[156] The Mosaic law recognizes this habit and duty on the part of the relatives of the murdered man, and provides cities of refuge for the purpose of sheltering the offender in certain cases (Deuteron. xxxv. 13-14; Bauer, Handbuch der Hebraïschen Alterthümer, sect. 51-52).
The relative who inherited the property of a murdered man was specially obliged to avenge his death (H. Leo, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte des Jüdischen Staats.—Vorl. iii. p. 35).
[157] “Suscipere tam inimicitias, seu patris, seu propinqui, quam amicitias, necesse est. Nec implacabiles durant: luitur enim etiam homicidium certo pecorum armentorumque numero, recipitque satisfactionem universa domus.” (Tacit. German. 21.) Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, p. 32.
“An Indian feast (says Loskiel, Mission of the United Brethren in North America,) is seldom concluded without bloodshed. For the murder of a man one hundred yards of wampum, and for that of a woman two hundred yards, must be paid by the murderer. If he is too poor, which is commonly the case, and his friends cannot or will not assist him, he must fly from the resentment of the relations.”
Rogge (Gerichtswesen der Germanen, capp. 1, 2, 3), Grimm (Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, book v. cap. 1-2), and Eichhorn (Deutsches Privat-Recht. sect. 48) have expounded this idea, and the consequences deduced from it among the ancient Germans.
Aristotle alludes, as an illustration of the extreme silliness of ancient Greek practices (εὐήθη πάμπαν), to a custom which he states to have still continued at the Æolic Kymê, in cases of murder. If the accuser produced in support of his charge a certain number of witnesses from his own kindred, the person was held peremptorily guilty,—οἷον ἐν Κύμῃ περὶ τὰ φονικὰ νόμος ἔστιν, ἂν πλῆθός τι παράσχηται μαρτύρων ὁ διώκων τὸν φόνον τῶν αὑτοῦ συγγενῶν, ἔνοχον εἶναι τῷ φόνῳ τὸν φεύγοντα (Polit. ii. 5, 12). This presents a curious parallel with the old German institution of the Eideshelfern, or conjurators, who, though most frequently required and produced in support of the party accused, were yet also brought by the party accusing. See Rogge, sect. 36, p. 186; Grimm, p. 862.
[158] The word ποινὴ indicates this satisfaction by valuable payment for wrong done, especially for homicide: that the Latin word pœna originally meant the same thing, may be inferred from the old phrases dare pœnas, pendere pœnas. The most illustrative passage in the Iliad is that in which Ajax, in the embassy undertaken to conciliate Achilles, censures by comparison the inexorable obstinacy of the latter in setting at naught the proffered presents of Agamemnôn (Il. ix. 627):—
Νηλής· καὶ μὲν τίς τε κασιγνήτοιο φόνοι
Ποινὴν, ἢ οὗ παιδὸς ἐδέξατο τεθνειῶτος·
Καί ῥ᾽ ὁ μὲν ἐν δήμῳ μένει αὐτοῦ, πολλ᾽ ἀποτίσας·