The Chorus recommend Creusa to take refuge in a sanctuary.[311] She answers that sanctuary is valueless as a refuge against the sentence of death. The Chorus comfort her with the assurance that while she remains in the sanctuary she cannot be slain.[312] But Ion, who by a tragic irony leads the executioners, leaves no doubt that her refuge will not avail her. He says[313]:

Creusa in the ensuing dialogue advances a plea of justification. She argues that if Ion came to Athens, sooner or later he would have slain her through dynastic rivalry:

But this was also the plea of Eurystheus when he sought the lives of the Heracleidae. In Greek law the plea has no validity. Ion commands his mother to leave the altar,[316] saying

At this critical moment the Pythian priestess intervenes, and requests Ion to desist. She holds that the attempt of Creusa was mitigated by ‘passion’—and that therefore she did not deserve to die. She says[318]:

Thus does Apollo override the verdict of his priests! But he goes farther. Creusa, according to the oracular interpretation of her act, was guilty of an ‘extenuated’ attempt to kill, and should therefore in strict law[319] have been punished by a penalty of temporary exile. Yet she is permitted to return forthwith to Athens, her native country! In the following verses Ion is urged to ‘forgive’:

But we have not yet rendered the dénouement legally intelligible. We think that it can only be explained by one hypothesis, namely, by assuming that Apollo takes upon himself the responsibility for Creusa’s act. It was he who, by concealing the true facts, had provoked Creusa to attempted murder. It was he, therefore, who must take the blame. We have seen that there is no doubt that otherwise Creusa would have suffered death. That penalty is an archaic one, being based, as we think, on the notion of the absence of discrimination in early Greece between degrees of homicide-guilt. In the more subtle analysis of Apollo we may see perhaps a suggestion of Euripides as to the evolution of such distinctions, which characterised the historical period. But it is possible that such distinctions existed in Pelasgian groups, though not in Achaean or quasi-Achaean societies. If there is anything legally improbable in this legend, it is obscured by the dramatic interest which attaches to the recognition scene between the mother and the son. Moreover Euripides and therefore the legend which he follows were compelled to indicate the important fact that Creusa did return with Ion to Athens, and that the glorious mother of the Ionian race had not been stained by the guilt of kindred bloodshed.

The ‘Andromache’

In the Andromache there are two events of a homicidal character which we must discuss: (1) the attempted murder of Andromache, who was then a war-captive in the home of Neoptolemus, and that of her son, by Hermione, the wife of Neoptolemus, and by her father Menelaus: (2) the slaying of Neoptolemus, at Delphi, by the Apolline priests and magistrates on a false charge of sacrilege which was urged against him by Orestes. The first event is clearly a case of attempted murder, because the plot failed to materialise owing to the arrival of Peleus. The second event is more difficult to define. Objectively, it points to the execution of a normal penalty for an alleged sacrilegious attempt to despoil the temple and for a previous actual spoliation: but, subjectively, Orestes was guilty of contriving the death of Neoptolemus, and he advances, in private, a sham plea of justification, when he says that he regards Neoptolemus, who had married Hermione, his own fiancée, as a virtual adulterer.[321] From the words which are addressed by Thetis to Peleus at the end of the play,[322] we may infer that the plot of Orestes was viewed with disapproval by the gods. But, legally, he must escape punishment because the actual slayers could plead sufficient justification, and his private motives were not publicly proclaimed. Let us give some details of both episodes. Hermione, when her attempt to kill is discovered and frustrated, meditates suicide, because, we are told, she fears that her husband will slay her or send her into exile. Thus, a nurse in Hermione’s service says[323]:

In this passage death appears as the archaic penalty for attempted murder. If Neoptolemus, the husband of Hermione, permits an option of exile, it is perhaps because such an option was permitted for actual murder in historical times, and the penalties were supposed to have been identical, in cases of attempted and of actual murder, in prehistoric days. It is also possible to explain the option by reference to the fact that Andromache was a captive and that therefore her master had the right to forgo the full penalty. We have seen[324] that the Achaeans did not discriminate between voluntary and involuntary homicide, and we may regard the reference to this penalty here as a case of historical archaising, which attributed to the Achaean Neoptolemus an ignorance of the distinction between attempted murder and actual murder. But we may also suppose that there was a legend which originally contained all these details and retained them as an unadulterated tradition down the ages. In historical times attempted slaying could not have been punished by a more severe penalty than that of exile, the duration of which depended perhaps on some form of ‘appeasement.’ That such was the historical penalty may be inferred from the fact that the Palladium court tried such cases in the time of Aristotle and, we think, from Solon’s time onwards.[325] When the ‘attempt’ (βούλευσις) resulted in actual wounding or in physical injury, as in cases of attempted poisoning, the case was probably[326] tried by the Areopagus, and the sentence was perpetual exile without confiscation of property.[327] In this play, however, as in the Ion, the attempted murder of Andromache was unpunished; Neoptolemus, the natural punitive agent, did not live to hear of the attempt. Andromache herself warned Menelaus that the people of the district would put him and Hermione on trial and punish them. She says[328]:

