race.[49] Bury holds[50] that ‘the statesmen who united Attica sought their method of organisation from one of those cities of Asia Minor which Athens came to look upon as her own daughters’: that the names of the four Attic tribes,[51] Geleontes, Aigikoreis, Argadeis and Hopletes, were borrowed from Ionian Miletus: and that Attica was united into a single state in the period of what is known as the life-regency (1088 B.C.-753 B.C.)

The tribal continuity of Attic life is most clearly indicated in the excellent analysis of F. de Coulanges. The people of Attica, at the birth of the Attic State, were governed, he says,[52] by noble clans called Eupatridae who had abolished, about 1050 B.C., the power of an hereditary monarchy. Some three hundred years later, these same noble clans limited the power of the life-regent (a member of the royal family) by insisting on an election being held every ten years. About 700 B.C. annual election was in force, and the royal family was represented by only one member in a government of nine archons elected from the Eupatrid caste. These Eupatridae, who dwelt in scattered groups in Attica,[53] created a united Attic State when they formed a confederation for the purpose of defence and common worship. But the absence of sustained danger from abroad and the development of mutual rivalry and internal feuds diminished, at length, their pristine vigour.[54] Non-privileged classes, herded together in towns and hamlets, saw in Eupatrid weakness their own opportunity.[55] The introduction of coinage in the seventh century and the expansion of trade and commerce led to the presence, in Attic ports and cities, of a new nobility of wealthy merchants who could not[56] aspire to enrolment in the exclusive Eupatrid tribes, who could not be permitted to worship at the altars of tribal gods, who were not, in fact, recognised as a functional element of the civic organism. Naturally, these merchants imported new worships; they seized on Oriental cults which, like Buddhism, excluded no caste. Conscious of the barriers which confronted them, they often had recourse to armed revolt.[57] The conflict ended at length upon the appointment of a legislator who was expected to revise and to codify the laws. Dracon, the first great Athenian legislator, certainly codified the laws, or some of them at least. But being too loyal a Eupatrid, he failed to remove the grievances of plebeian nobiles. Solon, a Eupatrid by birth, had the advantage of being a merchant by occupation.[58] He first attacked the large domains of the Eupatrids and their political power.[59] He assailed their monopoly of judicial authority[60] by setting up a timocratic, if not a plutocratic, Areopagus, as an alternative to the aristocratic Ephetae courts, and by the institution of popularly elected Heliastic juries which possessed at first, appellant, and later, universal jurisdiction in Attic law. But it was only in the time of Cleisthenes, about 510 B.C., that the four patriarchal tribes of Attica were removed from the pedestal on which they had stood so long and which was the basis of their political existence. Ten new tribes were created, on an entirely novel principle of local segregation: new hero-cults arose: new priests offered sacrifice, who were liable to annual election: and the four Ionian tribes ceased to have any political meaning.

But they did not, therefore, cease to exist.[61] Obscure and hidden, they still lived on. Clan-courts still sat to decide disputes regarding property, adoption, and inheritance.[62] In the time of Demosthenes[63] such courts imposed fines for the embezzlement of property. Homicide, in particular, which from the eighth century onwards assumed a ‘religious,’ which is to say, a theocratic or patriarchal aspect, was in historical times ‘purged’ and in certain cases ‘judged’ by the Ephetae and the Exegetae who were chosen[64] from Eupatrid families.

We shall now proceed to consider the advent in Greece of that new religious doctrine which for the first time declared the murderer to be a sinner against the gods and debarred him for ever from his country and his home.

