We shall see later how, in historical times, purgation for homicide was inadmissible in cases of kin-slaying, unless the dying man forgave; even then the slayer had to be exiled for one year before he could be purged in his homeland: in cases of wilful murder, purgation of the slayer in his own country was impossible at any time, but was possible, if not compulsory, abroad: in cases of manslaughter, purgation could take place at home when the conditions of exile and of the ‘appeasement’ of the slain man’s relatives had been fulfilled. From such regulations we can obviously infer that purgation was a symbol of reconciliation, but not an expiation of guilt. THE HOMERIC AND THE TRAGIC ERINNYS We must now contrast what we may call the Homeric Erinnys with the Erinnys of post-Homeric times and with the ‘tragic’ Erinnys. In the course of our discussion we hope to suggest some reasons, more satisfactory, even if they be more complex, than that which Müller[128] gives, for the refusal of the Erinnyes in the Oresteian legends of Attic tragedy to recognise the purgation of Orestes until they assume the rôle of Semnai Theai or Eumenides. In our view there are just two reasons for this refusal: one is the fact that the purgation-rites for homicide were a symbol of reconciliation, not with ghosts, but with gods: the other is the fact that the Erinnyes of Attic tragedy are a complex product, reflecting the attitude of the relatives of the slain at different periods, and from different points of view, in the post-Homeric era. We shall see later that there must have been several different variants of the Oresteian legend. The act of Orestes would have been approved or condemned according as social custom, at any given epoch, recognised the right of Apollo to command or to justify in advance the slaying of Clytaemnestra, or the right of a State court to approve, or at least to condone, an act which tribal society would have probably condemned. We may thus summarise what we conceive to have been the different stages in the evolution of the ‘tragic’ Erinnyes. We must distinguish clearly between (1) the Pelasgian Erinnys; (2) the Achaean Erinnys; (3) the post-Homeric pre-Apolline Erinnys, and (4) the Apolline or historical Erinnys. In Homer there is a fusion of the first and second conceptions. In Attic tragedy there is a most disheartening confusion of all four conceptions. We must remember that the Erinnyes were not ordinary deities possessing a stereotyped cult. Having attained divinity largely through the personification or deification of an abstract cultus-epithet, their nature was liable to vary according to men’s interpretation of the meaning and origin of the epithet, and their forms could be freely fashioned by the minds of poets and of legend-makers.[129]