We have already referred[189] to the exclusion of homicide-exiles from Amphictyonic festivals in Greece, and we have maintained that such a law probably originated in some Amphictyonic league such as that of Apollo at Delphi. The same reasoning applies to the law quoted by Demosthenes[190] as a law of Dracon, which protected the lives of homicide exiles abroad. The law reads: ‘If anyone shall slay a murderer or cause his death while he abstains from market-places on the State boundaries and from (public) games and Amphictyonic festivals, such a person shall be liable to the same penalties as if he had killed an Athenian citizen.’ We have already[191] suggested the origin of such a law. It was, we think, due to the influence of tribal custom in conflict with the new doctrine of ‘pollution,’ in the seventh century B.C. Demosthenes does not understand correctly the origin of the law, though he is reasonably successful in explaining the law.[192] ‘What,’ he says, ‘was the legislator’s object? (He thought) that if we slay people who have fled to other countries, others will slay those who have fled to us: if this happens, the only refuge left for the unfortunate wretches will be abolished ... also he strove to prevent an indefinite series in the avenging of (such) crimes.... He considered that if a man who is tried for murder, and condemned, once escapes securely, though he ought (also) to be expelled from the native State of the victim, it is not righteous to kill him in every place.’ Demosthenes forgets that it was quite possible for ancient Greek States to make an international compact such as appears to operate between States of the modern world, whereby all murderers who fled abroad would be _extradited_—not slain where they had taken refuge, but handed over to the State of the ‘victim.’ We shall see presently[193] how the Greeks did evolve a system of extradition of a special kind. All the objects which Demosthenes attributes to the legislator are the creations of his own rhetorical mind. Why should he expect pity for ‘unfortunate wretches’ in a legislator who decreed that, if these wretches remained at home until the verdict of the court was given, they would inexorably be put to death? Why should a murderer expect pity from the relatives of the slain who were polluted by his presence? No, such a law must have originated in a central international Amphictyony or oracular authority which, in its legislation, had to respect the traditions of tribal village communities and of tribal aristocratic States, traditions which had come down from distant ages, and could not be suppressed without a struggle. Tradition held that ‘exile’ saved the murderer’s life, and it was not felt that such a penalty was not a sufficient deterrent. New social conditions, new religious doctrines may have changed men’s conceptions of the deterrent power of exile, but they had, nevertheless, to respect the old tradition. The homicide laws of historical Greece are,