Leaf gives us a very clear picture in Homer and History[49] which we may utilise to remove the difficulties which he felt in 1883. ‘All this time,’ he says, ‘the main population of Greece was going on with beliefs and customs undisturbed, unaffected by the change of masters[50] at the Castle. The group society of the Pelasgians—φυλή, γένος, φρατρία—continued intact, abiding its time. The epic of the Achaeans takes no notice of it, why should it? The Achaeans knew little and cared less about the customs of their subjects, unless at times called in to settle disputes based on silly family usage, unworthy of a lord’s notice.’ Though Leaf does not say so explicitly, we think that in his conception of the Homeric wergeld he is now much nearer to the position he held in 1883 than to the positions he adopted in the intervening period.
If we combine then the arguments based on the text of this Homeric passage with the results of Leaf’s latest researches and also with the general principles outlined in our Introductory Chapter, we may conclude that this trial-scene presents us with a genuine wergeld dispute, not within the Achaean caste, but amongst the Pelasgian tribal folk. We have seen that scholars are unanimous in holding that the Shield is of an essentially Mycenaean and therefore Pelasgian pattern. We have quoted Seebohm at length for the connexion between the wergeld-system of homicide-compensation and tribal organisation and control.[51] We have quoted Leaf’s recent views as to the probable existence of clans and tribes among the Pelasgian subject-people. The conclusion we have drawn is therefore a practically self-evident deduction from assumed premises.
Before we apply this general conclusion to the solution of minor difficulties presented by this Homeric passage, it may be desirable to discuss briefly the view of Lipsius which has been already mentioned. He maintains that the trial in question was a murder-trial—a decision of homicidal guilt or innocence: he therefore holds that the two talents of gold were the actual wergeld. He says[52]: ‘Upon him (of the claimants) who, according to their (i.e. the judges’) opinion—at any rate in the verdict of the majority—has given his opinion best, are bestowed two talents of gold which have been laid down in front of them. They (i.e. the talents) constitute, therefore, the objects of the dispute, the amount of the blood-atonement which the accused deposits and is to get back in case of victory,[53] but otherwise must transfer to the plaintiff.’ This opinion has been attacked on many grounds, but chiefly on the ground that the sum of two (Homeric) talents of gold is too small to constitute a wergeld-payment.[54] But it does not follow that the Achaean standard of values was necessarily that of their Pelasgian subjects. Even though it is true that in Homer a goodly price is paid for a freeman sold as a slave[55]; for a woman[56]; and for the ransom of the kidnapped son of a king[57]; although a ‘ransom unspeakable’ (ἀπερείσι’ ἄποινα) is offered for a warrior’s life on the field of battle[58]; and Lycaon, son of Priam, is kidnapped and sold as a slave for 100 oxen and liberated by a ransom of 300 oxen[59]:—although ten talents of gold is an insignificant portion of the ‘placation’ offered to Achilles,[60] and two talents of gold is the reward paid by Aegisthus to his scout,[61] there is nothing in all this to prove that, amongst the poor tribal tillers of the soil, the sum of two talents of gold (which, though it was not real money, was still a valuable commodity) may not have sufficed as wergeld for a tribal race ruled over by strangers. The really insuperable objections which we find to the view of Lipsius are the following: In the first place tribal wergeld, even where it is comparatively small, as it was in Ireland under the Brehon Laws, is generally a collection of numerous valuables, whether cows or sheep or slaves. Even when money is substituted, the coins are small in value but numerous[62] (e.g. 200 solidi, 400 argentei). The reason for this lies in the diffused nature of the responsibility for payment, quite a number of families and individuals of the wider kindred being liable to contribution. Secondly, there is no parallel, in analogous instances of wergeld, for the assumption that the total amount was collected and deposited in court at any time, much less before the validity of the murder-charge had been established. In this case, the accused asserts (according to Lipsius’ translation) that he had paid the whole sum: but surely ἀποδοῦναι cannot be taken to mean ‘that the accused had deposited in court the normal wergeld.’ How could the accused assert that he had paid it, how could the plaintiff deny that he had received it—if the actual wergeld were deposited in court before their very eyes? Thirdly, to say that the two talents would be given to the most convincing pleader is a very strange way of describing a judgment of guilty or not guilty on a charge of homicide. Thus the text of Homer refutes the theory of Lipsius. Maine[63] indicates the real function of the two talents in this court by showing that they served the same purpose as the sacramentum or court-fee of Roman law.
Assuming then that the court here described by Homer was a group of Pelasgian tribal chiefs or elders who could regularly be appealed to in such disputes, and who would also perform the functions of a murder-court if any person accused of homicide appealed to them to establish his innocence, we shall conclude our discussion by clearing up some minor points of difficulty.
