Again,[184] in regard to suicide, Plato says that it is necessary for the relatives of the deceased to inquire of the ‘Interpreters’ as to the proper methods of purification and of burial. But the most decisive argument to be derived from Plato as to the connexion of Apollo with purgation and with Greek homicide law can be found in the scholium to a passage in the _Laws_, a scholium which incidentally supplies a proof of the historicity of Plato’s murder laws. The passage enunciates different cases of justifiable homicide, or rather justifiably accidental homicide—the essence of such discrimination lies in the fact that certain kinds of accidental slaying were foreseen and provided for, in advance, whether by custom, or by public opinion, or by written codes—and the cases which are here enunciated are identical with those of the Draconian law regarding justifiable bloodshed.[185] We cite only a section of the passage,[186] which is sufficient for our present purpose. ‘If any person unintentionally slays a fellow-citizen (φίλος) in a “contest” or at the public games ... or during war, or in military exercises ... in imitation of warfare ... let him be purified according to the law brought from Delphi about such matters and be immune from punishment (καθαρός).’ The scholiast gives the Delphic law, as follows.[187] ‘_The law or oracle_ brought from Delphi regarding a man who kills his friend (_i.e._ fellow-citizen, as distinct from public enemy) involuntarily:—“Thou hast slain thy comrade (ἑταῖρον) while intending to defend him (ἀμύνων)—his blood doth not pollute thee: thou art purer than thou wast before: but thou, man, who standing near a comrade being killed hast not defended him—thou hast gone not pure away.”’ That such important cases of justifiably accidental homicide should be provided for by Delphic legislation is a most noteworthy fact. Such cases are mentioned in Dracon’s laws, and we presume that they found a place in other Greek written codes. The reference to ‘public games’ suggests unmistakably an international code of laws. Here, then, we find Plato, a member of that Attic State which prided itself on the early foundation[188] of the Delphinium court, for the trial of justifiable homicide, in the time of its first Ionian Kings, advising a conformity to Delphic legislation in homicides of this kind! This scholium, if properly weighed and considered, would in itself be almost sufficient to demonstrate our theory of the Delphic origin of historical Greek homicide-laws, and of the universal similarity of these laws. We cite it here, however, as a mere link in a chain of evidence which is still very far from completion.