[143] _Proleg._ p. 231. [144] Introd. to _Eumenides_, p. xxxvii ff. [145] _Infra_, p. 298 ff. [146] _Infra_, pp. 143, 173 ff. [147] _e.g._ Glotz, _op. cit._ p. 316. [148] _Iph. Taur._ 965; see _infra_, Bk. III. [149] _Laws_, ix. ch. 9. [150] _Op. cit._ p. 54. [151] Aeschylus, _Eumenides_, 213 ff., 617 ff. [152] _Ib._ 212, 608. [153] _Ib._ 210, 230. [154] _Laws_, ix. ch. 9. [155] 655-660. [156] 285 ff. BOOK II FROM HOMER TO DRACON CHAPTER I SOCIAL AND LEGAL TRANSITIONS SECTION I: Political changes in post-Homeric times: fall of Achaean Empire and its causes: post-Homeric migrations: Achaean survivals: the Hesiodic age of chaos: tribal stability and decay: evolution of the Attic State: aristocracy and democracy. SECTION II: Religious and legal transitions in post-Homeric times: Asiatic-Greek intercourse: compromise between Asiatic and Greek ideas adopted in regard to homicide: origin of Apolline purgation-system: rise of Apolline influence: organisation of theocratic nobles: Apollo and pollution: extradition: origin of the laws of Dracon: proofs of author’s theory from Greek legends, from Plato and Demosthenes: pollution doctrine and wergeld: question of ‘legality’ of ‘private settlement’ for homicide in historical Athens. SECTION I Less than a hundred years[1] after the Trojan war, and some time about the year 1100 B.C., the great and glorious rule of the Achaeans over Greece came to an end. ‘Greece,’ as Leaf puts it,[2] ‘relapsed from the temporary union imposed upon it by its rulers into its normal congeries of loosely coherent cantons.’ The Achaeans did not, of course, entirely disappear, but they ceased to maintain that unified control and domination over Greece which they had enjoyed for two or three centuries. The causes of this change are variously estimated. Historical analogies, such as that of the Normans in England and in Sicily,[3] suggest in general the brief duration of such a hegemony. ‘The domination of a small military caste over a large subject population contains of necessity,’ says Leaf,[4] ‘the germs of its own destruction....’ ‘The _Iliad_ itself gives us vividly, in the portrait of Agamemnon, the inherent weakness of all hereditary military despotisms.... The time came ... whether through the effort of the Trojan war which had reduced their numbers, or through lack of moral grit following on too long a tenure of power, when the Achaeans had to cast in their lot with their former vassals ... the group system resumed its sway and the Achaeans were drawn into it.’[5] Ridgeway, arguing from analogous instances, attributes the decay of Achaean vigour partly to climatic influences, partly to the enervating effects of luxury and power. In regard to this latter factor, he says[6]: ‘It is a known fact that the upper classes in all countries have an inevitable tendency to die out ... the dwindling of the master races in