2

payments to the injured family." In Fijian estimation, says Mr. Williams, offences "are light or grave according to the rank of the offender. Murder by a chief is less heinous than a petty larceny committed by a man of low rank." Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, "in cases of murder and manslaughter, if the homicide be of rank superior to the person killed, he pays the compensation demanded by the family of the latter, or, in default of payment, forfeits his own life. If the homicide be of equal rank with the person killed, the family of the deceased have the right to demand his life, though compensation is usually accepted; but when he is lower in rank his life is nearly always forfeited." Very similar rules prevail among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast. Among the Marea, if a nobleman kills another nobleman, the family of the deceased generally take revenge on him; whereas, if a commoner kills a nobleman, he is not only executed himself, but his property is confiscated and his nearest relatives become subject to the murdered man's family. According to the religious law of Brahmanism, the enormity of all crimes depends on the caste of him who commits them, and on the caste of him against whom they are committed. If a Brahmana slays a Brahmana, the king shall brand him on the forehead with a heated iron and banish him from his realm, but if a man of a lower caste murders a Brâhmana, he shall be punished with death and the confiscation of all his property. If such a person slays a man of equal or lower caste, other suitable punishments shall be inflicted upon him. A fine of a thousand cows is the penalty for slaying a Kshatriya, that of a hundred for slaying a Vaisya, and that of ten cows only for slaying a Sûdra." In Rome, also, at a certain period of its history, the

8

offence was magnified in proportion to the insignificance of the offender. During the Republic there was no law sanctioning such a distinction, with reference to crimes. committed by free citizens; but from the beginning of the Empire, the citizens were divided into privileged classes and commonalty-uterque ordo and plebs-and, whilst a commoner who was guilty of murder was punished with death, a murderer belonging to the privileged classes was generally punished with deportatio only. In the Middle Ages a similar privilege was granted by Italian and Spanish laws to manslayers of noble birth.2

In a society which is divided into different classes, persons belonging to a higher class are naturally apt to sympathise more with their equals than with their inferiors. An injury inflicted on one of the former tends to arouse in them a higher degree of sympathetic resentment than a similar injury inflicted on one of the latter. So, also, their resentment towards the criminal will, ceteris paribus, be more intense if he is a person of low rank than if he is one of themselves. Where the superior class, as was originally the case everywhere, are the leaders of such a society, their feelings will find expression in its customs and laws, and thus moral distinctions will arise which are readily recognised by the common people also, owing to the admiration with which they look up to those above them. But in a progressive society this state of things will not last. The different classes gradually draw nearer to each other. The once all-powerful class loses much of its exclusiveness, as well as of its importance and influence. Sympathy expands. In consequence, distinctions which were formerly sanctioned by custom and law come to be regarded as unjust prerogatives, worthy only of abolition. And it is at last admitted that each member of the society is born with an equal claim to the most sacred of all human rights, the right to live.

1 Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, pp. 650, 1032 sqq.

2 Du Boys, Histoire du droit criminel

VOL. I

des peuples modernes, ii. 402. Idem, Histoire du droit criminel de l'Espagne, pp. 357, 359. Cf. ibid. p. 635 sq.

F

CHAPTER XIX

HUMAN SACRIFICE

It still remains for us to consider some particular cases in which destruction of human life is sanctioned by custom or law.

3

Men are killed with a view to gratifying the desires of superhuman beings. We meet with human sacrifice in the past history of every so-called Aryan race. It occurred, at least occasionally, in ancient India, and several of the modern Hindu sects practised it even in the last century. There are numerous indications that it was known among the early Greeks. At certain times it prevailed in the Hellenic cult of Zeus; indeed, in the second century after Christ men seem still to have been sacrificed to Zeus Lycæus in Arcadia. To the historic age likewise belongs the sacrifice of the three Persian prisoners of war whom Themistocles was compelled to slay before the battle of Salamis." In Rome, also, human sacrifices, though

1 See Hehn, Wanderings of Plants and Animals from their First Home, p. 414 sqq.

2 Weber, Indische Streifen, i. 54 sqq. Wilson, Human Sacrifices in the Ancient Religion of India,' in Works, ii. 247 sqq. Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 363 sqq. Barth, Religions of India, p. 57 sqq. Monier Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism, p. 24. Hopkins, Religions of India, pp. 198, 363. Rájendralála Mitra, Indo-Aryans, ii. 69 sqq. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of

Northern India, ii. 167 sqq. Chevers,
Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for
India, p. 396 sqq.

