παῖδες γὰρ ἀνδρὶ κληδόνες σωτήριοι
θανόντι: φελλοὶ δ᾽ ὥς ἄγουσι δίκτυον,
τὸν ἐκ βυθοῦ κλωστῆρα σώζοντες λίνου.
_Aeschylus._
§ 1. The Duty Of Maintenance Of Parents During Life, And After Death At
Their Tomb.
(M22) As the hearth was the centre of the sanctity and reverence of the
family, so the word οἶκος was the customary term to signify the smaller
group of the composite γένος, consisting of a man and his immediate
descendants. In the first place, the individual was absolutely committed
to sacrifice all his personal feelings for the sake of the continuity of
his οἶκος, and this was his supreme duty. But whereas several οἶκοι traced
their descent from a common ancestor, a group of gradually diverging lines
of descent were formed, sharing mutually the responsibility of the
maintenance of continuity, and the privilege of inheritance and
protection.
Before examining how far these parallel lines remained within the reach of
claims of kinship, or how soon the reverence for the more immediate
predecessors absorbed the memory of the more remote ancestor, it will be
well to have a clear understanding of what the claims of kindred were, and
how they affected the member of the οἶκος, in respect of his duties
thereto.
(M23) Plato(30) declares that honour should be given to:—
1. Olympian Gods.
2. Gods of the State.
3. Gods below.
4. Demons and Spirits.
5. Heroes.
6. Ancestral Gods.
7. _Living Parents_, “to whom we have to pay the greatest and oldest of
all debts: in property, in person, in soul; paying the debts due to them
for the care and travail which they bestowed on us of old in the days of
our infancy, and which we are now to pay back to them when they are old
and in the extremity of their need.”
(M24) The candidates for the archonship were asked, among other things,
whether they treated their parents properly.(31) It was only in case of
some indelible stain, such as wife-murder, that the debt of maintenance of
the parent was cancelled.(32) Yet even when the father had lost his right
of maintenance by crime or foul treatment, the son was still bound to bury
him when he died and to perform all the customary rites at his tomb.(33)
“Is it not,” says Isaeus, “a most unholy thing, if a man, without having
done any of the customary rites due to the dead, yet expects to take the
inheritance of the dead man’s property?”(34)
(M25) The duty of maintenance of the parent thus extended even beyond the
tomb, and this retrospective attitude of the individual gives us the clue
to his position of responsibility also with regard to posterity.
The strongest representation possible of this attitude is given in the
_Ordinances of Manu_, where it is stated that a man “goes to hell” who has
no son to offer at his death the funeral cake.
(M26) “No world of heaven exists for one not possessed of a son.” The
debt, owed by the living member of a family to his _manes_, was to provide
a successor to perform the rites necessary to them after his own death.
“By means of the eldest son, as soon as he is born, a man becomes
possessed of a son and is thus cleared of his debt to the _manes_”
“A husband is born again on earth in his son.”
“If among many brothers born of one father, _one_ should have a
son, Manu said all those brothers would be possessed of sons by
means of that son.”
_i.e._ one representative was sufficient as regards the duties to the
_manes_ in the house of the grandfather.
“Thro’ a son one conquers worlds, thro’ a son’s son one attains
endlessness, and through the son’s son of a son one attains the
world of the Sun.”
“The sort of reward one gets on crossing the water by means of bad
boats is the sort of reward one gets on crossing the darkness (to
the next world) by means of bad sons.”(35)
(M27) Plato expresses the same feeling in the _Laws_:(36)
“After a sort the human race naturally partakes of immortality, of
which all men have the greatest desire implanted in them; for the
desire of every man that he may become famous, and not lie in the
grave without a name, is only the love of continuance ... In this
way they are immortal leaving [children’s] children behind them,
with whom they are one in the unity of generation. And for a man
voluntarily to deprive himself of this gift of immortality, as he
deliberately does who will not have a wife and children, is
_impiety_.”
The functions and duties of the individual towards his family and
relations thus find their explanation in his position as link, between the
past and the future, in the transmission to eternity of his family blood.
His duties to his ancestors began with the death of his father. He had at
Athens to carry out the corpse, provide for the cremation, gather the
remains of the burnt bones, with the assistance of the rest of the
kindred,(37) and show respect to the dead by the usual form of shaving the
head, wearing mourning clothes, and so on. Nine days after the funeral he
must perform certain sacrifices and periodically after that visit the
tombs and altars of his family in the family burying-place.(38) If he had
occasion to perform military service, he must serve in the tribe and the
deme of his parent (στρατεύειν ἐν τῇ φυλῇ καὶ ἐν τῷ δήμῳ).(39) Before he
can enter into his inheritance he must fulfil all the ordinances incumbent
on one in his position, and in the Gortyn Laws it is stated that an
adopted heir cannot partake of the property of his adoptive father unless
he undertakes the sacred duties of the house of the deceased.(40) Thus the
right of ownership of the family estate rested always with the possession
of the blood of the former owners; and such a representative demonstrated
his right by stepping into his predecessor’s shoes and by taking upon
himself all responsibility for the fulfilment of the rites, thereafter to
be performed to him also when he shall have been gathered to the majority
of his family.
