We have already hinted[33] that the discrimination between degrees of guilt in homicide cases, which is extremely minute in the laws of Plato, and which is present in a cruder form in the Draconian code, finds its ultimate origin in the old customs of tribal life. Bearing this hypothesis in mind, we are not surprised to discover that such matters as wounding _without intent_, which is not mentioned in Dracon’s code and which therefore was not a matter for compulsory prosecution in Attic state courts, can nevertheless be subjects for adjudication in the courts of the clans. Of course, the ‘guardians of the laws’ whom Plato mentions are technically officers of Plato’s ideal State, but the main factors in the trial are doubtless derived from actual clan tribunals which operated in Plato’s own experience, unless the ‘guardians of the laws’ are to be interpreted as symbolical of the appellant jurisdiction of the State. Glotz, of course, thinks[34] that at no time was kin-bloodshed a matter for Greek State courts, but we shall see, later, that this view is most probably incorrect. Plato insists that the judges who condemn to death the child who is guilty of wounding its parent must not be akin to the child. This principle need not imply that the judges must have been State judges. In the phratry and in the tribe one could find many men over sixty years of age who were not akin to such an offender. The fact that these judges in historical times had the power of condemning an offender to death is probably to be attributed to a survival of tribal jurisdiction in cases where that jurisdiction had not been definitely arrogated by the State.