Proofs from the Text of Homer
In our introductory chapter we pointed out the connexion which exists between the homicide customs of a people or caste and their temperamental outlook and social organisation; we have quoted Seebohm’s views as to the essentially tribal character of the wergeld-exile-death system; and, therefore, anyone who accepts Leaf’s hypothesis as to the nature of the Achaean and Pelasgian social strata will be prepared to admit that our hypothesis as to Pelasgian blood-vengeance is logically a priori probable. In a later chapter we shall seek further confirmation of our theory by explaining the difference in the religious beliefs of the Achaeans and the Pelasgians, and by indicating their different attitudes to the judicial aspect of homicide. We now proceed to the crucial test of our opinions—the evidence of the Homeric poems.
In Homer the word ποινή occurs very frequently. Glotz[21] thinks the word is connected with the verb τίνειν (to pay). He says: ‘De vrai, ποινή doit être rapproché de τίνω et des mots apparentés, τίνυμι, τιμάω, τίσις, τιμή.’ Others[22] however hold that it is connected with the root pu, found in Greek πῦρ, and Latin purus, punire, poena. The word ἄποινα seems akin in origin to ποινή, but in Homer it is invariably used of a ransom or gift of valuables.[23] We do not think that Glotz[24] has quite succeeded in his attempt to prove the evolution of the word ποινή from an earlier meaning of ‘blood-vengeance’ to a later one of pecuniary satisfaction, at least within the limits of the Homeric poems. His reasoning is very similar to that known as ‘squaring one’s premises to one’s conclusions’: he is not aware of any distinction between Achaeans and Pelasgians, and he finds the Homeric use of ποινή rather difficult to explain. He must have been aware of the fact—one which we consider of great importance—that in Homer the word ποινή nearly always means ‘punishment’ or ‘revenge’ rather than ‘compensation’ or ‘ransom’: he is certainly aware that, while ποινή can mean a pecuniary satisfaction for a material wrong or injury, and can mean the ‘ransom’ of a captive or of a warrior’s dead body, nevertheless there are only two instances in all Homer in which ποινή can be formally interpreted to mean wergeld. Thus he says,[25] ‘On songe aux deux passages de l’Iliade où il est formellement parlé de composition pour homicide. Ce sont le discours d’Ajax à Achille au chant ix et la scène judiciaire figurée sur le bouclier d’Achille au chant xviii.’ It is by a close examination of these two passages that we hope to solve the difficulty connected with the Homeric ποινή. But, first, let us say that the word ποινή is precisely the kind of word which may easily possess a general as well as a special significance. The ideas of ‘payment’ and ‘punishment’ may, in certain circumstances, coalesce: and it is probably because Homer was subconsciously aware of the fusion of ideas involved in the use of the word ποινή, that he employs another word of kindred meaning, ἄποινα, to denote a payment in which the idea of ‘punishment’ is absent or obscured.
In Homer, the word ποινή is used to denote a variety of ideas ranging from ‘punishment in general,’ such as death inflicted in vengeance, to ‘compensation for injury’: thus in Iliad xvi. 398 Patroclus, having slain many foemen in battle, is said to have thus exacted vengeance (or payment) for many Greeks who had fallen:
κτεῖνε μεταΐσσων, πολέων δ’ ἀπετίνυτο ποινήν.
There is no question of ‘payment of goods’ or ‘wergeld’; it is merely the vengeance which a warrior inflicts upon his enemies. In Iliad xxi. 28 Achilles chooses out twelve Trojan youths whom he afterwards burns on a funeral pyre. His motive may have been to placate the shade of Patroclus, by sending him ‘souls’ to be his slaves in Hades, or, less probably, to gratify the desire of the shade for vengeance. The youths are spoken of as ποινὴ Πατροκλοῖο: clearly they are not ‘goods or valuables,’ and are neither ‘paid’ nor ‘received.’ The poet may have been conscious of an undercurrent of meaning, if he had known of bondage or slavery as a penalty for murder in the tribes. But the slaying of Patroclus was not murder! The ποινή of Patroclus is not even ordinary blood-vengeance, it is merely the retaliation of an indignant warrior.
Again, in Odyssey xxiii. 312 Odysseus tells Penelope how he exacted from the Cyclops punishment for the slaying of his companions,—ὡς ἀπετίσατο ποινὴν ἰφθίμων ἑτάρων. The Cyclops was regarded by Homer and the Achaeans as one of a lawless band of men who, as the poet says, ‘have no plants or plough, no gatherings for council nor laws—each one giveth law to his children and wives, and they reck not of one another’: he was thus the very antithesis of tribal or of civic society. The payment exacted was not wergeld, but the loss of an eye! In Iliad v. 266 ποινή denotes merely compensation for injury—there being no question of murder at all. Zeus, having carried off Ganymede, the son of Tros, gave Tros a gift of horses as compensation—υἷος ποινήν Γανυμήδεος. It was really a case of ‘kidnapping,’ but Ganymede was not ‘held to ransom’—a price is paid for his loss, which is very different from wergeld.
In Iliad xiv. 483 Akamas having slain Promachus tells how ‘Promachus sleeps, done to death by my sword, lest a brother’s vengeance (ποινή) be too long unpaid.’ Here we have a formula of blood-vengeance applied to the collective vengeance of war. Akamas does not seek the life of Ajax, the slayer of his brother, but is satisfied by slaying any individual of the enemy as a ‘satisfaction’ for his brother. But there is no question of wergeld: death is the penalty desired and exacted. Though the phrase δηρὸν ἄτιτος could be regarded as a reminiscence of the wergeld system, in which a period of time was normally allowed for payment, it is quite naturally applicable to blood-for-blood revenge, as δηρὸν can simply mean ‘a long time,’ and the tendency of such vengeance was to quick retribution.
In Iliad xiii. 659 we are told of the slaying in battle of Harpalion, son of Pylaimenes, king of the Paphlagonians. ‘And the Paphlagonians tended him busily, and set him in a chariot and drove him to Ilios sorrowing, and with them went his father, shedding tears, and there was no atonement (ποινή) for his dead son.’ It is obvious that even if we suppose the Paphlagonians (who were not Achaeans) to have had clans and tribes and wergeld payments in their normal home life, we cannot attribute to them any expectation of wergeld for a man killed on the field of battle. Nor could the absence of such a compensation, to a king who had much more wealth than he could ever enjoy, be regarded as a cause of tears. Hence the word ποινή here must mean blood-vengeance, the satisfaction arising from blood-for-blood retribution: and this satisfaction was frustrated because the Paphlagonians did not happen to see the man who slew Harpalion.[26]
There are only two passages in Homer in which ποινή unmistakably refers to the genuine wergeld penalty. If those passages were missing no one could speak of wergeld as a penalty for homicide in the society described by Homer. We shall now examine those passages with a view to showing that they do not represent the normal system of the dominant Achaean caste, but are merely what Leaf would call ‘reminiscences,’ traces of a system with which Homer and the Achaeans were familiar, but which they did not adopt or practise amongst themselves.