Palmer, L. R._the Indo-European Origins of Greek Justice_1950_TAPhS, 49, 1, Pp. 149-168

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TH E INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS OF GREEK JUSTICE

By L. R. PALMER

PERHAPSo word is somuch on th e lips of men to-day, no idea

so potent in remoulding our world, as justice, although to be

sure we express the notion more colloquially by the word

" air " and still more frequently encounter its opposite " not

fair ". This obsession is no t without effect on classical stud ies.

The circumstances of the German occupation of Denmark

provoked the late Professor Prisch's book on "Might andRight in Antiquity ".l Prom Germany has come Professor

Latte's scholarly essay on the '( dea of ;Tustice in Archaic

Greece ' 7 . 2 Mr. Gregory Vlastos has published essays on" Solonian Justice '' and " Equality and Justice in Early

Greek Cosmologies " ,4 a nd a book on the whole subject is

expected from his hand. Remarks on justice are no t absent

from the works of Professor G. Thomson, who writes in his

" Studies in Greek Society " (p . 134) th at the meaning of S t q

is "a path '7. I n this he is echoing Professor J. L. Myres inhis

book '(The Political Ideas of th e Greeks '),which is dom inated

by th e conception of 6 1 ~ 7 s " he way things happen )'. Still

earlier the same conception was expressed by I?. M. Cornford in

" From Religion to Philosophy " (p. 1721, and I find a cautious

restatement in Mr. Guthrie's recent book on '( T h e Greek

Philosophers 7' .5 So we may regard it as a widely accepted

view. B ut in this interpretation of 6 1 q as '' a pa th " we

encounter a point of methodology which is of fundamentalimportance-the place of etymology in such studies of origin.

Hirzel, for instance, in his well-known book on '(Themis,

Dike und Verwandtes ") linked 6 1 ~ q ith ~ L K E ~ V' o throw ",and he traced the word back to the symbolic throwing down

Copenhagen, 1950."Der Rechtsgedanke im archaischen Griechentum," Antike und

Classical Philology 41 (194 6), 66 ff.

Ihid. 42 (1947), 166 ff .

London (Methuen ), 1950,

Abendland, I1 63 ff.



150 TRANSACTIONS OF TH E PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY 1950

of th e king’s aicijrrrpov in delivering judgement. I n this he wasfollowed by Dr. V. IChrenberg,l who also suggested t h a t &pis

originally meant a mound or heap, the seat of the oracular

earth-goddess. Professor L att e, on the other hand, regards

the judgement of the king fundam entally as a choice between

conflicting traditions, @pirrrEc ; the 6 1 ~ ~s “ he pronouncc-

ment ”, which originally took the form of a directive, “ das

Weisen einer Richtung ”, I n this way he links up 8 i q with

~ E I K V V ~ L .uch attem pts to penetrate t o the origin of human

ideas and institutions by the analysis of words have a long,

if not always respectable, tradition, going back to ancient

times. Some prevalent doctrines concerning fund am ental

notions of ancient religion, “ dynamism ” for instance, would

seein to have little better foundation than the popular

etymologies of t h e ancient gram marians. It is right, of course,

to appeal to th e evidence of w ords in such m atters, for language

is among the most persistent features of cultural heritage ; it

is the fossilization of pa st though t an d experience. On wordsas th e source of tr u th we m ight quote Socrates in th e P h a d o

