The first instance of ‘survival’ which we shall cite is mentioned by Glotz,[22] and in justice to him we must point out that we differ from him, not in regard to the question of the existence of clan-courts, but in regard to the nature of their judicial functions in the matter of homicide. Glotz is not aware of the distinction between the Pelasgians and the Achaeans, or of the importance of the group system in the Pelasgian civilisation. He admits that there existed within the clan a regular tribunal, composed of heads of families, who consulted and decreed, with absolute authority, on all matters affecting property, such as adoption, inheritance, expulsion, and marriage. He quotes Plato[23] for a procedure which, he presumes, was a general characteristic of the clans. We have seen that homicide, in default of wergeld, was commonly punished by exile or banishment. The following is Plato’s description of an expulsion from the clan: ‘For him upon whom there has come a desire, by no means fortunate, whether just or not, to release from relationship to himself one whom he has begotten and brought up, let it not be lawful to do this upon slight grounds or without delay; let him first bring together his own relations as far as his cousins, and also those of his son on the mother’s side, and let him accuse his son before them and prove that he deserves completely to be expelled from the family—and let him allow his son to prove equally that he does not deserve to suffer anything of the kind; and if the father can persuade and secure the votes of more than half all the relations (father, mother, son, and minors not voting),[24] then let it be lawful for the father to renounce his son: but otherwise not.’ It is most important to note here the reference to the presence of the son’s maternal relatives, for this implies an assembly of the clan or wider kindred, not merely of the gwely or descendants of a common living ancestor. It was this wider kindred which paid and accepted wergeld, even though they had not all a right of succession to family property. In the early clan system,[25] wergeld was part of the common stock which was inherited by all the wider kindred, and therefore decrees of expulsion, such as were pronounced, for instance, in default of wergeld payment, were matters for the decision of the whole clan rather than for those of the gwely or the ‘family.’ That such a procedure should have survived in Plato’s time, when property had to a great extent become ‘private’ in the modern sense, and when the political power of the clans had long since vanished into thin air, shows at once the tenacity of clan custom and the significance of Plato’s account as an argument from survivals.