Section II

Religious and Legal Transitions

The evidence of mythology and archaeology points so clearly to frequent and continuous intercourse between the early Greeks and their non-Aryan neighbours of Egypt and Asia Minor that up to quite recent years it was possible to maintain that early Greek civilisation was derived from African and Asiatic sources. Thus—to quote a writer easily accessible—Mahaffy[65] held that to the Phoenicians and to the Egyptians is to be traced ‘the prehistoric culture of Argos, Mycenae, Orchomenus and Crete.’ There are, he thought,[66] Oriental, Assyrian and Syrian influences in Mycenaean remains. Egypt, especially, was regarded as the home of wealth and culture.[67] It is only in more recent years when the explorations in Crete have shown, for example, that ‘compared with the palace of Cnossus, the palaces of the Pharaohs were but hovels of painted mud,’[68] that the early Aegean culture came to be regarded as derived from an indigenous Cretan civilisation, and Minoans received the honour which was previously accorded to the Phoenicians. It is now recognised that the great period of Asiatic intercourse with Greece was the post-Minoan period. The fall of the Minoan thalassocracy opened the Aegean Sea to Asiatic traders. ‘The Phoenicians,’ says Bury,[69] ‘had marts here and there on coast or island, but there is no reason to think that Canaanites made homes for themselves on Greek soil.... Their ships were ever winding in and out of the Aegean isles from north to south, bearing fair naperies from Syria, fine wrought bowls and cups from the workshops of Sidonian and Cypriot silversmiths, and all manner of luxuries and ornaments: this constant commercial intercourse ... is amply sufficient to account for all the influence that Phoenicia exerted upon Greece.... The briskest trade was perhaps driven with the thriving cities of Ionia, and the Phoenicians adopted the Ionian name ... as the general designation of all the Greeks.’ In Ionia, Bury thinks,[70] occurred that fusion of Semitic consonants with Greek vowel symbols which produced the Greek alphabet. In close contact with the Ionian Greeks were the Lydians, who were the first people to coin money (about 700 B.C.[71]) and who transmitted the discovery to the Greeks and to other Asiatic peoples. Needless to say, this discovery was of great commercial importance, and incidentally rendered possible an accumulation of non-landed wealth. Now Greek coinage, as Bury points out,[72] ‘was marked from the beginning by religious associations, and it has been supposed that the priests of the temples had an important share in initiating the introduction of coinage. It was in the shrines of their gods that men were accustomed to store their treasures for safe-keeping.... Every coin which a Greek State issued bore upon it a reference to some deity.’

From these facts alone, apart from general considerations, it will be evident how easy and natural it was that the Greeks should also have received religious inspirations from their Asiatic neighbours.

It is very significant that the first mention, in Greek literature, of the religious purgation of homicide occurs in an epic poem, the Aethiopis, by Arctinus of Miletus,[73] who lived in the last half of the eighth century (750-700 B.C.). In this poem we are told that Achilles, having slain Thersites because he had ridiculed his tears for the death of an Amazonian queen, went to Lesbos to be purified. Glotz points out that the presence of Achilles at a sacrifice before his purgation implies that the doctrine was not, at that time, fully developed or understood.

Again, it is very significant that Herodotus[74] attributes to the Lydians rites of homicide-purgation which, he says, are almost the same as those which the Hellenes used. According to the historian, there came to Croesus, King of Lydia, about the year 550 B.C., ‘a man, in wretched plight, whose hands were not clean, a Phrygian by race, of royal blood.’ ‘Having reached,’ he says, ‘the house of Croesus, this man asked to have himself purified according to the customs of the place, and Croesus purified him.’ After the ceremony Croesus asked his visitor who it was that he had slain: the stranger replied that he had involuntarily slain his brother and that, in consequence, he had been expelled by his father and deprived of all his privileges. We shall see presently[75] that involuntary kin-slaying could be purged abroad, in the Greek purgation-system. We cannot conclude, because Croesus made no inquiries prior to the ceremony as to the details of the deed of blood, that therefore all kinds of homicide could be purged amongst the Lydians. The very fact that the slayer requested purgation would, in the religious atmosphere of the time, have been taken as sufficient evidence that his deed was at least capable of being purged.