Do we not seem to have here a legend which evolved? First of all we have private vengeance. Everything depends on Neoptolemus. Then pollution enters the story and the people have a religious interest in homicide. Yet the main fact could not be got rid of, namely that Hermione escaped punishment. If Euripides is archaising, could he not have been consistent? Or is he thinking of that vaguely defined post-Homeric age in which the conception of murder as a pollution existed, but in which homicide is still, as amongst the Hebrews, a matter for the avenger of blood? But why, then, does he mention the people? Is he thinking of the pressure of public opinion, such as was already gathering in Achaean times? Andromache seems to take a different view from that of Hermione. The issue of the plot confirms Hermione’s outlook, which is Achaean. Is it not more natural to suppose that an Achaean story became partially ‘Apollinised’ in later times than to suppose that Euripides gives us two different archaisms side by side?

Andromache’s attack on Spartan homicide becomes intelligible if we remember the anti-Spartan sentiments of the democrat Euripides. ‘Is not murder abundant at Sparta?’ asks Andromache.[330] When, we ask, was it abundant? Is this statement merely a retort to Hermione’s assertion that murder was common in barbarian Troy?[331] Or is Euripides deliberately asserting that Sparta was inferior even to barbarians? According to the latter hypothesis we must assume that he is speaking of historical Sparta, and his opinions are to be attributed to anti-Spartan prejudice.[332]

In the second homicide episode of this drama, Neoptolemus is slain at Delphi. Orestes who plots and in part executes his death escapes all punishment, for reasons which we have already indicated. The Delphians who are prepared, in the Ion, to condemn to death a person guilty of attempted murder, are here themselves engaged in slaying a visitor to their temple. But Neoptolemus was an enemy. He has already despoiled the temple. His life is therefore forfeit. To slay him was, like the projected execution of Creusa, a just revenge. Yet Fate has dealt harshly with Neoptolemus. He now visits the temple not to despoil it, as Orestes falsely alleges, but to make atonement for a previous offence which he had committed against Apollo.[333] Despite the false evidence of Orestes, Apollo, the prophet who knows all things, should have intervened. Thus the messenger utters a criticism which suggests the sentiments of Euripides and of fifth-century Athens[334]:

Thetis declares that the death of Neoptolemus is a disgrace to the Delphians and, is for Orestes, a murderous crime.[335] Though slain on grounds of sacrilege, Neoptolemus is buried near the shrine of Phoebus![336] The existence of such a tomb at Delphi would naturally have begotten the story of his death there: the fact that Hermione was, in one legend, the wife of Orestes, in another the wife of Neoptolemus, and the close connexion of Orestes with Delphi in post-Homeric story, may explain his association with the death of Neoptolemus. But the murderous plot which is here attributed to Orestes we believe to be Euripidean. It has no proper sequel: it does not harmonise with anything antecedent or subsequent: it is just a novel, thrilling episode introduced by Euripides to give an artistic interest to an otherwise dull and lifeless drama.

The ‘Hecuba’

A deed of blood and its avenging forms the subject of the Hecuba. The scene is laid at Troy and the atmosphere is predominantly Homeric. Polymestor, King of Thrace, having consented to act as the guardian and protector of Polydorus, the son of Priam, King of Troy, murdered his ward and cast his body unburied on the sea-shore. The mode of vengeance which is put in force against Polymestor is peculiarly archaic. The avengers are exclusively women, and are led by Hecuba, the mother of Polydorus. The punishment which is exacted is not the death or the exile of Polymestor, but the death of his two sons, and the destruction of his eyes. Here we have an instance of physical torture such as was prohibited by a law of Dracon[337] in the case of a convicted murderer caught en rupture de ban. We have also an instance of hereditary punishment which Greek law had abolished for homicide in the seventh century, and had retained for treason alone in the historical era,[338] in the form of a civic degradation of the traitor’s posterity. Polymestor has no consciousness of guilt after the slaying of Polydorus, as he regards his act as justified in political self-defence, and therefore he proceeds to avenge himself on Hecuba and the Trojan women whom he now regards as the murderers of his children. At this stage Agamemnon is requested by Hecuba to act as an arbitrator.[339] In his presence Polymestor says[340]:

