“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. [158] The word ποινὴ indicates this _satisfaction by valuable payment_ for wrong done, especially for homicide: that the Latin word _pœna_ originally meant the same thing, may be inferred from the old phrases _dare pœnas, pendere pœnas_. The most illustrative passage in the Iliad is that in which Ajax, in the embassy undertaken to conciliate Achilles, censures by comparison the inexorable obstinacy of the latter in setting at naught the proffered presents of Agamemnôn (Il. ix. 627):— Νηλής· καὶ μὲν τίς τε κασιγνήτοιο φόνοι Ποινὴν, ἢ οὗ παιδὸς ἐδέξατο τεθνειῶτος· Καί ῥ᾽ ὁ μὲν ἐν δήμῳ μένει αὐτοῦ, πολλ᾽ ἀποτίσας· Τοῦ δέ τ᾽ ἐρητύεται κραδίη καὶ θύμος ἀγήνωρ, Ποινὴν δεξαμένου.... The ποινὴ is, in its primitive sense, a genuine payment in valuable commodities serving as compensation (Iliad, iii. 290; v. 266; xiii. 659): but it comes by a natural metaphor to signify the death of one or more Trojans, as a satisfaction for that of a Greek warrior who had just fallen (or _vice versâ_, Iliad, xiv. 483; xvi. 398); sometimes even the notion of compensation generally (xvii. 207). In the representation on the shield of Achilles, the genuine proceeding about ποινὴ clearly appears: the question there tried is, whether the payment stipulated as satisfaction for a person slain, has really been made or not,—δύο δ᾽ ἄνδρες ἐνείκεον εἵνεκα ποινῆς Ἀνδρὸς ἀποφθιμένου, etc. (xviii. 498.)