99 E : 2So& 8 4 POL XpijvaL E ~ S 06 s hdyovs Kara4vydvra E)v

EIKEIVOLSK O ~ T E ~ VL;v d v r ~ v 7 j vh7jOaav. R ut the str ictest

methodology is required if conclusions drawn from linguistic

evidence are to have an y validity. A word has two aspects :

sound and meaning. It is easy enough to detec t phonetic

resemblances between w ords, b u t t h e semantic side mu st be

established independently by rigorous and objective analysis

of th e contexts in which th e words occur. I n fact, the semantic

leg is by fa r the more important of th e two which support an

etymology. B ut too often it is b ut the shadow of the phonetic

one, for scholars, especially non-philologists, often approach

the contexts they m us t analyse with preconceptions suggested

by accidental phonetic resemblances. Moreover, it is seldom

indeed that a word has a single meaning. Most often (a nd

almost any dictionary article will serve a s a n illustration) we

find that a word exhibits varieties of meaning which existDie Rechtaidee im frllhen Qriechentum 1921 (but Dr. Ehrenberg sub-

sequently moditled his views; see Gnomon V (1929), 4).



L. R. PALMER-INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS OF GREEK JUSTICE 151

contemporaneously, although perhaps the y originated a tdifferent periods. We find what m ay be called a semantic

field. An adequ ate explanation of a word m us t account for all

the components of th e seman tic field in question, wh ich m us t

be considered as a single pattern or structure. Not seldom

philological interpretations are distorted by the arbitrary

selection and over-emphasis of certain constituents of the

semantic field to t he neglect of others. The derivation of G ~ K T

from & K E% is a case in point. The present stu dy ma y claim

innocence of this methodological fault, fo r it is a n accidental

by-product of an investigation which began in what was

apparently a remote field.

In Glotta vol. 19, 5f f , , Max Niedermann noted that a

number of words in Latin and other languages meaning

boundary ” originally m eant rope ”. This paper suggested

a more general investigation into th e sem antic fields of words

denoting (( boundary ”. To-day’s lecture is t he log-book of a

par t of this exploration. We may most usefully begin a t th atpoint where the quest reached th e English word mark. This

goes back t o a n Old English word mearc, for which the meanings

recorded are (‘mark, sign, landmark, boundary ”. I n o ther

Germanic languages the cognates mean ( ( field, ground,

territory ”. The word is cognate with the Latin word margo

and Celtic *mrogi country ”. For our purposes to-day we

should note also t he meanings ‘(mark or characteristic ” and

mark in th e sense of (‘ im, goal, or target ”, what I shall refer

to as the marksmanship ” part of the semantic field. Inthis sphere the word can denote th e post or other objec t placed

to indicate the terminal point of a race. The word mark

enters, further, into words of “pointing out ”, ( ( indicating ”,‘( emarking ”, ‘( emerken ”, etc. (For further details see

NED, an d for th e G ermanic relatives Falk-Torp 312.l)For another limit or boundary word we may draw on Latin,

where the word modzcs has some interesting relatives. The

There would appear to be no compelling grounds to follow Falk-Torpin positing two separate Germanic word-families (1) mark, mark0 ‘ Grenze,Grenxland ’ and (2 ) marlea, marlco ‘Zeichen, Kennzeichen ’,



152 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PHILOLOCIICAL SOCIETY 1950

meaning “ imit ” is apparent in expressions such as Jinern etd u r n ramire, in the derivatives modero and modestus and

in the adverbial mod0 meaning “merely, only ”. The pre-

dom inant meaning in L atin is, of course, “ measure.” But it is

in th e Italic dialects th a t we find th e most interesting develop-

ments. I n Umbrian the word w d s is equivalent to the Latin

i u s , while in Oscan mn,eddiss is equivalent to iudex ; an Oscan

magistrate is recorded by Livy as the wceddix tuticus. This

legal use of th e cognates of modus is found also in Irish, where

m,idiur bears the meaning “ I judge ” and mess = “ udge-

ment ”. On the other hand, Welsh shows another divergent

in medd = “h e says ”, In Germanic, too (Palk-Torp 304 f , ) ,

we find the meanings ( Lmeasure, mode, or manner.” Most

interesting for our purposes are derivatives meaning ‘( ate,

what is meted out,” e.g. OE rnetod.