§ 2. The Duty Of Providing Male Succession.
But however piously and carefully he performed his many duties to his
ancestors, his work was only transitory and incomplete, unless he provided
a successor to continue them after him into further generations.
(M28) The procreation of children was held to be of such importance at
Sparta(41) that if a wife had no children, with the full knowledge of her
husband she admitted some other citizen to her, and children born from
such a union were reckoned as born to the continuation of her husband’s
family, without breach of the former relations of husband and wife.(42)
This is the exact custom stated in the _Ordinances of Manu_ (ix. 59),
where it is laid down that a wife can be “commissioned” by her husband to
bear him a son, but she must only take a kinsman within certain degrees,
whose connection with her ceases on the birth of one son.(43) Otherwise it
was a man’s duty to divorce a barren wife and take another. But he must
divorce the first, and could not have two hearths or two wives.(44)
A curious instance of how this sentiment worked in practice in directly
the opposite direction to our modern ideas, is mentioned in Herodotus.
Leaders of forlorn hopes nowadays would be inclined to pick out as
comrades the unmarried men, as having least to sacrifice and fewest duties
to forego. Whereas Leonidas, in choosing the 300 men to make their famous
and fatal stand at Thermopylae, is stated to have selected all _fathers
with sons living_.(45)
Hector is made to use this idea in somewhat similar manner. He encourages
his soldiers with:—
“If a man fall fighting for his fatherland, it is no dishonourable
thing: and his wife and his children left behind, and his οἶκος
and κλῆρος are unharmed, if the Achaians go but back to their own
country.”(46)
If the enemy are driven out, though he be killed himself, yet if he leave
children behind, his household and their property will remain unharmed.
All about to die, says Isaeus, take thought not to leave their οἶκος
desolate (ἔρημος),(47) but that there shall be some one to carry the name
of their house down to posterity, who shall perform all the customary
rites at the tomb due to them also when they shall have joined the ranks
of ancestors.(48)
Where children were reckoned of the tribe of their father and not of their
mother, and where a woman was incapable of performing sacred rites, a male
heir was necessary for the direct transmission of blood and property. Sons
entered upon their inheritance immediately on the death of their father,
nor had he the power to dispossess them in favour of others, whilst
brothers, cousins, legatees, had always to prove their title and procure
judgment from the court in their favour.(49)
(M29) Failing sons however, the next descent lay through a daughter. Nor
were her qualifications in herself complete or sufficient in theory to
form the necessary link in the chain of succession. The next of kin male
had to marry her with the property of which she was ἐπίκληρος;(50) but
neither she nor he really possessed the property, and the sons born from
the marriage succeeded thereto directly on attaining a certain age. The
next of kin had in the meantime of course to represent his wife’s father
in all the religious observances, and was said to have power to live with
the woman (κύριος συνοικῆσαι τῇ γυναικί), but not to dispose of the
property (κύριος τῶν χρημάτων);(51) the sons becoming κύριοι τῶν χρημάτων
at sixteen years old, and owing thence only maintenance (τρέφειν) to their
mother from the property.(52) The heiress was compelled to marry at a
certain age and was adjudicated by law to the proper kinsman.(53)
Again an exact parallel is to be found in the _Ordinances of Manu_:—
“One who is without a son should, by the following rule, make his
daughter provide him a son:—‘The offspring which may be hers shall
be for me the giver of offerings to the _manes_.’ ”
The whole property of a man is taken by this daughter’s son,(54) and, by
her bearing a son, _her father_ “becomes possessed of a son, who should
give the funeral cake and take the property.”(55)
If she die without a son, her husband would take (presumably by a sort of
adoption).(56) But this would be perfectly natural, if, as in Greece, her
husband was bound to be the next of kin and therefore heir failing issue
from her.
