In an earlier section[1] of this work we have explained what we consider to have been the origin and the evolution of judicial investigation in matters of homicide. We have said[2] that ‘the evolution of early Greek judicial authority is not a transition from a crude arbitrary local jurisdiction to an efficient central compulsory jurisdiction but rather a gradual extension to wider areas, in accordance with increasing political synoekism, of the judicial functions which had been previously discharged with equal authority within smaller areas.’ The influence of the ‘pollution’ doctrine in compelling the State to investigate and to adjudicate concerning degrees of blood-guiltiness has also been clearly shown.[3] We shall now apply our conclusions to the Attic homicide courts—the only Greek courts of which we have any precise and authentic knowledge. The actual origin of the Athenian courts is surrounded by mystery and obscurity. Many of the legends which refer to their foundation are clearly the fabrications of men who were born when these courts were already old. Places which in later times came to be notoriously associated with the courts which sat there to give judgment in homicide cases, had previously, in many instances, been consecrated by legends which had no connexion with homicide at all. The ‘Areopagus,’ for example, that is, the Hill of Ares, may have been at one time the scene of a battle in which Theseus, an Ionian King of Attica, proved victorious. The place would then naturally have come to be called ‘the Hill of Ares.’ Aeschylus[4] says that the hill got its name from the sacrifice which was offered to Ares by the Amazons whom Theseus defeated. Glotz points out that there was no temple of Ares on the Areopagus, and he holds that the connexion of Ares with this hill was derived from a time when Ares signified not only war but murder, as in the Homeric phrase, Ἄρεω ἀλκτήρ (avenger of blood).[5] This homicidal rôle of Ares, and, moreover, the existence of an altar of Athene _Areia_ at the Areopagus, which is referred to by Pausanias, explains, he thinks, the real origin of the place-name. But Pausanias was not of this opinion. ‘Here also,’ he says, ‘is the Areopagus, so called because Ares was first tried here.’[6] This is really a third hypothesis as to the meaning of the word. Aeschylus gives also a fourth explanation. The place may be called, he suggests,[7] from the Erinnyes who here became ‘appeased’ under the form of Semnai Theai, but who were called _Arai_ or Curses beneath the earth. The main point of interest in this confusion of opinions is that the hill called the Areopagus was in historical times so closely associated with trials for homicide that Ares had to be conceived as a murderer in order to retain his connexion with the place. Orestes, whose sojourn at Athens, as Homer relates it, had no connexion with homicide,[8] was associated, in legend, with the Areopagus to such an