Now we are back in Germanic again t he G erman word Maldeserves our attention . W ith a primary meaning ‘‘ spot or

mark ”, it is recorded by G r i m i n t he aenses “ boundarymark ’’ (beide gerichte . . . sollen nach ihren altelz mahlen und

grenzen . . .gescheiden sein ; besqtes pfarrguth in stein und

rein, ziehlen und mahden halten) ; this is also applied to

temporal relations, ‘‘ point or limit of time,” a s exemplified in

such compounds as einmal, zweimal, etc. ; “ aim or goal,”

especially in combination with Ziel (e.g. sie setzen das mahl

und ziel a% einem berg) ; “ mark or designation, monument.”

The Germanic cognates show a similar range of meaning. Our

own word meal goes back t o OE rnB1 “ mark, sign ; measure ;

fixed time ;meal ” ; Swedish ma1 ‘‘mark ; goal, aim, purpose ;

m easu re; m eal; court cas e” (note th e juridical com-

ponent of the field, cf. rnidiur, rneddix, above ; the temporal

application, too, is paralleled by the Latin adverb modo).

This Germanic noun *m i la is linked up with other nominal

forms, such as OE ma$ measure, Gk. ~ ~ T L s - ,kt. mGti!t

‘‘measure ”, all from IE “m&, from which La tin rnEtior is

derived (Meillet-Ernout 681). The Slavonio cognates, inparticular, are worth attention. Trautm ann (p. 183) lists

m,eta- I‘ time, year ” (e.g. Lithu anian rngtas) and distinguishes



L . R. PALMER-INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS O F GREEK JUSTICE 153

it from meta- (I hrow ” (bu t note th at in Russian meta means‘( arget, aim, object ” and wetiti “ mark, aim a t ”, etc. The

verb met6 “ hrow ” (Lithuanian mhsti, OCS mesti, etc.)

Trautmann links up with words for “measure” such as

Lithuanian m%tas, matboti. Here, too, th en in Balto-Slavonic

we find a similar semantic constellation : “mark,” (‘ ime-

limit,” ‘(measure,” ‘( hrow.” A cognate is found in the

Albanian mot (‘ ear ” from ;>mi!to)n d in view of th e numerous

semantic parallels it would now be difficult to exclude the

Latin mzta “ goal, turnin g po int ”.If we now turn to Greek, a glance at the article Gpos in

Liddell & Sco tt reveals the following pa tte rn : “ boundary,”

‘‘ landmark ” (this is used also in a temporal sense “ nterval ”)

magistrate’s decision,” (‘mem orial stone or pillar ”( cf. M a l ) ,“ standard or measure.” In OCS 0“pos is translated by rolcii,

a word belonging to a Balto-Slavonic group of noteworthy

semantic scatter : S.-Cr. rdk “ ime-limit ”, Pol. rok “ year ”,

Ru. POX : “year, time-limit, fate ”. Trautmann (p. 243) linksthese words up with rek6 “ say ” (e.g. OCS reSti c t m i v ) .

B ut before proceeding further it will clarify our minds for

the attack on the central problem of this paper if I plot the

possible sem antic ramifications of these I‘boundary ” words.

Mark

‘ 6

indication ; point o ut, say.

characteristic.

aim , goal, winning post ; throw.

(of space) limit ; measure ; erritory.

(of time) opportune mo men t, appointed time, season, year.

(metapho rical) dividing line, decision, judgem ent.

shape, form, mode, manner.

Boundary mark

Outline

We still seem remote from the “ Indo-European Origins of

Greek Justice ”, andI

mu st confess th at a t this point of theinquiry I had no notion where it would lead me. B u t the word

Ma1 has a cogQate in Gothic md, and this word is used in



154 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY 1950

Mark i. 15 to translate the Greek word Ka ipds in th e phrasex m h r j p w r a c d Kaipds. At this point we break throughinto

the familiar an d congenial surroundings of th e classical world,

which we shall not leave again until towards the end of this

paper.