(M30) At Athens it was part of the office of the archon to see that no
οἶκος failed for want of representatives, to constrain a reluctant heiress
to marry or to compel the next of kin to perform his duty. Plato(57) asks
pardon for his imaginary legislator, if he shall be found to give the
daughter of a man in marriage having regard only to the two
conditions—nearness of kin, and the preservation of the property;
disregarding, in his zeal for these, the further considerations, which the
father himself might be expected to have had, with regard to the
suitability of the match.(58)
(M31) A certain leniency was however allowed to the heiress who was
unwilling to marry an obnoxious kinsman, and to the kinsman who had
counterclaims upon him in his own house. Nevertheless the rules remained
very strict. Isaeus states emphatically,(59) “Often have men been
compelled by law to give up their properly wedded wives, owing to their
becoming ἐπίκληροι through the death of their brother to their father’s
property and having to marry the next of kin (τοῖς ἐγγυτάτα γένους),” to
prevent the extinction of their father’s house.
Manu warns those about to marry to be careful that their children shall
not be required to continue their wives’ father’s family, to the
desolation of their own.
“She who has not a brother ... let not a wise man marry her,
through fear of the law about a daughter’s son.”(60)
Again Isaeus:—
“We, because of our nearness of kin, would have been compelled to
maintain (γηροτροφεῖν) our aged grandfather and either ourselves
marry Cleonymos’ (our uncle’s) daughters or give them away with
their portions to others and all this our kinship, the laws, and
_our shame_ would have compelled us to perform or incur the
greatest penalties and the _utmost disgrace_.”(61)
(M32) In the laws of Gortyn very clear rules are laid down to be followed
where there were difficulties in the way of the heiress marrying the next
of kin.
“The heiress shall marry the eldest brother of her father that is
alive. If there are more heiresses and uncles, they shall ever
marry the eldest. If there are no uncles but sons of uncles, she
shall marry the son of her father’s eldest brother. If there are
more than one heiress and sons of uncles, they shall ever marry
the son of the eldest in order: but a man shall not marry more
than one heiress”(62)
There is also a statement made by Demosthenes(63) that sounds as if it
might have come from the _Ordinances of Manu_. It is there stated that if
there were more than one heiress, _only one_ need be dealt with in respect
to _providing succession_, though all shared in the property.
The law of Gortyn goes on:—
“If the man will not marry her, though of age and wishing to
marry, the guardians of the heiress shall sue, and the judge shall
condemn him to marry her in two months. If he will not marry her,
according to the law, she shall have all the property and shall
marry the next of kin (after him) if there is one....
“If she is of age and does not wish to marry the next of kin or if
he is a minor and she does not wish to wait, she ... can marry
whom she will of those who claim her of the tribe. But she shall
apportion off his share of the property to the first of kin.
“If there are no kin to her, she shall have all the property and
marry whom she will of the tribe.
“If no one of the tribe will marry her, her guardians shall ask
throughout the tribe, ‘ Will any marry her?’ And if any one then
marries her, he shall do it in thirty days after the ‘asking.’ But
if there is still no one, she shall marry any one else she can.”
Such pains were taken to find a representative for the deceased in his
family, or at any rate in his _tribe_.(64)
(M33) The same questions seem to have arisen amongst the Israelites in the
time of Moses.
Numbers xxxvi. 8. “And every daughter that possesseth an
inheritance (LXX. ἀγχιστεύουσα κληρονομίαν) in any tribe of the
children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the
tribe of her father (ἐνὶ τῶν ἐκ τοῦ δήμου τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῆς), that
the children of Israel may enjoy (ἀγχιστεύειν) every man the
inheritance of his fathers.
“Even as the Lord commanded Moses, so did the daughters of
Zelophehad.
“For Mahlah, Tirzah and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the
daughters of Zelophehad, were married unto their father’s
brother’s sons (LXX. τοῖς ἀνεψιοῖς αὐτῶν).”
§ 3. The Position Of The Widow Without Child And The Duties Of An Only
Daughter.
(M34) The _levirate_, or marriage with deceased husband’s brother, seems
to have had no place in Greek family law. The wife was of no _kin_
necessarily to the husband; and so it would not tend to strengthen the
transmission of blood if the next of kin married the widow on taking the
inheritance of his relative deceased without issue. The wife in Greek law
could not inherit from her husband, whose property went to his father’s or
mother’s relations; and only when it became a question of finding an heir
to her _son_, and failing all near paternal kinsmen, could the inheritance
pass through her, and then as the mother of her dead son, not as widow of
her dead husband. Even then, being a woman, she had no right of enjoyment,
only of transmission. She could only inherit on behalf of her issue by a
second husband, and failing her issue the inheritance would pass to her
brothers and so on. In Greece the claim upon the δαήρ (Latin _levir_) for
marriage seems to have begun with his brother’s daughter, not his
brother’s widow.
