Note 157 — Chapter XX · STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS AS EXHIBITED IN GRECIAN LEGEND.

“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.