The Chorus, however, imply that Polymestor has been justly punished[341]:

This passage suggests that the poet is reproducing an archaic atmosphere. Now the Achaeans, we have seen,[342] ordinarily held no trials for homicide. The pleadings before Agamemnon, which we find here, do not, strictly speaking, constitute such a trial. We have seen[343] that the Achaeans recognised a distinction between murder and just revenge. Athene upholds that distinction in the Odyssey. Agamemnon upholds that distinction here. He decides in favour of Hecuba, saying to Polymestor[344]:

The acceptance by Polymestor of Agamemnon’s decision suggests to us the potency of Achaean military discipline in matters of homicide. Was this acceptance indicated in an ancient legend, which was preserved in Thrace, and which was transmitted without adulteration, or is Euripides correctly archaising from his general knowledge of Achaean procedure as revealed by Homer? The former alternative seems to us the more probable in view of the consistently archaic atmosphere of this play. There is no reference to homicide as a ‘pollution,’ to purgation, to Apollo, to State trial. A certain degree of divine anger against Polymestor is indicated, but this was caused by the violation of hospitality and by the act of deprivation of burial, both of which acts are religious offences in Homer. Hecuba says to the Chorus[345]:

Again she says to Agamemnon[346]:

In the scepticism of Talthybius regarding the existence of the gods, we have an anachronism which is strictly applicable only to the rationalists of fifth-century Athens. The comparative indifference of the Achaeans to religion left the road open for this anachronism on the part of Euripides.

When the son of Achilles is sacrificing Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles, he says to the spirit of Achilles[347]:

For this placation of the dead by human sacrifice we have perhaps a precedent in the sacrifice by Achilles of twelve Trojan youths to the shade of Patroclus. But the suggestion that the dead man came to the tomb to drink the blood offering indicates a fusion of Pelasgian and Achaean beliefs such as Ridgeway assumes to have taken place before the time of Aeschylus.[348] Already in the Odyssey, however, there is evidence of the tendency to a fusion of ritual and beliefs, which reached maturity before the historical period.[348] Such words as Euripides here attributes to Achilles could never have been spoken by the Homeric Achilles. For the Achaeans, the dead, once they were buried, could never leave Hades, and they did not, like Pelasgian ghosts, drink blood offerings at the tomb. This, then, is an anachronism, which was perhaps derived from a misinterpretation by Euripides of the Nekuia in the Odyssey. Hecuba naturally objects to the sacrifice of her daughter,[349] but incidentally she objects to human sacrifice in general, save in the case of a real enemy. Polyxena, she argues, was not an enemy to Achilles. His ghost therefore could not be placated by her sacrifice. This attitude of Hecuba suggests that a post-Homeric Thracian legend contained a reference to a barbarous blood-thirst on the part of the dead, which we have attributed to the Hesiodic age of chaos. Euripides elsewhere attributes the sacrifice of Polyxena to the expressed desire of the ghost of Achilles![350] We cannot be certain whether a post-Homeric legend embodied these conceptions, or whether Euripides invented them in his desire to add to the horrors of the story another grim idea.

The ‘Bacchae’

On the first introduction, into Thebes, of the worship of Bacchus, or of what may be termed the orgiastic cult of Dionysus, Pentheus, the reigning King, opposed the new religion, declared Bacchus an impostor,[351] and threatened him with death.[352] Hence the chorus of Bacchanals, inspired with prophetic foresight, approve in advance the death of Pentheus whom they regard as an enemy or a traitor.[353] By a tragic irony, Agave, the mother of Pentheus, who has joined the Bacchic worshippers and is mesmerised by Bacchic influence, is the actual perpetrator of the death of Pentheus. She is deluded by Bacchic frenzy into believing that she is slaying a lion, and returns to Thebes carrying what she believes to be a lion’s head. She says[354]:

Her position, then, differs from that of Ajax,[355] in that the deed really takes place and that she did not intend it. The act is, we shall find, analogous to, but less culpable than, that of Oedipus when he slew his father.