We cannot concur with Glotz[64] in the opinion that the result of the verdict is a matter of life or death for the murderer. He says ‘Il peut y avoir un jugement de condamnation entraînant l’esclavage ou la mort.’[64] But quick justice is not a characteristic of the wergeld-exile-slavery-death system. We have seen how[65] among the Welsh tribes wergeld was paid in fortnightly instalments: and we may suppose that failure to pay any one instalment would have been a common subject for litigation. In the laws of King Edmund of England (A.D. 940-946) a period of twelve months[66] was allowed for payment of wergeld—‘to prevent manifold fightings.’ In the laws of Henry I. the period was fixed by ‘Sapientes.’
Again, in this Homeric passage as it is usually interpreted, both pleaders cannot have been right. Payment of wergeld was very different from a modern transfer of cash. It involved a complete readjustment of the whole property of two clans, so that hundreds of people were aware of the transaction. If however we suppose that a portion of the wergeld was unpaid, it will be possible to maintain that both parties were bona fide in their assertions. We will assume that Homer, whether he is indulging his imagination or describing something which he had actually seen on a shield, is giving us an account of a typical wergeld dispute such as must commonly have taken place in Pelasgian life: we must especially remember that the accused (whom we assume to be the murderer) and the plaintiff are isolated members of large groups concerned in the payment, though the accused would normally have to pay the greatest individual share, and the plaintiff, if he was the nearest relative of the slain, would receive a large share of the wergeld. Let us suppose, then, that some of the wergeld had been paid, and that the part which had not been paid was due, not from the murderer himself or his immediate relatives,[67] but from some distant family of cousins who, unknown to the defendant, had defaulted or were unable to pay. We can, on this assumption, credit the defendant (that is, the murderer) with bona fides. Or again, assuming still that the defendant is the murderer, if we suppose that the disputed ‘instalment’ had been received, unknown to the plaintiff, by a distant family of his wider kindred for whom he is acting as the leading ‘avenger’ in negotiation—in a word, if we suppose that both litigants are acting as representatives of large groups, we can understand the contradiction in their statements which would be less intelligible if they were speaking for themselves personally. And have we not here a clue as to the constitution of the crowd which attended at the trial? Homer distinctly says that the crowd ‘cheered on both parties’[68]: and he adds: ‘taking part on either side’[69]: so interested were they in the issue, that the heralds had to maintain order.[70] This implies that there was a certain danger of rioting amongst the crowd—of something like the ‘manifold fightings’[71] of the Anglo-Saxons.
We cannot agree with the general view that this scene must be expected to contain a picture of intense public interest.[72] The parallel scene, in the city at peace, is a wedding! The Shield-picture contains also a reaping scene and a ploughing scene. Surely the artist was not so much at pains to reveal subjects of public interest as to depict topics of common occurrence. To us it seems obvious that one of the most frequent scenes of tribal life was a wergeld dispute: and as this dispute concerned the property of a large number of people, all such persons would be naturally interested in the verdict. In all ancient codes prominence is given to laws relating to theft, to inheritance, to marriage settlements and the like, rather than to what we should now consider graver matters. The reason is, that all ancient thought and religion centred around questions of property. Hence we think it more than probable that the ‘folk’ of the Homeric trial scene are not the general public but are rather the wider kinsmen of the plaintiff and the defendant. It would be not only natural but also right that they should have supported each one his own side, just as they would do in the event of a clan feud. But the success with which the heralds checked the passions of the people shows how very different the ancient Pelasgians were from the barbarous races who only accept wergeld under duress, and who hail with triumph the slightest pretext for another feud. Glotz, who thinks of the Pelasgians as he would of any barbarous primitive people, thinks therefore that in this scene the crowd came together armed to the teeth! ‘Les hostilités, un instant suspendues, menacent d’éclater à nouveau. Les deux ennemis qui déjà se résignaient mal à une transaction, échangent des injures, en attendant qu’ils se cherchent les armes à la main.’[73]
What now, we may ask, is the meaning of ἴστωρ in this passage? Homer says:
ἄμφω δ’ ἱέσθην ἐπὶ ἴστορι πεῖραρ ἑλέσθαι.
Leaf, in 1883, translated thus: ‘and each one was fain to obtain consummation on the word of his witness.’ Later (1892 and 1902), when he conceived that there were really two scenes described in the picture, he regarded the ἴστωρ as an arbitrator: ‘each one relied on an arbitrator to win the suit.’ We can only say that while the etymology and use of the word ἴστωρ permit of both interpretations, the relation of the verse to its context seems to us immeasurably in favour of the interpretation ‘witness.’ We may presume that the ‘witnesses’ were included in the ‘people’ and were brought forward to prove the actual transference of property which had or had not taken place. They are, therefore, similar to the ‘compurgators’ who figure so prominently in medieval litigation.[74]