The conception of homicide as a pollution or religious offence is known to have existed at an early date amongst the Hebrews, and we may hazard the conjecture, though we find no express reference to the fact, that a system of purgation was practised by the Hebrews, at least for minor degrees of guilt. The penalties exacted for homicide amongst the Hebrews, as amongst the Romans, were much more severe than those which prevailed amongst the Greeks. We have seen[76] that in the normal operation of homicide-purgation no religious ‘cleansing’ was valid while the civic penalty remained unpaid. In Roman law, death was the penalty prescribed for murder and for manslaughter: but for justifiable or justifiably accidental homicide[77] there was no punishment, and religious expiation could immediately take place. Amongst the Hebrews, a similar penalty was exacted for murder and manslaughter. ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed’ is the general principle[78]; and again: ‘He that smiteth a man so that he die[79] shall surely be put to death: if a man slays presumptuously with guile, take him from my altar that he may die.’[80] For accidental or justifiable slaying, however, we find that a mode of escape from the avengers of blood was provided: ‘If God delivers a man into his hands,[81] I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee[82] ... and ye shall not take compensation for him that is fled to the City of Refuge that he should come home before the death of the high-priest. So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are.’[83] We may assume, with some degree of probability, that in this class of homicide, some form of purgation ceremony was customary. We mention the Hebrew custom here merely to show the general trend of Asiatic thought in regard to homicide.

We may, therefore, regard as highly probable the view which connects the origin of the post-Homeric Greek notion of homicide as a ‘pollution’ with the Semites and Asiatic peoples. Glotz merely states his view of this matter without giving reasons in support of his statement.[84] ‘Alors,’ he says, ‘les Grecs prendront aux Sémites les rites dramatiques de leurs cérémonies purificatoires.’ There were, however, some important differences between the original Semitic doctrine and the matured Greek adaptation of it, as will be evident from a brief explanation of the precise nature of the Greek ‘pollution’ doctrine.

The Greek Pollution Doctrine

At first, we think, there came to Greece a vague rumour of the doctrine through the medium of the Cyclic poets. Greek priesthoods in Asia had already adopted it because of their proximity to Asiatic races who had developed it. But originating, as it did, in the centralised theocracies which then existed amongst these races, the doctrine could be accepted only in a modified form by the Greek people whose predominant political institution was the city-state.

Traces of the doctrine in its early phase, prior to its formal adoption in Greece, appear in the story of Alcmaeon. Thucydides,[85] in his account of the islands known as the Echinades, in western Greece, which were gradually, owing to the silting up of the river Achelous, becoming part of the mainland, mentions the following legend: ‘when Alcmaeon, son of Amphiaraus, was wandering over the earth after the murder of his mother, he was told by Apollo that here he should find a home, the oracle intimating that he would never find deliverance from his terrors until he discovered some country which was not yet in existence and not seen by the Sun at the time when he slew his mother; there he might settle, but the rest of the earth was accursed to him. He knew not what to do till at last, as the story goes, he espied the deposit of earth made by the Achelous, and he thought that a place sufficient to support life must have accumulated in the long time during which he had been wandering since his mother’s death.’ This conception of pollution is very Semitic, and reminds us of the Biblical allusion to Cain[86] as ‘cursed from the face of the earth,’ but it is also to a certain extent Greek, since there was not in historical Greece any purgation for wilful matricide or, if we may trust Plato,[87] for wilful kin-slaying. In the Apolline era Greek kin-slaying was punished, according to Plato,[87] by death, and it was so punished in a later Israelite penal code. In the Pelasgian era, kin-slayers, condemned to perpetual exile, were often compelled to wander for years and years. Their wandering must have been almost proverbial, yet its meaning was understood. But the picture of a kin-slayer wandering till he finds an unpolluted piece of earth can only be attributed to the fanciful interpretation of a novel religious law which as yet was not fully comprehended. We have already discussed[88] Miss Harrison’s views in regard to Bellerophon and the ‘plain of wandering.’ Apollodorus tells us[89] that Bellerophon was purified by Proetus. Miss Harrison says[90] ‘in those old days he could not be purified.’ We agree that he could not be purged in Homeric times, because the rite was unknown: if in later times he was said to have been purged, it became necessary to suppose that the crime which he committed was involuntary. But Homer says nothing of Bellerophon’s kin-slaying.[91] It was probably an invention of later minds intended to explain the Homeric reference to the ‘Aleïan plain’ which was interpreted as ‘the plain of wandering,’ after the analogy of the ‘wandering’ in the legend of Alcmaeon.