Cadmus, father of Agave, refers the ultimate guilt to Bacchus[356]:

Agave adopts a similar attitude when she realises the nature of the deed which she has wrought.[357] But she cannot escape all punishment. At the end of the play Dionysus propounds an oracle of Zeus which declares[358] that Cadmus shall become a dragon, and his wife Harmonia shall become a serpent, but that they will nevertheless conquer many barbarian cities and will be borne ultimately to the land of the blessed gods. Yet they must leave Thebes now because of their impious attitude to Dionysus! Is this decree an instance of ‘collective’ punishment? Is it necessary that the entire family of Cadmus should suffer for the impiety of Pentheus which he has already atoned for by an ignominious death? It may be an explanation of this obscure punishment to say that it is collective. But what shall we say of Agave? She also has to leave Thebes. Is her exile to be regarded as a penalty for ‘impiety’ in regard to Dionysus? Surely she has already been sufficiently pious and to her cost! She was actually one of the Bacchic worshippers, in the play. Moreover, in going into exile she bids farewell to her father![359] They are all sent into exile together, yet she cannot go with her father.[360] Surely, if impiety were the offence, and the penalty were collective exile, all the offenders could have gone in conjunction. Why is Agave exiled, then, if she is condemned to separate exile? We suggest that this penalty is inflicted because of kin-slaying in religious frenzy, that is to say, in legal language, ‘in a passion.’ Plato assures us[361] that kin-slaying extenuated by passion prohibited the slayer from any further intercourse with her family. ‘If a father or mother in a passion kill their son or daughter by blows or in any other violent manner ... let them remain in exile for three years and on returning let the husband be divorced from the wife and the wife from the husband, and let them never afterwards beget children together nor dwell in fellowship with those whom they have deprived of child or brother, or have a share in their sacred rites.’ But Agave goes into exile with her sisters Autonoe and Ino, who had shared in the death of Pentheus. They too are separated from Cadmus. The reason is perhaps that Cadmus symbolises the domestic religion of their home. From him, as from their home, they must be exiled for ever.

The ‘Alcestis’

Neither the Alcestis nor the other two plays of Euripides which remain for discussion are of very much importance from the point of view of homicide-law. In the prologue[362] Apollo tells how he slew the Cyclops who forged the thunder-bolt by which Zeus slew Aesculapius, Apollo’s son, and how in consequence he went into bondage with Admetus of Pherae for a period of one year. Thus Zeus plots the death of his grandson and punishes his son for avenging it! The reason is that Zeus regards the death of Aesculapius as justified, and therefore, as Apollo’s vengeance is unjust, he must be punished. The penalty of bondage which is here referred to may be the Pelasgian servitude which we have discussed in an early part of this work,[363] or it may be a form of that same penalty which was retained under the pollution-system, in pre-Draconian days when it was indispensably connected with exile. There is here, however, no reference to pollution or to purgation. Apollo was purified for slaying the Python[364] but not for the slaying of the Cyclops! We cannot apply to the Olympian Apollo the laws which were made for mortal men. Apollo, unlike Hercules, could not be conceived as a man. It was from Olympus, the abode of the Olympian gods, that he was banished. The obvious motive for the legend is the association of Apollo with Admetus. Some reason had to be assigned for this ‘exile’ of Apollo. We may suppose that a deed of homicide was invented to explain this ‘exile,’ but that its details were not worked out. The only real importance of such a legend is that it affords a certain amount of evidence for the existence of servitude as a homicide-penalty in early Greece.

Admetus is permitted by the Fates to live if he can find a substitute. His wife Alcestis voluntarily dies in his stead. Was her death attributable to Admetus? Was he her murderer? His father, Pheres, seems to think so![365]

As Hercules, in this play, raises to life the dead Alcestis, we are freed from the necessity of discussing the legal aspects of such a problem. The whole plot of this play belongs to the supernatural rather than to the natural order. The murder laws of Greece made no provision for such contingencies.

The ‘Troades’

