This view must now be defended from the text of Homer. In the _Odyssey_[4] we read that there came as a suppliant to Telemachus, at Pylos, a murderer from Argos, named Theoclymenus. He was a great-grandson of Melampus who was a contemporary of Nestor, and the family had been settled in Argos for four generations.[5] That the family was Achaean is rendered obvious by the Homeric text.[6] That the victim was probably a kinsman of the murderer appears from the words ἄνδρα ἔμφυλον.[7] We pointed out, in the Introduction,[8] how easily relatives could have accumulated in one or two hundred years, without, however, attaining to the reality, whatever may be said about the appearance, of a clan. But the important point to note is that, even in exile, Theoclymenus feared the death which was desired by those who were at once akin to him and to his victim. ‘I have fled,’ he says, ‘from my country, for the manslaying of one of mine own kin; and many brothers and kinsmen of the slain are in Argos ... and rule mightily over the Achaeans. Wherefore now am I an exile to shun death and the black fate at their hands.... Set me on board ship since I supplicate thee in my flight, lest they slay me utterly: for methinks they follow hard after me.’[9] Nothing could be farther removed than this from the recognised exile penalty of the wergeld system. The passage shows, moreover, that the supplication was not an appeal for homicide-purgation, as Müller would maintain[10]—we shall see later that this ceremonial was post-Homeric—but was merely an appeal for protection from the avengers of blood. A similar supplication is mentioned in a passage in the _Iliad_,[11] in which we read that ‘Epeigeus, who ruled fair-set Boudeion of old, when he had slain a good man of his kin, came as suppliant to Peleus and silver-footed Thetis ... and they sent him to follow with Achilles.’ The locality of Boudeion is unknown.[12] While we cannot argue that Epeigeus was an Achaean from the fact that he is included amongst the Myrmidons (after his adoption by Peleus), still we may presume that he was an Achaean from the behaviour of Peleus and hence we may interpret his exile as a flight from death. We may therefore infer that death was the Achaean penalty for kin-slaying. This passage also illustrates the statement of Leaf[13] that homicide, among Achaeans, brings no disability other than exile from home. To an ambitious young man ‘exile under such circumstances is no punishment: a wealthy and generous king can give opportunities of advancement beyond all the hopes of a narrow family circle.’ Epeigeus, as Homer tells us,[14] was slain by Hector in battle before the walls of Troy. His enrolment among the Myrmidons saved him from the hands of the avengers of blood.