(M35) The childless widow on the death of her husband had to return to her
own family or whoever of her kindred was guardian (κύριος) of her, and if
she wished, be given again in marriage by him.(65)
The woman at Athens even after marriage always retained her κύριος or
guardian,(66) who was at once her protector and trustee. He was probably
the head of the οἶκος to which she originally belonged—her next of kin—and
had great power over her.(67)
A case there is(68) where the heir to the property also takes the wife of
the previous owner; but in this case the husband may have been κύριος of
his own wife, and so could bequeath, or give her away to whomever he
liked.(69)
In the _Ordinances of Manu_, the limitations of the levirate are very
strictly defined.(70) In the case of a man leaving a widow, she must not
marry again, or she lost her place in heaven by his side.
But if she was childless, the next of kin of her husband must beget one
son by her; he did not _marry_ her, and his connection with her _ceased on
the birth of a son_.
(M36) The laws of Manu otherwise are strict against the marriage of close
relations; a restriction not found in Greece.
Isaeus(71) mentions that it was thought quite natural for a man to marry
his first cousin in order to concentrate the family blood, and prevent her
dowry or whatever property might come to her from going outside his οἶκος,
and we know that even marriage with a half-sister (not born of the same
mother) was not forbidden.
There are more instances than one in Homer of a man marrying his aunt, or
niece.
The nearest resemblance to the levirate in Greece is the occasional custom
at Sparta, mentioned already, of a wife being “commissioned” to bear
children by another man into the family of her husband. But this exists in
Manu, side by side with the above-mentioned custom of levirate proper.
(M37) Among the Israelites, the levirate was in full force; the craving
for continuance was the same as among the followers of Manu and the
Greeks; and the custom with regard to heiresses is so vividly told that it
is worth quoting at some length.
Deut. xxv. 5. “If brethren dwell together and one of them die and
have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a
stranger: her husband’s brother [_i.e._ next of kin] shall go in
unto her and take her to him to wife and perform the duty of an
husband’s brother to her.
“And it shall be that the firstborn which she beareth shall
_succeed in the name of his brother that is dead_, that his name
be not put out of Israel.
“And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his
brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders and say, ‘My
husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in
Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.’
“Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak unto him:
and if he stand to it and say, ‘I like not to take her,’ then
shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the
elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his
face, and shall answer and say: ‘So shall it be done unto that man
that will not build up his brother’s house (LXX. οἶκος).’
“And his name shall be called in Israel, ‘The house (οἶκος) of him
that hath his shoe loosed.’ ”
(M38) Such was the scorn felt for the man who refused to perform the
duties of nearest kinsman. In the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis is told
the story of Tamar, the wife of Judah’s eldest son who died childless. The
second son’s refusal to raise up seed to his brother because he knows that
_his own name will not be perpetuated thereby, but his brother’s_, meets
with summary punishment. “And the thing that he did was evil in the sight
of the Lord, and He slew him also.”(72) Afterwards, when it was reported
to her father-in-law that Tamar had a child by some one not of his family,
he was exceedingly wroth, and said, “Bring her forth and let her be
burnt.” Accordingly, after he had received his own “tokens” from her hand,
his approval of her action, in her desire to perpetuate the name of her
dead husband, is all the more striking, and shows how real such a claim as
Tamar’s was in the practice of those days, extreme though her action was
felt to be. And Judah acknowledged his tokens and said, “She hath been
more righteous than I: because that I gave her not to Shelah my [youngest]
son.”
(M39) The statement of the customary procedure in Deuteronomy is very
picturesquely illustrated and fulfilled in detail in the story of Ruth,
who though only a daughter-in-law takes the position of heiress through a
sort of adoption by her mother-in-law Naomi, on her refusal to go back to
her own people. “Where thou goest, I will go: where thou lodgest, I will
lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God. Where thou
diest will I die, and there will I be buried.” She accepts Naomi’s hearth
her kin, her religion, and finally her tomb.
Elimelech and his two sons dying in Moab, Naomi and both her
daughters-in-law are left widows in a strange land. If Naomi had other
sons, upon them would have devolved the duty of taking Orpah and Ruth to
wife. But Naomi declares herself(73) too old to marry again and be the
mother of sons, and implores her daughters-in-law to return to their own
people in Moab, where she hopes they will start afresh with new husbands,
a course which seems always to have been open to wives in tribal
communities. Orpah does so, but Ruth elects to remain with Naomi, and
returning with her to Bethlehem takes her chance among the kindred of
Elimelech. Happening to arrive at Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley
harvest, it so chances that Ruth goes forth to glean upon that part of the
open field which belonged to Boaz—a rich man of the συγγενία of Elimelech,
who, having heard of her devotion to Naomi and the house of his late
kinsmen, protects her from possible insult from strangers and treats her
richly. On her return home Naomi informs her that Boaz is of their next of
kin (τῶν ἀγχιστευόντων)(74) whose place it was to redeem property sold or
lost by a kinsman. This duty is thus set forth in Leviticus:—
(M40) Lev. xxv. 25. “And if thy brother be waxen poor and sell
some of his possession, then shall his kinsman (ἀγχιστεύων) that
is next to him come and shall redeem that which his brother hath
sold.”