The equivalence of Ma1 and Kacpds prompts us to look ah

the G reek word more closely. We detect a t once two prom inent

features of the sem antic field we ar e exploring, for “measure ”and ‘‘ ime limit ”, ‘‘ opportune moment ”, are among the

most farniliar meanings of Kaipds. But these occupy the

fringes of th e field. W ha t of th e more focal meanings “ mark ”or “ boundary mark ” ? Ev ery Greek scholar will immediately

recall two passages in the Agarnemnon of Aeschyliis.

Ala ro c &&ov pkyav atSoijpai

r d v rd8a npol.$aw’ an’ ’Ak&iv8pq>

rdvov ra xdXa6 ~ d f o v , 6 x 0 ~ s lv

prjw np d KaLpoC p76’ Sx$p d o r p w v

p h o s 7jxielov uKrj+lEV 3G5 ff.

‘‘ I honour mighty Zeus, the watcher over host and guest,

who has done this work, long stretching his bow against

Alexander tha t neither short of the mark nor beyond th e stars

he migh t shoot his bolt t o no purpose.”

For the expression xpd K a i p o C , “short of the mark,”

Thomson compares Euripides Suppl. 744: J KaipoO x i p a

r d rd.$ov ~ V ~ E ~ O V ~ E S .

The use of Kaipds for “hi t t ing the mark” in speech i s

frequent in Sophocles : xp d s Ka c p d v EIvulneiv Trach. 59 ;

/IXE‘x’ €2 Kaipia q W y y g Phil. 862 ; E L 62 p4 7 6 n p d s uaipdv

X y w v KVPB , &ravpaL Phil. 1279 ; o; 61 d&iav &7jv roTs

2paG X d y o ~ s&80& , E L prj T L KaLpoG rvypivvw, p&ippooov

El. 29f. B ut it is Aeschylus who makes the “shooting ”metaphor most explicit :K a t yhBooa ro.$&aua p$ rdL ualpca . . .Suppl. 446 (cf. ualpLa X i yw Septem 1). N o h , too, t h a t a

blow ( n h q y + ) which is Kaipia is one which h its the mark.These examples of “mark or aim ” will perhaps suffice to

establish this constituent of th e semantic field of Kacpds and




we may now be encouraged to look for the sense “ boundarymark, limit, dividing line ”. This I find clearly in tw o passages

of Euripides. In Hippolytus 385 ff., Phaedra, speaking ofa/6&, says tha t there are two kinds :-

Giuual 6’ ~ t u l v , p2v 06 K a w j

4 6’ 6 x 8 0 s O ~ K W V . E L 6’ d Kaipds $v aa$+

O ~ Kv 6v’ i j a r q v ra&’ ZxovrE ypbppara .

“if the dividing line were plain (ie. if there were a clear

de jn i t i on ) there would not be two having the same name ”.The meaning of “limit ”, (‘definition ”, appears also in

Phosnissne 469 ff . Polyneices pleads his cause a nd begins :-

&XO~% 0’ p a h rijs 6 X q 0 d a s EY$u

KOZ ; n-oitciXWv 8 ~ i6v6 ix ’ <ppqvEvpdrwv .

Z X E L y d p a&& icaipdv.

“ Ju st things (note <v&Ka, to w hich we shall retu rn later) do

not need sub tle expositions. For they have Kaipds,” i.e. “ hey

are clearly dejned.”How aware th e Greek was of this fund amen tal meaning of

ua ipds a s “ he limit ” is shown by a phrase of P inda r in the

first Pythian. The point Pindar is making is : “ do n ot praise

too much, otherwise you wilI sicken the hearer, who is soon

surfeited b y ano ther man’s praises.” The poet expresses th is

by saying Kaipdv e l @+faio “ f you limit your utterance ”,an d then he m akes explicit his conception of tcaipds by adding

