So far there is no question of any human guilt. But such a question might have easily arisen. In the Hebrew murder-code,[47] if an ox gored a man to death, it was necessary to inquire whether the ox had been ‘let out’ by the owner, and whether the ox was previously ‘known to be dangerous.’ If so, the owner could have been put to death, unless he ransomed his life. Let us suppose, furthermore, that the object had not ‘fallen,’ but was such that it must have been ‘thrown.’ Two cases might now arise: (1) the ‘thrower’ might confess that he threw the object, say, a stone or a piece of wood, but at the same time deny that he threw it with the intention of hitting, much less, of killing, any person: or (2) the ‘thrower,’ guilty of intent to kill, might escape undetected, perhaps concealed by a wall or a boulder or a shrubbery, from which he had hurled the fatal missile. Thus, the trial of inanimate objects, and also, but to a less extent, the trial of animals, might have had a close connexion on the one hand with the question of accidental homicide, committed by a human agent, and on the other with the question of ‘murder by persons unknown.’ Upon the precise circumstances of each case would have depended the question whether local magistrates and tribunals would have possessed jurisdiction in the matter, or whether it would have had to be referred to the central State authority at Athens. But to this same authority would naturally also have fallen the decision as to the guilt of animals or objects which had caused the loss of human life within the city of Athens and its environs: and hence we can understand why the central Prytaneum court had to adjudicate not only upon guilty animals and inanimate objects, but also, and with much more serious possibilities, upon murder by persons unknown.