An instance of it in practice is given in Jeremiah.
Jerem. xxxii. 8. “So Hanameel mine uncle’s son came to me in the
court of the guard according to the word of the Lord and said unto
me, ‘Buy my field, I pray thee, that is in Anathoth which is in
the land of Bethlehem: for the right of inheritance is thine, and
the redemption is thine: buy it for thyself.’ ”
But on Ruth’s applying to Boaz, he informs her that though he is
ἀγχιστεύς, _i.e._ within the reach of the claim on the next of kin, yet is
there one ἀγχιστεύς who is nearer than he, and who must first be asked.
“Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there, and behold the
near kinsman of whom Boaz spake came by, unto whom he said, ‘Ho,
such an one! turn, aside, sit down here,’ and he turned aside and
sat down. And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said,
‘Sit ye down here,’ and they sat down. And he said unto the near
kinsman, ‘Naomi that is come again out of the country of Moab
selleth the parcel of land which was our brother Ehmelech’s: and I
thought to disclose it to thee, saying, “Buy it before them that
sit here and before the elders of my people.” If thou wilt redeem
it, redeem it; but if thou wilt not redeem it, tell me that I may
know; for there is none to redeem it beside thee, and I am after
thee.’ And he said, ‘I will redeem it.’ Then said Boaz, ‘What day
thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi thou must buy it also
of Ruth the Moabitess, _the wife of the dead, to raise up the name
of the dead upon his inheritance_.’ And the near kinsman said, ‘I
cannot redeem it for myself _lest I mar my own inheritance_; take
thou my right of redemption on thee; for I cannot redeem it.’ ”
The rendering of the Vulgate of the kinsman’s reply is more easily
understood:—“I yield up my right of near kinship: for neither ought I to
blot out the continuance (_posteritas_) of my family: do thou use my
privilege, which I declare that I freely renounce.”
“And he drew off his shoe. And Boaz said unto the elders and unto
all the people, ‘Ye are witnesses this day that I have bought all
that was Elimelech’s ... Chilion’s and Mahlon’s of the hand of
Naomi. Moreover Ruth, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be
my wife to _raise up the name of the dead_ upon his inheritance,
that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren
and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.’ And
all the people that were in the gate and the elders said, ‘We are
witnesses ... May thy house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar
bare unto Judah’ &c.”
Now Boaz was sixth in descent from this Perez whose mother Tamar, as
quoted above, had been in much the same position as Ruth.
It is interesting to read further that the son born of this marriage of
Ruth and Boaz is taken by the women of Bethlehem to Naomi, saying, “_There
is a son born to Naomi_,” emphasising the duty of the heiress to bear a
son, not into her husband’s family, but to that of her father.
The story of Ruth is not, therefore, an exact example of the custom of
levirate. But it illustrates incidentally the unity of the family. The
sons of Elimelech died before the family division had taken place, and the
house of Elimelech their father was thus in jeopardy of extinction. If
Naomi had come within the proper operation of the levirate, the next of
kin ought to have married _her_, but by her adoption of Ruth as her
daughter, she gave Ruth the position of heiress or ἐπίκληρος, whilst the
heir born to Ruth was called son, not of Ruth’s former or present husband,
but of Elimelech and (by courtesy) of Naomi, Elimelech’s widow, through
whom the issue ought otherwise to have been found.
§ 4. Succession Through A Married Daughter: Growth Of Adoption:
Introduction Of New Member To Kinsmen.
(M41) But if the heiress was already married and had sons, she need not be
divorced and marry the next of kin, though that still lay in her power. It
was considered sufficient if she set apart one of her sons to be heir to
her father’s house. But she must do this absolutely: her son must entirely
leave her husband’s house and be enfranchised into the house of her
father. If she did not do this with all the necessary ceremonies, the
house of her father would become extinct, which would be a lasting shame
upon her.
Isaeus(75) mentions a case where a wife inherits from her deceased brother
a farm and persuades her husband to emancipate their second son in order
that he may carry on the family of her brother and take the property.
(M42) In another passage(76) the conduct of married sisters in not
appointing one of their own sons to take his place as son in the house of
their deceased brother, and in absorbing the property into that of their
husbands, whereby the οἶκος of their brother became ἔρημος, is described
as shameful (αἰσχρῶς).
