The legends of Attic tragedy on the whole suggest a uniform system of murder-law in historical Greece. In Euripides’ _Orestes_[242] we are told that Orestes did not follow ‘the common law of the Greeks.’ In the _Heracleidae_,[243] Eurystheus, referring to a threat of murder on the part of Alcmene, says: ‘By the laws of the Greeks, if I am slain I shall cause my slayer to be polluted.’ In the _Hercules Furens_,[244] Hercules, the slayer of his children, feels that men’s doors will be closed against him in all parts of Greece, without exception. We have already[245] referred to the possibility that a more severe code of penalties for homicide existed at Sparta than in other parts of Greece. Xenophon[246] says that a certain Dracontius was condemned to perpetual exile for involuntary homicide. If we have here a really exceptional penalty, we must attribute it to the peculiarly military character of the Spartan State. But can we be sure that the penalty was exceptional? Plato decrees perpetual exile for involuntary slaying between strangers in any given State[247]; moreover, for slaying in a passion, which is quasi-involuntary, he decrees perpetual exile for the second offence.[248] Xenophon does not give us sufficient details about Dracontius to enable us to regard this penalty as a definite exception. Again, in regard to Crete, we have indicated[249] the absence of any reference to wergeld in the laws of Gortyn. This shows the influence of some universal Greek doctrine which led to its abolition. The fact that Apollo was said to have received many of his Delphic priests from Crete,[250] and the fame of the Cretan purifier, Epimenides, in the seventh century B.C., point to the same conclusion. WERGELD AND PRIVATE SETTLEMENT We must now discuss more fully the question: did the pollution doctrine abolish wergeld? We can answer this question satisfactorily by merely answering another question which is intimately connected with it, namely: ‘was “private settlement” legal in historical Athens?’—‘was it lawful for the relatives of the slain, if they so wished, to abstain from prosecution, and could they legally accept from the slayer a bribe or a gift if they so abstained?’ We do not deny the fact that such settlements did occasionally take place; but if these settlements were legal, then our theory that pollution abolished wergeld cannot stand. We are glad to be able to quote the authority of Philippi[251] in favour of the illegality of ‘private settlement,’ but as the arguments of Philippi are rejected by Glotz,[252] we must in turn reject the arguments of Glotz! It is strange that Müller, who holds[253] that wergeld originated in ‘pollution,’ maintains that in historical times ‘private settlement’ was not valid except in cases of involuntary slaying.[254]