In the Troades Cassandra foresees the murder of Agamemnon and the vengeance of Orestes, and connects these tragic misfortunes with the woes which were brought by the Atreidae upon the house of Priam. Aeschylus has a suggestion of this sentiment in the Agamemnon.[366] To represent Clytaemnestra and Orestes as mere instruments in the hands of Destiny may be religiously orthodox to a superstitious people, especially in the Dark Ages of prehistoric Greece, but it has no legal validity. Such sentiments are really antagonistic to legal sanctions. Applied to Achaeans, they are, we think, anachronistic. Murder is distinct from war, and murder is not conceived as begetting murder, in the course of Destiny, until post-Homeric times. In the decision of the Greeks to slay Astyanax, the son of Andromache, as a reprisal for the adultery of Paris,[367] we see an instance of hyper-vengeance, which is characteristic of hostile belligerents. We cannot infer that amongst the Achaeans the punishment for adultery was more severe than amongst the Pelasgians.[368] Astyanax was not an adulterer! His punishment was a reprisal, and has therefore no legal significance. Talthybius refers to a strange proposal on the part of the Greeks, namely a proposal to set up a spear in the tomb of Astyanax.[369] Now this spear is a symbol of future vengeance. It is strange that such a symbol should have been set up by the party who deserve and anticipate punishment. Moreover, we have seen[370] that this custom was probably post-Homeric. The Achaeans did not credit their dead spirits, after burial, with any local habitation in the tomb or with any effective desire for vengeance. Here, the suggestion is clearly intended by Talthybius, and possibly by Euripides, to bring some slight comfort to Hecuba, the bereaved mother. We have referred to a passage in Demosthenes,[371] in which a plaintiff, who was debarred from a prosecution for bloodshed, because of his not having been akin in blood to the deceased, was advised by the Exegetae to carry a spear at the funeral. It was therefore rather a cruel piece of irony for Euripides to suggest that by the setting up of this symbol—which had come, in historical times, to indicate the absence of avengers—the Greeks intended to express at once to Hecuba the hope of retaliation and to themselves the hope of immunity from vengeance.

The ‘Helen’

The scene of the Helen is laid in Egypt. We are told that the ubiquitous Helen escapes with Menelaus from Egypt, having deceived by a stratagem her amorous protector, Theoclymenus. She was aided in her plans by Theonoe, the sister of Theoclymenus, and he, therefore, in the anger of disappointed passion, proceeded to slay his sister. The Dioscuri intervened in time to prevent the realisation of his purpose, and all ends happily! Technically, Theoclymenus is guilty of attempted kin-slaying, but the poet leads us to suppose that an ungovernable fit of passion would, in such a case, be regarded as a complete extenuation. We may infer from the words of the Chorus that the slaying of one’s kindred was regarded with horror by races which were outside Greece. The Chorus will not permit the death of Theonoe, even though they intervene at their peril. They say to Theoclymenus[372]:

Euripides also makes the barbarian Thoas, King of the Tauric Chersonese, gasp with horror when Iphigeneia, the priestess of Artemis, informs him of the arrival of the matricide Orestes. When Iphigeneia says[373]:

he answers[374]:

Euripides, then, did not believe that the conception of kin-slaying as a horrible and revolting act was an exclusively Grecian sentiment. When therefore in the Andromache he makes Hermione say[375]:

we may attribute such an assertion to a mind inflamed with the jealousy which a wife feels towards a concubine rather than suppose Euripides not to have known that the horror of kin-slaying is an aboriginal universal sentiment of the human race when once it has abandoned the cave of the cannibal.

We have now concluded our inquiry into the problem of blood-vengeance in Attic tragedy. Nothing has been revealed by this inquiry which is in conflict with the hypotheses which we have sought to establish in this work, as to the various systems of blood-vengeance which existed in Greece, from Pelasgian times to the age of the orators. While Attic tragedy does not in itself contribute anything to our knowledge of these various systems, there can be little doubt that an attempt, however imperfect, to investigate the origin and nature of these systems is indispensable for a proper appreciation of these dramatic masterpieces. If our analysis of blood-vengeance in the works of the three great Attic tragedians has not, in many cases, succeeded in establishing definite clear-cut conclusions, this, we hope, will be attributed to the intrinsic difficulty and obscurity of the subject. We can never be quite certain whether any particular drama gives us (a) an antique unadulterated legend; or (b) an antique legend which in course of evolution has taken on new forms without any regard to the consistency or the historicity of the tradition; or (c) whether the drama is based upon a late invention which owing to skilful archaising takes on the garb and appearance of an antique story, betraying perhaps, here and there, by its anachronisms, the mind and atmosphere of its creator. It so happens that the attitude to homicide or to religion which the Achaeans reveal was also taken up by many individual Athenians of the Periclean age. Thus the indifference to the gods which Sophocles attributes to Ajax was common to Achaeans and to many Periclean Athenians. So the conception of homicide as a matter for ‘private settlement’ which is found in Demosthenes, and the survival, in outlying places, such as Macedonia, of family vendettas, fierce and lawless, would have suggested to the mind of the dramatist that there was no very wide gulf between the primitive and the historical Greeks. Such a fact almost invites anachronisms. Nevertheless, we frequently find in dramatic legends an atmosphere so antique, so unlike that of fifth-century Athens, that we may assume, as the most probable hypothesis, that these legends are not inventions, but have behind them a long and, often, a chequered past.