We hope to show presently that this religious doctrine, which declared in effect that homicide brought down the anger of the gods upon the community which neglected to punish it, took definite shape in historical Greece under the aegis of Apollo and his priesthoods and Amphictyonies. In our view, the final form of the doctrine was a fusion or compromise between the severer Semitic conception, on the one hand, and, on the other, the tribal traditions of Greek homicide-customs, weakened and disorganised, as they were, in the Hesiodic age of chaos, but unmistakably local in their outlook, and reflecting still the attitude adopted by the relatives and attributed to the victim. The Apollo of the Greek race could not accept in its entirety the Asiatic doctrine of pollution but had to modify it at the bidding of customs which were sanctified by time. As we believe that the Draconian homicide-laws were merely an eclectic codification of the seventh-century unwritten laws of the aristocracies of birth, it would clearly anticipate our whole account of the Draconian legislation if we were to explain at this stage the detailed operation of the Apolline pollution system. We shall then give here only an outline of the Asiatic-Greek compromise which we believe to have arisen in the eighth or seventh century B.C.

In the first place wergeld was abolished, as amongst the Hebrews, for wilful murder. This was the greatest concession which the new doctrine extorted from tribalism. The new provision which declared the property of the wilful man-slayer confiscated to the State when the slayer had gone into perpetual exile we attribute to a third factor—the evolution of State power: wergeld in the strict sense was also abolished for manslaughter, but the slayer was allowed and commanded, after a period of exile, to ‘appease’ by ‘presents’ the relatives of the slain. In this we can clearly detect a concession wrung from what we call Apollinism by the tribes. It is usually held[92] that in the case of manslaughter, and Glotz holds[93] that even in the case of murder, ‘private settlement’ without trial was legal in historical Athens. We hope to show[94] at a later stage that these opinions are incorrect, except in regard to one special and rare contingency.

Secondly, there was a religious compromise which is reflected in the ritual of purgation. In the Semitic doctrine of pollution, murder and manslaughter could only be ‘purged’ by the blood of the slayer, which meant, in practice, that the slayer could never be purged at all: but the ancient traditions of the tribes and their capacity for discerning the varying degrees of homicide-guilt led to a peculiar compromise, by which Apollo and other State gods consented to accept the sacrifice of a surrogate victim, when the atonement which the law prescribed had been paid, the actuality of the atonement being symbolised, as it were, by this Chthonian sacrifice of ‘reconciliation.’

Since Greece, unlike Israel, was a conglomeration of local civic groups, and as tribal custom had accepted exile in default of wergeld and prescribed different periods of exile according to varying degrees of guilt, therefore, when the issue was knit between the new Semitic doctrine of ‘pollution’ and the ancient tribal laws, the resultant compromise produced a new law which decreed perpetual exile for all cases of wilful homicide, including, we believe, originally, even kin-slaying. The law of historical times which condemned the kin-slayer inevitably to death was not, we have reason to believe, a product of the Asiatic-Greek compromise. Like the law which decreed the confiscation of a murderer’s property, it is, we think, to be attributed to the evolution of centralised State government. In regard to manslaughter different periods of exile were, no doubt, decreed according to the different degrees of guilt: the despotic doctrine of theocratic Asia had, in this, to respect the long traditions of tribal Greece: accidental and justifiable slaying probably required no civic atonement. Apollo was compelled to admit such slayers to immediate ‘purgation.’ In other cases, ‘purgation’ was accepted when the prescribed atonement had been made.

