III
[138] Oracle ap. D. 43, 66 (cf. 67) τοῖς ἀποφθιμένοις ἐν ἱκνουμένᾳ ἁμέρᾳ (ἐν ταῖς καθηκούσαις ἡμέραις, § 67) τελεῖν τοὺς καθήκοντας καττὰ ôγημένα.—τὰ ôγημένα = τὰ νομιζόμενα “the customary things” (Buttmann, Ausf. Gramm., § 113 n. 7, 1, p. 84 Lob.).
[139] Inquiry, at sacrifices to the dead, of an ἐξηγητής: Is. 8, 39; of the ἐξηγηταί (who give detailed instructions and advice): [D.] 47, 68 ff. Harp. ἐξηγητής· ἔστι δὲ καὶ ἃ (perh. ὅτε τὰ) πρὸς τοὺς κατοιχομένους νομιζόμενα ἐξηγοῦντο τοῖς δεομένοις. Tim. Lex. ἐξηγηταί· τρεῖς γίνονται πυθόχρηστοι (there is no need to understand this other than literally, i.e. that the college of the πυθόχρ. ἐξηγ. consisted of three members: Schöll, Hermes, 22, 564), οἷς μέλει καθαίρειν τοὺς ἄγει τινὶ ἐνισχηθέντας. The purification of the ἐναγεῖς is closely connected with the cult of the souls. It is true that prescriptions for such purification were to be found also ἐν τοῖς τῶν Εὐπατριδῶν (so Müller, Aesch. Eum. 163 A. 20 [152 n. E.T.]) πατρίοις: Ath. 9, 410 A, and it may be that the college of the ἐξ Εὐπατριδῶν ἐξηγηταί may have also given decisions in such cases. Still, that does not prevent the statement of Timaeus in regard to the ἐξηγ. πυθόχρ. from being true. (Expiations belong principally if not exclusively to the Apolline cult.)
[140] Plu., Ser. Num. 17, p. 650 C.D. expressly appeals for confirmation of the belief in a continued existence of the soul after the death of the body to utterances of the Delphic god: ἄχρι τοῦ πολλὰ τοιαῦτα προθεσπίζεσθαι, οὐχ ὅσιόν ἐστι τῆς ψυχῆς καταγνῶναι θάνατον.
[141] That already in Homer the circle of the ἀγχιστεῖς (in the Athenian legal sense) was called upon to prosecute the blood-feud is certainly probable in itself; it cannot, however, be proved from examples occurring in Homer. Leist’s statements in Graecoital. Rechtsges., p. 42, are not quite exact. The facts are: a father is called upon to avenge his son, and a son his father, and a brother to avenge his brother (γ 307; I 632 f.; ω 434); once the avengers are the κασίγνητοί τε ἔται τε of the murdered man, ο 273. ἔται has a very wide sense and is not even confined to kinship; at any rate it is not simply “cousins” (ἔται καὶ ἀνεψιοί side by side. I 464).—In Attic law, too, in certain cases the duty of prosecuting the murderer extended beyond the limits of the ἀνεψιαδοῖ to more distant relatives and even to the φράτορες of the murdered man (Law ap. D. 43, 57).
[142] Flight, indeed ἀειφυγία, on account of φόνος ἀκούσιος: Ψ 85 ff. (The fugitive becomes the θεράπων of the person who receives him into his house in the foreign land: l. 90; cf. Ο 431 f.; this must have been the rule.)—Flight on account of φόνος ἑκούσιους (λοχησάμενος 268) ν 259 ff. And so frequently.
[143] I 632 ff. καὶ μέν τίς τε κασιγνήτοιο φονῆος ποινὴν ἢ οὗ παιδὸς ἑδέξατο τεθνηῶτος· καί ῥ’ ὁ μὲν ἐν δήμῳ μένει αὐτοῦ πόλλ’ ἀποτίσας τοῦ δέ τ’ ἐρητύεται κραδίη καὶ θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ ποινὴν δεξαμένου. Here it is very plainly represented that all that is required is to appease “the heart and spirit” of the receiver of the ποινή: the murdered man is not considered.
[144] It is very natural to suppose that the ποινή (as K. O. Müller suggests in Aesch. Eum. 145 [122 E T.]) may have arisen out of the substitution of a vicarious sacrifice instead of that of the murderer himself, who should strictly have been offered to the dead man. In this way primitive human sacrifice has in many cases been replaced by sacrifice of animals. In that case the ποινή too must have originally been offered to the murdered man: in Homeric times [210] only the satisfaction of the living avenger was thought of.—In any case it is a mistake to look upon the permission to buy off the blood-feud as a mitigation of primitive severity in the taking of vengeance due to the intervention of the State. The State in this case mitigated nothing since it took no interest at all (in Homer) in the treatment of murder cases. Of course, legal proceedings can be taken to decide whether a stipulated ποινή has been paid or not (Σ 497 ff.), as in the case of any other συμβόλαιον. But the prosecution of the murderer in all its departments is left entirely in the hands of the family of the murdered man.
[145] We have very few details on this point. In Sparta οἱ γέροντες (δικάζουσι) τὰς φονικὰς (δίκας), Arist., Pol. 3, 1, p. 1275b 10 (and in Corinth, too, D.S. 16, 65, 6 ff.). Involuntary homicide is punished by exile and (in this being more severe than at Athens) perpetual exile as it appears. The Spartiate Drakontios serving in the army of the Ten Thousand ἔφυγε παῖς ὢν οἴκοθεν παῖδα ἄκων κατακανὼν (like Patroklos in fact, Ψ 87), ξυήλῃ πατάξας, Xen., An. 4, 8, 25. If his banishment had been only temporary the period must have expired long before.—In Kyme there are vestiges of legal prosecution of murder (with witnesses): Arist., Pol. 1269a, 1 ff.—In Chalkis ἐπὶ Θράκῃ the laws of Androdamas of Rhegion were in force περί τε τὰ φονικὰ καὶ τὰς ἐπικλήρους, Arist., Pol. 2, 8, p. 1274b 23 ff.—In Lokri were used the laws of Zaleukos in combination with Cretan, Spartan and Areopagite institutions; these last undoubtedly dealing with homicide, which must therefore have been regulated constitutionally. (Str. vi, 260, following Eph.)
[146] The limits of those qualified to inherit extends in Athenian law μέχρι ἀνεψιαδῶν παίδων (Law ap. D. 43, 51; cf. § 27) as did the duty of avenging murder μεχρὶ ἀνεψιαδῶν: D. 47, 72 (ἐντὸς ἀνεψιότητος, which must mean the same thing, Law ap. D. 43, 57). The circle of persons thus united in the right of inheritance and the duty of taking vengeance for murder constituted the ἀγχιστεία, the body of kinsfolk tracing their descent (in the male line only) from the same man, the father, grandfather, or great-grandfather of them all. This is the limit to which the γονεῖς are traced: Is. 8, 32; cf. above, [note 123]. Many nations of the earth are familiar with a similar limitation of the narrower body of kinsfolk composing a “house”: as to the underlying reasons for the practice many conjectures are made by H. E. Seebohm, On the Structure of Greek Tribal Society (1895).