There is a considerable variety and conflict of opinions about the religious aspect of homicide in Homeric Greece. We have already explained by quotations from Glotz[1] and Bury[2] the theory which conceives the shedding of human blood as a deed which, in those days, did not touch the gods or draw down the anger of the gods on the community. On the other hand, Leaf, who indicates a clear and emphatic distinction between the religious beliefs and customs of the Achaeans and the Pelasgians, holds that the Achaeans ignored and the Pelasgians respected[3] ‘the most sacred of all taboos which forbids the shedding of _kindred blood_’: for the Pelasgians retained the ‘primitive family system, with all its rites and taboos’[4] and possessed, therefore, the foundations of primitive society and religion.’[5] Again, Fustel de Coulanges, in his analysis of the primeval domestic religion of the Ancient City, says[6] that ‘the shedder of blood was no longer able to sacrifice: the hand stained with blood could not touch sacred objects.’ He believes, however, that[7] the manslayer could be purified by an expiatory ceremony. Miss Harrison holds a somewhat similar view[8]: ‘Purification,’ she says, ‘is the placation of ghosts and, unknown to the Olympians (_i.e._ _Achaeans_), was the keynote of the lower stratum (_i.e._ _Pelasgians_).’ ... ‘The extreme need of primitive man for placation is from bloodshed: this is at first obtained by offering the blood of the murderer; later, by the blood of a surrogate victim applied to him.’ ... ‘So long as primitive man preserves the custom of the blood feud, so long will he credit his dead kinsman with passions like his own.’[9] So, Müller maintains[10] that the religious rites of expiation and purification are derived from the remotest times of Greek antiquity and were designed to reinstate the slayer in religious communion with his family and his comrades. Purgation ceremonies are, he thinks,[11] based upon the idea that the manslayer must atone with his own life, but that this life may be bought off by vicarial substitution, by a sacrificial victim symbolical of such substitution. Our own views upon these subjects will appear in the course of the discussion: we shall point out, amongst other things, the distinction between expiation (ἱλασμός) and purgation (καθαρμός), and while refusing to accept on the one hand the views of Müller and of Miss Harrison, and indicating, on the other hand, the inaccuracies in the views of Glotz, Bury and the generality of writers, we shall develop and expand a theory which is suggested by Leaf’s[12] general position and which distinguishes carefully between the religious attitude of the Pelasgians and the Achaeans. To achieve this purpose it will, however, be necessary, even at the cost of a digression, to give a brief account of the evolution of early Greek religion. ANALYSIS OF EARLY GREEK RELIGION