Our account of this compromise in the Greek doctrine of pollution is complicated by the presence of a third factor which had become more and more important as Greek States increased in size and power, and which must be indirectly attributed to the doctrine of ‘pollution,’ namely, the conception of homicide as an insult to the State gods and to the State, not merely to the Sun, or to the Delphian Apollo, or to some still more distant Orphic deity in the underworld. This conception of homicide raises it at once from the position which it held in the system of ‘private vengeance’: the murderer, like the traitor and the man stained with sacrilege, now stands forth, if not as a criminal in the modern sense, at least as a quasi-criminal, a vile being who has jeopardised by his act the prosperity and the destiny of the State. He is henceforth liable to ἄτιμία,—he must be degraded from citizenship: if he waits for the verdict which declares him a State criminal, he must die. If he flees, his property must be confiscated to the State, as was the property of all ‘degraded’ exiles. Retribution to the relatives, which is the basis of tribal wergeld, has vanished into the air, but the murderer cannot now be buried in the tomb of his fathers: he can never frequent the temples of his gods: he cannot even attend the public games of all the Greeks lest the contact of his presence should pollute his fellow citizens or the gods who no longer can tolerate his presence. But, provided he avoids certain areas and festivals, he may live without fear. A law of Dracon[95] declares that to slay such an exile was murder. Thus we see how the old tribal custom which accepted exile as a complete atonement, (not, as it was amongst Achaean militarists, a mere flight from death,) was respected despite doctrinal innovations, because it had been sanctified by time.

Glotz holds[96] that this immunity in foreign states of exiles who were guilty of wilful murder in their home-land was due to occasional treaties of ἀσυλία between Greek States. We shall see that such immunity was more probably derived from Greek extradition law, and such law implies international authorisation. It was precisely because such laws could be made and enforced that Greek homicides required no ‘cities of Refuge.’ Thus, the Greek pollution-doctrine bears on the face of it the stamp of a compromise between tribe and State, between local gods and international religion.

But there was a further compromise, which we must also indicate, namely, that which inevitably took place between the ghosts of the slain and the purifying gods, the καθάρσιοι θεοί. We have argued[97] that the chaotic centuries which followed the Achaean domination produced a much more monstrous and bloodthirsty conception of the Erinnyes than that which existed in the Homeric age. We have suggested that the revolt of the clansmen against Apolline innovations which abolished material retribution for homicide may have rendered still more ferocious and implacable the Erinnyes of the slain. Yet when the Greek Apolline doctrine of pollution was finally accepted by Hellenic tribes and States, the Erinnyes, like the Titans, were subdued, and became so mild that they could be identified with the Semnai Theai and called Eumenides! They could live in peace again, as in Homer, with the Olympian gods whom they had learned to loathe.

