The explanation which Demosthenes gives of this law is not, indeed, very profound. ‘How comes this to be the case,’ he says,[191] ‘men of Athens? Because they that made the laws originally, whoever they were, Heroes or Gods, did not (seek to) oppress the unfortunate, but in a humane way as far as they could with justice, they alleviated their misery.’ But Demosthenes shows a certain clarity of vision in another place in which he examines the question why the laws were so careful to preserve the lives of murderers abroad. One of the reasons was, he says,[192] ‘to prevent an infinite series in the avenging of injuries.’ We have already quoted Euripides[193] for a similar sentiment: ‘Right well,’ he says, ‘did our ancestors in olden times enact these laws ... they punished the murderer with exile, but they suffered no one to slay him in return, for (in that event) each successive avenger would be liable for bloodshed.’ This sentiment may have been inspired by the atmosphere in which Euripides himself lived, and taken in conjunction with that which we have just cited from Demosthenes, suggests that the Greeks did not practise the ‘private execution’ of death penalties within the living memory of those authors. In the light of our conclusion we shall proceed to examine the position of parricide and of kin-slaying in historical Attic law. PARRICIDE AND KIN-SLAYING Two problems present themselves for solution: (_a_) First of all we must inquire whether parricide and kin-slaying were civic offences which were punishable by State law or whether the avenging of these deeds of blood was entirely at the discretion of the relatives and the clansmen; (_b_) secondly, we must decide what the nature of the legal penalty was (if the penalty was legal) in the historical era. The opinion of Glotz on this subject has already been given in outline.[194] He suggests that the pollution-doctrine affected the penalty for parricide, but he maintains that it was merely a public opinion which reinforced this doctrine and that the historical penalty was perpetual exile. The Draconian law, he holds,[195] did not interfere in the jurisdiction of the family. ‘En réalité Dracon n’édictait aucune sanction contre le parricide parce que l’Etat n’avait pas à s’occuper avec cela. La juridiction de la famille subsistait sur tous les points où elle n’était pas abolie par une disposition expresse. La loi ne parlait donc du parricide ... toutes ces questions échappaient à sa compétence.’[196] ‘Quand la conscience sociale se mit à intervenir contre les criminels, elle se proposait seulement de faire respecter les vieux usages. Elle obligea tous les meurtriers à quitter le pays au moins pour un certain temps: le meurtrier d’un proche, elle l’obligea ... à sortir de sa famille pour toujours.’[197] In passing, we may note how inconsistent is this statement regarding the exile penalty for homicide with Glotz’s favourite hypothesis of the legality of ‘private settlement.’[198]