Glotz is quite definitely of the opinion, and in this we agree with him, that purgation for homicide was unknown to the Greeks of Homeric times. In Homer, he says,[101] we find traces of a purely physical cleansing which is required as a preliminary to sacrifice: but such words as μιαίνω, μιαρός and μιαίφονος refer to the victim, not to the slayer.[102] Homicide is not a religious offence: the murder exile, received without scruple,[103] eats at the same table as other guests, and takes part in libations and in prayers. The first genuine instance of purgation for homicide occurs in the _Aethiopis_ of Arctinus of Miletus (750-700 B.C.), and the practice continued to develop until it reached its complete systematisation in the time of Dracon.[104] ‘Its development,’ says Glotz, ‘coincides with the disappearance of patriarchal clans and the progress of city life.’ The purgation-system mediated the transition from ‘private vengeance’ to ‘social justice.’ It was derived, he thinks,[105] from the Semites. Before its advent in Greece, the Greeks had long practised Chthonian rites, upon which, so to speak, it was easily grafted, such rites, for instance, as that which accompanied cursing or swearing, a rite in which ‘purging’ water was thrown over the hands of those about to swear,[106] or that which was associated with solemn reconciliations after feuds or enmities.[107] Hence, says Glotz, it came about, by a natural transition, that in historical times the preliminary pleas on oath of the accuser and the accused in cases of homicide were taken at the altar of the Erinnyes, and it was at this altar that sacrifice was offered by the defendant acquitted of murder by the Areopagus and by the returned exile who had paid the penalty of involuntary homicide.[108]