Homer, in describing the Shield of Achilles, happens to mention a court which is appealed to in a dispute concerning wergeld, and such a reference is as complete a confirmation of our hypothesis as can reasonably be expected.[50] We have already given what we consider to be the correct interpretation of this passage. The Elders were Pelasgian tribal chieftains, who frequently came together and sat upon polished stones, ‘in a sacred circle,’ holding in their hands the sceptre of authority. It is quite probable, as Leaf[51] suggests, that two of the Elders acted as ‘advocates,’ and it is almost certain[52] that the two talents of gold which are mentioned were a kind of advocate’s fee which was deposited by both litigants in order to encourage the advocates to give a proper exposition of the unwritten code of the tribes. The fact that the dispute concerned the payment of wergeld, and not the reality of guilt, does not warrant the conclusion that the court of Elders could not have functioned, if it were necessary, as a murder court. It is true that in the group system of primitive tribal life there was never very much difficulty in establishing the identity of the murderer; but it is equally true that if an accusation was challenged or disputed, there must have existed a court whose decision would have been accepted as final: we cannot conceive an entire clan agreeing to pay the wergeld of 120 cows if the person who was accused of homicide had assured his own clan court that he was innocent. Now the Elders of the Homeric trial-scene would normally have adjudicated in cases of homicide between the members of different tribes; and it is possible that they would have heard appeals from tribal or phratry courts, in the event of disagreement about inter-tribal cases. The Elders are therefore the _real_ δικασπόλοι βασιλεῖς of the Homeric society. The fact that the Achaean kings are credited with this _title_ in Homer does not prove that they ever functioned as such. Leaf[53] thinks that they might have consented to hear appeals in isolated instances, but the title δικασπόλος is one which could frequently have been applied without very much significance to Achaean feudal lords who possessed a theoretical supremacy in Greek jurisdiction. Within the Achaean caste, these lords revealed no interest nor did they acknowledge any obligations in the judicial aspect of homicide. On the contrary, they frequently gave their daughters in marriage to murderers! We think, therefore, that Leaf would not now find so much difficulty in the absence of a ‘king’ in the Homeric trial-scene as he did in 1883.[54] It is not certain, of course, in what Greek areas Pelasgian groups still retained Pelasgian kings. The Minoan kings of Mycenae, Lacedaemon, and Thessaly, and other districts disappeared in the Achaean conquest. Still there survived a few Minoan or Pelasgian kings who lived in friendly alliance with the Achaeans, and who could still be