In Demosthenes(77) a man behaving in similar wise is stigmatised as
ὑβριστής.
(M43) Herein lay the reason that adoption became so favourite a means in
classical times of securing an heir. It became almost a habit among the
Athenians who had no sons, to adopt an heir—often even the next of kin who
would naturally have succeeded to the inheritance.(78)
The transfer of the adopted son from the οἶκος of his father to the οἶκος
he was chosen to represent was so real that he lost all claim to
inheritance in his original family, and henceforth based his relationship
and rights of kinship from his new position as son of his adoptive father.
This absolutely insured the childless man that his successor would not
merge the inheritance in that of another οἶκος, and made it extremely
unlikely that he would neglect his religious duties as they would be
henceforth his own ancestral rites.
Sometimes, it seems,(79) sons of an unfortunate father were adopted into
another οἶκος so as not to share in the disgrace brought upon their
family. In such a case presumably their father’s house would be allowed to
become extinct.
(M44) The inheritance of property being only an accessory to the
heirship,(80) the ceremony of adoption consisted of an introduction to the
kindred and to the ancestral altars, and an assumption of the
responsibilities connected therewith.
(M45) The process was the same as for the proclamation of the true blood
of a son, and was exactly in accordance with tribal instincts.
Whatever the history of the φρατρία at Athens, in it seems to have been
accumulated a great number of the survivals of tribal sentiment.
(M46) The adoption at Athens took place at the gathering of the phratores
in order that all the kin might be present (παρόντων τῶν συγγενῶν).(81)
The adopter must lead his son to the sacrifices on the altars(82) and must
show him to the kinsmen (συγγενεῖς or γεννῆται) and phratores: he must
give assurance on the sacrifices that the young man was born in lawful
wedlock from free citizens. This done, and no one questioning his rights,
the assembly proceeded to vote(83) and if the vote was in his favour, then
and not till then he was enrolled in the common register (εἰς τὸ κοινὸν
γραμματεῖον) of the phratria in the name of son of his adopted father. As
a father could not without reason disinherit his true-born sons, so the
phratores could not without reason refuse to accept them to the
kinship.(84)
If any of the phratores objected to the admission of the new kinsman, he
must stop the sacrifices and remove the victim from the altar.(85) He
would have to state the grounds of his objection, and if he could not
produce good reasons, he incurred a fine. If there was no objection, the
unsacrificial parts of the victim were divided up and each member took
home with him his share,(86) or joined in a feast provided by the father
of the admitted son.(87)
(M47) The ceremonial given in the Gortyn laws is similar:—
x. 33. “The adoption shall take place in the agora when all the
citizens have assembled, from the stone from which speeches are
made. And the adopter shall give to his own brotherhood (ἑταιρεία)
a victim-for-sacrifice and a vessel of wine (πρόκοος).”
The adopted son gets all the property and shall fulfil the divine and
human duties of his adoptive father(88) and shall inherit as in the law
for true-born sons. But if he does not fulfil them according to law, the
next of kin shall take the property. He can only renounce his adoption by
paying a fine.
The adopted son thus introduced was considered to have become of the blood
of his adoptive father, and was unable to leave his new family and return
to his original home unless he left in the adoptive house a son to carry
on the name to posterity. As long as he remained in the other οἶκος,
_i.e._ had not provided for his succession and by certain legal ceremonies
been readmitted to his former family, he was considered of no relationship
to them and had no right of inheritance in their goods.(89)
An adopted son could not adopt or devise by will, and if he did not
provide for the succession by leaving a son to follow him, the property
went back into the family and to the next of kin of his adopted
father.(90)
If he did return to his former οἶκος, leaving a son in his place and that
son died, he could not return and take the property thus left without heir
direct.(91)
(M48) Adoption amongst the Hindoos took place in like manner before the
convened kindred. The adopting father offered a burnt-offering, and with
recitation of holy words in the middle of his dwelling completed the
adoption with these words:—
“I take thee for the fulfilment of my religious duties; I take
thee to continue the line of my ancestors.”(92)
The adopted son should be as near a relation as possible, and when once
the ceremony had taken place, was considered to have as completely lost
his position in his former family as if he had never been born
therein.(93)
(M49) The introduction into the deme which took place at the age of
eighteen at Athens, including the enrolment in the ληξιαρχικόν
γραμματεῖον, seems to have been a registration of rights of property and
an assumption of the full status of citizen. The word ληξιαρχικός is
defined by Harpocration as meaning “capable of managing the ancestral
estate (τὰ πατρῷα οἰκονομεῖν).” The word λῆξις is used by Isaeus for the
application, by others than direct descendants, to the Archon for the
necessary powers to take their property.
It appears to have been at this period that the young man left the ranks
of boyhood and dedicated himself to the responsibilities of his life.
(M50) Plutarch(94) states that it was the custom at coming of age to
tonsure the head and offer the hair to some god, and describes the young
Theseus as adopting what we know as the Celtic tonsure, thenceforth called
after his name.
“The custom still being in existence at that time for those
quitting childhood to go to Delphi and dedicate(95) their hair to
the god, Theseus also went to Delphi (and the place is still
called after him the Theseia, so they say) and _shaved the hair of
his head in front only_ (ἐκείρατο τὰ πρόσθεν μόνον) Homer says the
Abantes do:(96) and this kind of tonsure (κουρά) is called
‘Theseis’ because of him. Now the Abantes first shaved themselves
in this manner, not in imitation of the Arabs(97) as some have it,
nor even in emulation of the Mysians, but being a warlike people
and fighting hand to hand, ... as Archilochos testifies. For this
reason Alexander is said to have ordered his Macedonians to shave
their beards....”
This cutting the hair as token of dedication to any particular object or
deity was of common occurrence. Achilles’ hair was dedicated as an
offering to the river Spercheios in case of his safe return.(98) Knowing
that this is impossible, in his grief at the death of Patroklos, with
apologies to the god he cuts his flowing locks and lays them in the hand
of his dead friend.
Pausanias declares that it was the custom with all the Greeks to dedicate
their hair to rivers.(99)
Theophrastus(100) mentions as a characteristic of the man of Petty
Ambition that he will “take his son away to Delphi to have his hair cut
(ἀποκεῖραι),” showing that this venerable custom had by that time become
pedantic and an object of ridicule.
According to Athenaeus,(101) when the young men cut their hair they
brought a large cup of wine to Herakles and, pouring a libation, offered
it to the assembled people to drink.
The age at which the hair was cut seems to have varied. The _Ordinances of
Manu_(102) give the following instructions:—
“The Keçanta (tonsure-rite) is ordered in the sixteenth year(103)
of a Brahman, in the twenty-second of a Ksatriya, and in two years
more after that for a Vaiçya.”
But whenever the actual tonsure was performed, it seems to have been a
very widely spread custom, symbolical in some way of devotion to a deity
or kindred, or to some particular course of life.
Its importance in this place, however, lies in its being one of the
special acts relating to the admission to tribal status, and to the
devotion, so to speak, of the services of the individual to the corporate
needs of his tribe or kindred.
The public introduction to the kindred, combined with publicity of
marriage and of the birth of children would, it is obvious, be a very
important protection for the preservation of the jealously guarded purity
of the tribal blood. Isaeus(104) says that all relations (προσήκοντες),
all the phratores, and most (οἱ πολλοί) of the demesmen would know whom a
man married, and what children he had. This, in addition to the oath
(πίστις) of the father or of the mother(105) of the legitimacy of the son
introduced to his kin, would seem a very sufficient safeguard.(106)
If a child was not introduced to the phratores, it was considered
illegitimate,(107) and could have no share in the rites of kindred and
property.(108)
§ 5. The Liability For Bloodshed.
(M51) A notable feature of the tribal system all over the world was the
_blood-feud_, wiped out only by the death of the manslayer or by the
payment of a sufficient recompense. The incidence of the responsibility
for murder and for payment of the recompense upon a group instead of only
on the guilty individual was of remarkable tenacity, and survived to
comparatively late days.
In Arabia the whole tribe of the murderer subscribed to the blood-money,
which went to all the males in the tribe of the murdered man.(109)
But in Greece the responsibility fell upon the next of kin, with the help
and under the supervision of the rest of the immediate kindred. He had to
see that a spear was carried in front of the funeral of the slain man and
planted in his grave, which must be watched for three days.(110) He must
make proclamation of the foul deed at the tomb, and must undergo
purificatory rites, himself and his whole house (οἰκία). If the dead body
be found in the country and no cause of death known, the demarch must
compel the relatives to bury the corpse and to purify the deme on the same
day.(111)
The subject is a familiar one in Homer. The wanderer (μετανάστης) is said
to have no value (he is ἀτίμητος), no fine is exacted for his death.
_Il._ xiv. 483. “That my brother’s price (κασιγνήτοιο ποινή) be
not unpaid: even for this it is that a man may well pray to have
some kinsman in his halls (γνωτὸν ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν) to avenge
(ἀλκτήρ) his fall.”
