LAWS. 517 



were often sought. Through the priest who accompanied 

 the army, the commander &quot; inquired of the Lord &quot; about any 

 military movement of importance, and sometimes received 

 very definite orders; as when, before a battle with the 

 Philistines, David is told to &quot; fetch a compass behind them, 

 and come upon them over against the mulberry trees.&quot; 

 Sundry Ayran peoples furnish evidence. In common with 

 other Indian codes, the code of Manu, &quot; according to Hindoo 

 mythology, is an emanation from the supreme God.&quot; So, 

 too, was it with the Greeks. Not forgetting the tradition 

 that by an ancient Cretan king, a body of laws was brought 

 down from the mountain where Jupiter was said to be buried, 

 we may pass to the genesis of laws from special divine com 

 mands, as implied in the Homeric poems. Speaking of these 

 Grote says : 



&quot; The appropriate Greek word for human laws never occurs : amidst a 

 very wavering phraseology, we can detect a gradual transition from the 

 primitive idea of a personal goddess, Themis, attached to Zeus, first to 

 his sentences or orders called Themistes, and next by a still farther 

 remove to various established customs which those sentences were 

 believed to sanctify the authority of religion and that of custom 

 coalescing into one indivisible obligation.&quot; 



Congruous in nature was the belief that &quot; Lycurgus ob 

 tained not only his own consecration to the office of legis 

 lator, but his laws themselves from the mouth of the Delphic 

 God.&quot; To which add that we have throughout later Greek 

 times, the obtainment of special information and direc 

 tion through oracles. Evidence that among the Eomans there 

 had occurred a kindred process, is supplied by the story that 

 the ancient laws were received by Numa from the goddess 

 Egeria ; and that Numa appointed augurs by whose inter 

 pretation of signs the will of the gods was to be ascertained. 

 Even in the 9th century, under the Carolingians, there were 

 brought before the nobles &quot; articles of law named capitula, 

 which the king himself had drawn up by the inspiration of 

 God.&quot; 



Without following out the influence of like beliefs in later 



