In discussing the trial-scene which is found in Homer’s description of the Shield of Achilles,[1] we were compelled incidentally to give, in anticipation, the main results of our inquiries as to the existence, in Homeric Greece, of tribunals for the trial of homicide. Previous writers on the subject, who are unaware of the differences in the organisation and nature of Pelasgian and Achaean societies, have naturally maintained that homicide in early Greece was entirely a ‘private’ affair and that trials for homicide only arose when a post-Homeric conception of murder as a ‘pollution’ compelled an investigation on the part of kings and nobles who were anxious to avert the wrath of the gods. Thus Bury says[2]: ‘This notion of manslaughter [_i.e._ homicide] as a religious offence necessarily led to the interference of the State. For when the member of a community was impure, the stain drew down the anger of the gods upon the whole community, if the unclean were not driven out. Hence it came about that the State undertook the conduct of criminal justice.’ Jevons[3] propounds a similar view, though he apparently finds more difficulties in the Homeric text. ‘There was, indeed,’ he says, ‘no State power to which the relatives of the deceased could appeal for redress, much less was there any State power which of its own motion undertook to apprehend and punish the murderer. But in Homeric times a feeling was gathering that murder was an offence against the members of the community in their collective capacity.’ Bury’s general view-point is that homicide was the only crime which called for State interference, and that there was no such interference before the doctrine of pollution arose. Other ‘crimes,’ he thinks, continued to be ‘private’ affairs until the centralisation of government brought it about that the injured party, before punishing the offenders, had to seek State authorisation in the form of trial, but in such cases the State never acted on its own initiative or responsibility. ‘It must be borne in mind,’ he says,[4] ‘that, in old days, deeds which injured only the individual and did not touch the gods or the State were left to the injured person to deal with as he chose or could. The State did not interfere. Even in the case of blood-shedding it devolved upon the kinsfolk of the slain man to wreak punishment upon the slayer. Then, as social order developed along with centralisation, the State took justice partly into its own hands: and the injured man, before he could punish the wrong-doer, was obliged to charge him before a judge, who decided the punishment. But it must be noted that no crime could come before a judge unless the injured person came forward as accuser. The case of blood-shedding was exceptional, owing to the religious ideas connected with it. It was felt that the shedder of blood was not only impure himself, but had also defiled the gods of the community: so that, as a consequence of this theory, manslaughter of