They had succeeded at least in imposing many old Pelasgian traditions upon the autocrat of Delphi. In historical Greece, at least before the third century B.C.,[98] the State could never take the initiative in a direct prosecution for homicide, as modern States do. It could, of course, bring a charge of Impiety against delinquent relatives of the slain[99]: but the initiative rested in theory with those relatives. The wish of a dying man who had been fatally wounded was expressed in a formal ‘charge’ which he gave to his relatives, and this very often determined the course of subsequent proceedings. ‘Forgiveness’ by the dying man precluded a charge of murder. If a Greek of the historical era, who had been fatally wounded, thus ‘released’ his slayer before he died, the relatives were not bound to prosecute[100]: they could be persuaded to refrain from prosecution by what is known as a ‘private settlement’ with the slayer and his relatives. This, of course, was not a genuine wergeld; and even if it was, we could not infer that pollution could coexist with wergeld, for ‘pollution’ did not arise, in any real sense of the word, as the Greeks interpreted it, when the dying man forgave. Now we cannot conceive such considerations as these affecting the theocratic ‘pollution’ doctrine of the Hebrews. The law which decreed by divine command that: ‘Ye shall not pollute my land wherein ye are: for blood defileth the land,’ takes little account of the wishes of the dying or of the relatives of the slain. We must, of course, distinguish ‘release’ from ‘forgiveness’ in Greek law. ‘Release’ implies the absence of any ‘charge’ by the dying man. In cases of involuntary homicide, unless the dying man commanded his relatives to prosecute, no trial or formal proceedings were necessary[101]: ‘private settlement’ was permitted. Whenever therefore a trial for involuntary homicide took place in historical Greece, we must assume either that the accused denied the guilt and refused ‘private’ compensation or that the dying man charged his relatives to prosecute. In this latter case the slayer was polluted and had to undergo purgation when the civic atonement had been made. Hence we may truly say that, within certain limitations, Greek ‘pollution’ depended on the will of the victim and of his relatives.

In the light of these details we can more easily explain the peculiar fact that a man who had no relatives—and it was sometimes possible that a metic, or a stranger, or a casual vagrant should have no relatives—could not be avenged if he were slain. In the Euthyphro of Plato[102] we are told how a poor freeman who had killed a slave was put in chains by his employer—it was a kind of informal arrest—till the verdict of the Exegetae should be heard. The freeman died. It was not wilful murder, but there was a certain degree of guilt, a certain amount of neglect on the part of his captor, a certain ἀφυλαξία which laid the employer open to a charge of manslaughter. Euthyphro, a son of the employer, feeling that he was ‘polluted’ by the fact of living with his father, proposed to charge him before the Archon Basileus at Athens; Socrates asks Euthyphro in the dialogue if he was a relative of the slain. Euthyphro replies that he does not see what difference it makes whether one is a relative of the deceased or not; the important thing is that he is polluted unless he accuses his father. Socrates implies that such an accusation is impious. We can only regret that Plato does not tell us the sequel of this fanciful drama. We think that Plato is sophistically exposing, if not covertly sneering at, the inconsistency[103] of the pollution doctrine. He objects, apparently, to the law which made prosecution the prerogative of the relatives of the deceased, a law which was derived, we think, from tribal traditions of ‘private vengeance,’ just as in other passages he objects to the legends of the gods which more primitive generations had created.[104]

We have said that ‘pollution’ was not confined to the murderer, but extended, as if by contagion, to all persons who harboured or protected him or neglected to punish him. Thus Plato says,[105] in regard to kin-slaying: ‘The relative of deceased as far as cousins, male and female, who does not prosecute ... shall take upon himself the pollution and the anger of the gods.’ In this we see an aspect of the Greek ‘pollution’ doctrine which expressed the autocratic will of Delphi and of State-gods in alliance with Delphi. But if the dying man ‘forgave’ or, in certain cases, did not solemnly ‘charge’ his relatives to prosecute, this autocratic will could be ignored. Thus, the Erinnys of a slain man had a determining effect on the obligation of prosecution and on the nature of the penalty. In the Oresteian legends as they were staged by Attic dramatists, this twofold aspect of ‘pollution’ is never quite forgotten; but there are complications in these legends which prevent us from dwelling at any length upon them here.

In the case of kin-slaying in a ‘passion,’ the influence of the ghosts’ will was especially vigorous. Plato says[106] that even when the ‘involuntary’ slayer had served a term of three years’ exile, and had returned to his native land, he could never return to his family and his home, or share with his kindred in domestic rites. Thus the Erinnys of the slain kinsman refused to be controlled by a centralised autocracy at Delphi, or even by the will of native State-gods. Hence, perhaps, it is that in the dramatised versions of the Oresteia, Athene has to use ‘Persuasion’[107] to induce the Furies of Clytaemnestra to become Eumenides. Hence the Furies say of Orestes[108]: