The public introduction to the kindred, combined [pg 041] with publicity of marriage and of the birth of children would, it is obvious, be a very important protection for the preservation of the jealously guarded purity of the tribal blood. Isaeus[104] says that all relations (προσήκοντες), all the phratores, and most (οἱ πολλοί) of the demesmen would know whom a man married, and what children he had. This, in addition to the oath (πίστις) of the father or of the mother[105] of the legitimacy of the son introduced to his kin, would seem a very sufficient safeguard.[106]
If a child was not introduced to the phratores, it was considered illegitimate,[107] and could have no share in the rites of kindred and property.[108]
§ 5. The Liability For Bloodshed.
Liability for bloodshed rested on a group of kinsmen.
A notable feature of the tribal system all over the world was the blood-feud, wiped out only by the death of the manslayer or by the payment of a sufficient recompense. The incidence of the responsibility for murder and for payment of the recompense upon a group instead of only on the guilty individual was of remarkable tenacity, and survived to comparatively late days.
In Arabia the whole tribe of the murderer subscribed to the blood-money, which went to all the males in the tribe of the murdered man.[109]
But in Greece the responsibility fell upon the next of kin, with the help and under the supervision of the rest of the immediate kindred. He had to see that a spear was carried in front of the funeral of the slain man and planted in his grave, which must be watched for three days.[110] He must make proclamation of the foul deed at the tomb, and must undergo purificatory rites, himself and his whole house (οἰκία). If the dead body be found in the country and no cause of death known, the demarch must compel the relatives to bury the corpse and to purify the deme on the same day.[111]
The subject is a familiar one in Homer. The wanderer (μετανάστης) is said to have no value (he is ἀτίμητος), no fine is exacted for his death.
Il. xiv. 483. “That my brother's price (κασιγνήτοιο ποινή) be not unpaid: even for this it is that a man may well pray to have some kinsman in his halls (γνωτὸν ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν) to avenge (ἀλκτήρ) his fall.”