gg HISTORY OF GREECE. tremc and special cases ; while the murderer came to be consid- ered, first as having sinned against the gods, next as having deeply injured the society, and thus at once as requiring absolu- tion and deserving punishment. On the first of these two grounds, he is interdicted from the agora and from all holy places, as well as from public functions, even while yet untried and sim- ply a suspected person ; for if this were not done, the wrath of the gods would manifest itself in bad crops and other national calamities. On the second ground, he is tried before the council of Areiopagus, and if found guilty, is condemned to death, or perhaps to disfranchisement and banishment. 1 The idea of a propitiatory payment to the relatives of the deceased has ceased Plato (Dc Legg. is- pp. 871-874), in his copious penal suggestions to deal with homicide, both intentional and accidental, concurs in general with the old Attic law (see Matthia?, Miscellanea Philologica. vol. i. p. 151) : and as he states with sufficient distinctness the grounds of his propositions, we see how completely the idea of a right to private or family revenge is absent from his mind. In one particular case, he confers upon kinsmen the priv- ilege of avenging their murdered relative (p. 871) ; but generally, he rather seeks to enforce upon them strictly the duty of bringing the suspected mur- derer to trial before the court. By the Attic law, it was only the kinsmen of the deceased who had the right of prosecuting for murder, or the master, if the deceased was an ot/ce-r/f (Demosthen. cont. Euerg. ct Mnesibul. c. 18) ; they might by forgiveness shorten the term of banishment for the uninten- tional murderer (Demosth. cont. Makart. p. 1069). They seem to have been regarded, generally speaking, aa religiously obliged, but not legally com. pellable, to undertake this duty; compare Plato, Euthyphro, capp. 4 and 5. 1 Lysias, cont. Aporat. Or. xiii. p. 137. Antiphon. Tetralog. i. 1, p. 629. 'Aati/idopoi> <5' vjjilv earl rovds, [iiapbv Kal avayvov bvra, elf rd Te/tcvrj TUV faiJv Eiatovra [iiaiveiv TTJV uyvetav avr&v, krcl <5e TUC avrdf rparri^af iovra i rove uvaiTiovf K ydp TOVTUV ai re aQopiai yivovrat, The three Tetralogies of Antipho are all very instructive respecting tho legal procedure in cases of alleged homicide: as also the Oration DC Csede Herodis (see capp. 1 and 2) rou vo/iov KEI^EVOV, ~bv u-o/cmvavra U.VTO- TroiJavetv, etc. The case of the Spartan Drakontius. one of the Ten Thousand Greeks who served with Cyrus the younger, and permanently exiled from his country in consequence of an involuntary murder committed during his boyhood, presents a pretty exact parallel to the fatal quarrel of Pntroklus at dice, when a boy, with the son of Amphidamas, in consequence of which he was forced to seek shelter under the roof of Pclcus (compare Iliad, xxiii. 85, with Xenoph. Anabas. iv. 8, 25)
