We cannot, of course, find any evidence in the Homeric poems for a tabulation of instances of justifiable homicide such as is found in the laws of Dracon.[172] But the Homeric poems present us with a picture which is mainly, if not exclusively, Achaean, and we cannot infer from the absence of Homeric evidence that the Pelasgian tribes which had developed, as we think,[173] a capacity for discriminating between degrees of homicide guilt, had not also evolved a definite conception of the distinction between just and unjust slaying. We shall see[174] later that even the Achaeans recognised at least a distinction between murder and just revenge. Thus, the Achaean Orestes who slew his mother to avenge his father is said by Homer to have ‘gained renown amongst all men.’[175] In the _Odyssey_,[176] Amphinomus, one of the suitors, refuses to join a conspiracy to murder Telemachus without consulting the gods: ‘I for one would not choose to kill Telemachus: it is a fearful thing to slay one of the stock of kings: nay, first let us seek the counsel of the gods, and if the oracles (θέμιστες) of great Zeus approve, myself I will slay him and bid all the rest to aid; but if the gods are disposed to avert it, I bid you, too, refrain.’ The θέμιστες here attributed to Zeus must be regarded as a reflex of the public opinion of the Achaean caste, which, therefore, had evolved a distinction between just and unjust slaying. In another place[177] Eupeithes, the father of a slain suitor, says ‘It is a scorn if we avenge not ourselves on the slayers of our sons and brothers; rather would I die!’ It is obvious that an act which is a duty prescribed by caste or law or custom cannot be regarded as a crime. So,[178] when the feud arose between Odysseus, who regarded himself as justified in slaying the suitors who had insulted his family, and the suitors, who were contriving what they considered a just revenge, Homer tells us that Odysseus would have slain them all, had not Athene intervened and ordered both sides to desist and to enter into a solemn covenant of reconciliation. This act of Athene[179] signifies that in her opinion both sides are justified in shedding blood, and hence that the feud can be cancelled without disturbing the balance of justice. Now Glotz[180] rightly points out that the ancients attributed to their gods such opinions as they themselves professed; and if Achaeanised Athene acted thus, how can we avoid assuming the existence of at least as high a standard amongst the Pelasgians? In Homer then we may conclude that there existed some distinction between just and unjust slaying. For Glotz, this distinction arises only when the State takes justice into its own hands and legitimatises private vengeance after trial. The date of this evolution, he thinks, is the age of Dracon. But we maintain that, long before Dracon, or perhaps even before Homer, there existed, in Greece, States within States, that is, clans and tribes and phratries,