_Il._ ix. 634. “Yet doth a man accept recompense of his brother’s
murderer: or for his dead son: and so the manslayer for a great
price abideth in his own land (ἐν δήμῳ) and the other’s heart is
appeased and his proud soul, when he hath taken the
recompense.”(112)
(M52) There are many men told of in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ who were in
the position of refugees at the court of some chief. As many of them were
wealthy—chiefs’ sons or even chiefs—and well able to pay large
recompenses, it seems probable that (as is definitely stated in some
instances), if the murder was committed on a member of the same family or
tribe as the murderer, the only way to wipe out the stain was by death or
perpetual exile, as in the case of the typical fratricide Cain. The
blood-price was then only between tribe and tribe or city and city. Within
the kindred there would be no ransom allowed.(113)
Medon had slain the brother of his step-mother and was a fugitive from his
country.(114)
Epeigeus _ruled_ (ἤνασσε) fairest Boudeion of old, but having slain a good
man of his kin (ανεψιόν), to Peleus fled, a suppliant.(115)
Tlepolemos slew his own father’s maternal uncle, gathered much folk
together and fled across the sea, because the other sons and grandsons of
his father threatened him.(116)
_Il._ xxiv. 479. “And as when a grievous curse cometh upon a man
who in his own country (ἐνὶ πάτρη) hath slain another and escapeth
to a land of other folk (δῆμον ἄλλων) to the house of some rich
man, and wonder possesseth them that look on him....”(117)
_Od._ xv. 272. “Having slain a man of my tribe (ἔμφυλον): and many
are his relations (κασίγνητοι) and kinsmen (ἔται) in Argos: at
their hands do I shun death and black fate and am in exile.”
_Od._ xxiii. 118. “For whoso hath slain but one man in his country
(ἐνὶ δήμῳ) for whom there be not many avengers (ἀοσσητῆρες)
behind, he fleeth leaving his kin (πηούς) and his fatherland, how
then we who have slain the pillar of the state!”
(M53) If ransom there was none for the murderer within the tribe, there
was equally none for murders between citizen and citizen,—in this point
also the inheritors of the sentiments of tribesmen. In the law of
Solon(118) it was forbidden to take payment in compensation from the
murderer:—
“The murderer can be slain in our land, not tortured, not held to
ransom (μηδὲ ἀποινᾷν).”
Plato(119) describes the soul of the deceased as troubled with a great
anger against the murderer, so that even the innocent and unintentional
homicide must needs flee at any rate for a year. The presence too of a man
thus denied with bloodshed at the sacred altars was held to be a gross
impiety and source of divine anger. Plato(120) says:—
“The murderer shall be slain, but not buried in the country (χώρα)
of the deceased, which would be a disgrace and impiety.”(121)
In the case of a suicide, the hand that committed the crime was to be cut
off and buried separately.
In Isacus(122) it is related how Euthukrates in a quarrel over a
boundary-stone was so flogged by his _brother_ Thoudippos that, dying some
days after, he charged his friends (οἱκεῖοι) not to allow any of
Thoudippos’ people (τῶν Θουδίππου) to approach his tomb. But if the
murdered man before his death forgave his murderer, the relatives could
not proceed against him.
If the murderer escaped fleeing he must go forever: if he returned he
could be killed at sight by any one and with impunity.(123) The pollution
rested on the whole kindred of the murdered man.
“Whosoever _being related to the deceased_ on the male or female
side of those within the cousinship shall not prosecute the
murderer when he ought or proclaim him outlaw, he shall _take upon
himself __ the pollution_ and the hatred of the gods ... and he
shall be in the power of any who is willing to avenge the
dead.”(124)
The pollution cannot be washed out until the homicidal soul has given life
for life and has laid to sleep the wrath of the whole family
(ξυγγένια).(125)
If it is a beast that has killed the man, it shall be slain to propitiate
the kin and atone for the blood shed.
If it is a lifeless thing that has caused death, it shall solemnly be cast
out before witnesses to acquit the whole family from guilt.(126)
Amongst the Israelites, treating of homicides _amongst themselves_,
compensation was forbidden in like manner.
Numbers xxxv. 31. “Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the
life of a murderer which is guilty of death: but he shall surely
be put to death.
“... The land cannot be cleansed of blood that is shed therein but
by the blood of him that shed it.”
Let us complete this subject with the following story told by
Herodotus:(127)—Adrastus, having slain his brother, flees to the court of
Croesus. There he becomes as a son to Croesus and a brother to Atys,
Croesus’ son. This Atys Adrastus has the terrible misfortune to slay,
thereby incurring a three-fold pollution. He has brought down upon himself
the triple wrath of Zeus Katharsios, Ephestios, and Hetaireios: he has
violated his own innocence, his protector’s hearth, and the comradeship of
his friend.
In despair he commits suicide.