truly described as defending ‘the Zeus-given θέμιστες.’ But it is also true that at the time of the Trojan war the Achaean lords would have come to be regarded as the ‘heaven-sent guardians of law,’ through the mere fact that they were ‘kings.’ Maine[55] thinks that the θέμιστες (customs) of the Homeric age were isolated judgments delivered without any orderly sequence or precedent. But Glotz[56] insists that the word θέμις is peculiarly applicable to tribal custom, as opposed to the terms δίκη and νόμος. We believe that the word generally refers to Pelasgian traditions. In the _Iliad_[57] we are told that Zeus is wrathful against men who judge crookedly in the Assembly, and drive out Justice. Who are these men? They may, of course, be Achaeans, but we think it more probable that they are the judges, and therefore the chiefs, of Pelasgian tribes—judges whose tribal successors were accused of corruption in the days of Hesiod,[58] when the Achaeans were no more. In Homer two talents of gold were offered as a reward for an advocate’s successful pleading, and the advocates were probably chosen from the same caste as the judges. From this it is but a short step to bribery and the corruption of justice. Hence we can understand the words of Hesiod: ‘The people pay for the folly of their kings, who with ill thoughts wrest aside judgments, declaring falsely. Beware of these things, ye kings, and set straight your speech, bribe-devourers, and utterly forget crooked judgments.’ And again[59]: ‘There is the noise of the haling of Justice wheresoever bribe-devouring men hale her, adjudging dooms with crooked judgments. And she followeth weeping, clad in mist and fraught with doom, unto the city and the homes of men who drive her forth.’ In ancient society social law is inseparable from religion; as Coulanges puts it[60]: ‘To disobey law is sacrilege.’ The law was regarded as the exclusive secret of the hereditary nobility,[61] who alone could interpret it and whose decision was final. The opportunities for profit-making and bribery in such a system must have been innumerable. In later times when democracy asserts itself the less-privileged orders,[62] championed sometimes by tribal or quasi-feudal kings, sometimes by usurping tyrants, equipped with mercenaries, compelled the ‘Elders’—that is, the old patriarchal sacerdotal nobility—to codify their laws and to admit to judicial power the ‘new nobility’ of wealth and the ignoble proletariat. The old nobility came then to be distinguished for the integrity of its judicial character, partly because it had lost its monopoly of power, partly because corruption could no longer be practised with impunity. ORIGIN OF HOMICIDE COURTS