3 See Geusius, Victima Humana, passim; von Lasaulx, Sühnofper der Griechen und Römer, passim; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 41 sq.; Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer, p. 114 sqq.

4 Cf. Farnell, op. cit. i. 93; Stengel, op. cit. p. 116.

Pausanias, viii. 38. 7.

6 Plutarch, Themistocles, 13.

3

2

exceptional, were not unknown in historic times. Pliny records that in the year 97 B.c. a decree forbidding such sacrifices was passed by the Roman Senate, and afterwards the emperor Hadrian found it necessary to renew this prohibition. Porphyry asks, "Who does not know that to this day, in the great city of Rome, at the festival of Jupiter Latiaris, they cut the throat of a man?" And Tertullian states that in North Africa, even to the proconsulship of Tiberius, infants were publicly sacrificed to Saturn. Human sacrifices were offered by Celts, Teutons, and Slavs; by the ancient Semites and Egyptians; 10 by the Japanese in early days;11 and, in the New World, by the Mayas 12 and, to a frightful extent, by the Aztecs. "Scarcely any author," says Prescott in his "History of the Conquest of Mexico," "pretends to estimate the yearly sacrifices throughout the empire at less than twenty thousand, and some carry the number as high

5

11

9

6

as fifty thousand.” 13 The same practice is imputed by

Spanish writers to the without good reason.14

Incas of Peru, and probably not
Before their rule, at all events, it

5 Tertullian, Apologeticus, 9 (Migne, Patrologia cursus, i. 314).

6 Cæsar, De bello gallico, vi. 16.
Tacitus, Annales, xiv. 30. Diodorus
Siculus, Bibliotheca, v. 31, p. 354.
Pliny, Historia naturalis,
Strabo, iv. 5, p. 198. Joyce, Social
History of Ancient Ireland, i. 281 sqq.

XXX. 4.

7 Tacitus, Germania, 9. Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum, iv. 27 (Migne, op. cit. cxlvi. 644). Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, i. 44 sqq. Vigfusson and Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, i. 409 sq. Freytag, Riesen und Menschenopfer in unsern Sagen und Märchen,' in Am Ur-Quell, i. 1890, Pp. 179–183, 197 sqq.

8 Mone, Geschichte des nordischen Heidenthums, i. 119, quoted by Frazer,

Golden Bough, ii. 52. Krauss, in Am Ur-Quell, vi. 1896, p. 137 sqq. (Servians).

9 Ghillany, Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer, passim. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 362 sqq. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums, p. 115 sq. von Kremer, Studien zur vergleichenden Cultur geschichte, i. 42 sqq. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus, ii. 147

59% Amélineau, L'évolution des idées morales dans l'Égypte Ancienne, p. 12. 11 Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 75. Lippert, Seelencult, p. 79.

12 Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, ii. 704, 725.

13 Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, p. 38. Cf. Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 281; Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, ii. 346.

14 Acosta, op. cit. ii. 344. de Molina, 'Fables and Rites of the Yncas,' in Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas, pp. 55, 56, 59. According to

was of frequent occurrence among the Peruvian Indians.1 It also prevailed, or still prevails, among the Caribs 2 and some North American tribes; in various South Sea islands, especially Tahiti and Fiji; among certain tribes in the Malay Archipelago; among several of the aboriginal tribes of India; and very commonly in Africa.7

From this enumeration it appears that the practice of human sacrifice cannot be regarded as a characteristic of savage races. On the contrary, it is found much more