Why then, we may ask, did Solon select the Areopagus as the court in which the Ephetae were compelled to give place to plutocratic ex-archons, and why was the jurisdiction of that court, now perhaps for the first time, limited to cases of homicide ‘with malice aforethought’? Müller[146] offers a solution of this problem. ‘The administration,’ he says, ‘of the rites of expiation could not be taken away from the old aristocracy of Athens even when the constitution underwent in other respects a complete change. None but an aristocratic court was competent to pronounce an act of homicide expiable, and itself to preside over the rites of expiation and cleansing. Accordingly, the cases reserved for the decision of that court were those in which a person was accused of unpremeditated slaying—for here expiation came in after the exile; further, where the plea put in by the accused was that of justifiable homicide—in this case there was no punishment ... but still it was necessary, at least in certain cases, that he should undergo purification: further, in case an unpremeditated was followed by a premeditated act of homicide, it being then a question whether expiation was admissible or not: lastly, the formalities observed in trials of the weapon by which blood was shed ... necessarily devolved upon the managers of the ancient rites of expiation. As wilful murder, on the contrary, could not be expiated ... there was no need in this case to refer to expositors of ancient Sacred Law. So that Solon was at liberty here to vest the cognisance of such cases in a corporate body which ... he formed out of the most affluent Athenian citizens who had filled the offices of archon.’