The general opinion is, of course, that no soldier in his military capacity can be guilty of crime; but opinion has not always been so fixed, and it is worth noticing that in the forms of civilisation that preceded our own, and in some existing modern races of lower type than our own, traces clearly appear of a sense of wrong attaching to any form of bloodshed whatever, whether of fair battle or of base treachery, calling alike for the purifying influences of expiation and cleansing. In South Africa, for instance, the Basuto returning from war proceeds with all his arms to the nearest stream, to purify not only his own person but his javelins and his battle-axe. The Zulu, too, practises ablutions on the same occasion; and the Bechuana warrior wears a rude kind of necklace, to remind him of the expiation due from him to the slain, and to disperse the dreams that might otherwise trouble him, and perhaps even drive him to die of remorse.[310] The same feelings may be detected in the old world. The Macedonians had a peculiar form of sacrificatory purification, which consisted in cutting a dog in half and leading the whole army, arrayed in full armour, between the two parts.[311] As the Bœotians had the same custom, it was probably for the same reason. At Rome, for the same purpose, a sheep, and a bull, and a pig or boar, were every year led three times round the army and then sacrificed to Mars. In Jewish history the prohibition to King David to build the temple was expressly connected with the blood he had shed in battle. In old Greek mythology Theseus held himself unfit, without expiation, to be admitted to the mysteries of Ceres, though the blood that stained his hands was only that of thieves and robbers. And in the same spirit Hector refused to make a libation to the gods before he had purified his hands after battle. ‘With unwashen hands,’ he said, ‘to pour out sparkling wine to Zeus I dare not, nor is it ever the custom for one soiled with the blood and dust of battle to offer prayers to the god whose seat is in the clouds.’[312]