King s Peace and English Peace- Magistracy. 1 1 



lish his claim among them."^ This sum has been variously 

 regarded as the reward of the judges,^ the wager forfeited by 

 the loser,'^ and as the wergeld and wager combined.* The 

 first of these views, which is supported by the authority of 

 Sir Henry Maine, is on the whole most in harmony with the 

 spirit of primitive jurisprudence, though weighty objections 

 to it have been advanced by Mr. Hearn.^ The general 

 character of the proceedings, however, is clearly revealed. It 

 is an action for debt ^ growing out of an alleged composition 

 for homicide, in which the representatives of the state, the 

 "gerontes," appear as arbiters. And in Homeric Greece it is 

 probable that the choice of the state as referee, at least in 

 cases of blood-guiltiness, was entirely voluntary : she pos- 

 sessed as yet no power to compel a resort to her tribunals. 

 The clan was still the chief executor of the peace. 



In Roman jurisprudence there are few traces of the blood- 

 feud or of its substitute the wergeld, save as mere sur- 

 vivals;" and it is a striking proof of Rome's comparatively 

 early legal development, that both these phases have already 

 been passed when even her traditional history begins.^ But 

 it was precisely at Rome that the gens or clan occupied a 

 place unique in history. Even after the Twelve Tables, the 

 sacra gentilicia'^ long remained of considerable social impor- 



1 Iliad, Book XVIII, 11. 501 ff. : Bohn Trans., p 351. 



2 Maine, Ancient Law, 364. ^ Grote, History of Greece, II, 73. 



* Hearn, Aryan Household, 434-5 : " For my part, I hesitate to accept a mean- 

 ing which implies such a singular competitive examination in judicial ability as 

 that which assigns the two talents to the most popular judge; and the more so as 

 the question raised — that of payment or non-payment — did not admit of the dis- 

 play of much ingenuity. The magnitude of the sum, too, even when allowance 

 has been made for the exaggeration of poetry, seems to suggest that it was, or at 

 least that it included, the blood-money for some person of rank, rather than it was 

 a fee for judicial services." 



5 See the preceding note. 6 Schomann, Antiquities of Greece, 47-8. 



" The earliest is a supposed law of Numa relating to involuntary homicide : 

 Clark, Early Roman Law, 47-49, 60-61; Muirhead, Historical Introductio7i to 

 the Private La7U of Rome, 43, note 2, 52-3. 



* Mommsen, Romische Geschichte, I, 148. 



^Muirhead, Historical Introduction, 1 13-14; Hezrn, Aryan Household, 118, 

 122 ff. ; Maine, Ancient Law, 6, 185-6. 



245 