the phrase : noh XB v n el p ar a av vra vd ua is E)v /3paXcT “ pulling

the boundary ropes together in a brief space” (for m i p a p ,

ano ther boundary w ord, see below). This insistence on th e

proper limit even of praise recurs in Pinda r : in the 10 th

Pythian, for instance, r1 ~opn-bw -apd Kaipdv . . . , where it

would be rendered more appropriately as “ why do I boast

beyond th e p roper limit, imm oderately ”, rather than as “ o u t

of season ”. Democritus, too, in his insistence on the proper

limits rings the changes on Kaipds, p&pov, and 6pos :-

46oval a“Kaipo6 &-ouuiv &76las f r . 7 1 ; n a i l i d s O ~ K

6 v 8 p k r13& p h p w s i?ri8vpriv fr. 70 ; xp 7p dr w v o“prfcs, 4v 1.4dp lcy ra i ~ d p y , d y s &axdrys ~ o h h d v xahen-wrkpy f r . 219 ;



1% TRANSACTIONS O F TH E PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY 1950

and a similar variation is apparent in the 4rro#&ypara of theSeven Sages : p h p o v gprurov is attributed to Cleoboulus,

p~62v yav t o Solon, p & p y x p B to Thales, an d Karpdv yvB9i

to Pittacus.

This close association of Kaipdc, pgrpov, Gpos, etc., is seen

in yet another pre-Bocratic, Anarxarchos : nohvpa el7

Kcipra p & Bqkhc;, Kcipra i 3 h c i r r E r r d v 2 p v r a . B+eh~- i

pZv r6v 6cfrdv d d p a , flhcinr~r62 rd v tjyi‘61ws (bwvECvv7a

n8v %nos K+ navrl 8rjpy. x p ; 7 62 Kaipov” p& pa el6 iva i.

o o # lys y i p o171-o~pas. fr. 1.

We may compare further the exchanges of the chorus (the

distribution of the lines is disputed) in the exodus of

Aeschylus Supplices 1059 f.

A. p&piov vCv Znos ~ 6 x 0 ~ 1use moderation in your

B. &a tcalpdv ~ U E C ~ ~ U K E L S“what limit do you enjoin

C. r& 9eGv p y S & C&<E~V “ do not be excessive in your

This usage is so widespread that I need do 110 more than

quote the familiar proverb : p l r p a +vhcioadai* Kaipds 6’

E)d ~ 6 i o i v ?p~orosHesiod W D 694, of. pq62v Zyav amv’6eiv.

KarpAs 6’ 2nl T ~ U L V pimas Theogn. 401 f . lWe have now established for the semantic field of Kabpds

most of the fundamental components of Ma1 and the rest.2

But in pursuing this study I was struck by the number oftimes in which Karpds was coupled with 6 1 ~ ~ .heognis, fo r

On ~ a i p d s ee Wilamowitz Kleine 8chifterh 1. 43 ff.

prayers ”.

on me 1 ”demands on the gods”.

a With the etymology of Kaipds we are not here ooneerncd, but n possiblesolution is suggested by t h e number of boundary words which arc derivrtl

from word8 meaning “ cut, Rplit ”. Trautmann (130) quotes under kert6

an d k i d 6 ‘ schneide, sohlagc ’ skr. Eita ‘ Link ’, ru . herti ‘ Strich, Linie,

Grenze ’ with the temporal sense MuZ in li . ku7taa and le. - h r t , while le.

kdrtu has the meanings ‘ Reihe, Schicht ; Ordnung, Stand ; Weise Art ’.(Cf. Sanskrit dakf t “once”.) Under snad Falk-Torp 52 0 quotes mnd.

snit (Linie), ‘Grenze, Grenzzeichen’ and again (p. 522) under anaid6

mnd. e d e ‘Grenzlinie ’ ; under 8keZ (p. 468) mnd. dchele ‘ Unter-

schied Mangel, Grenze ’, All this strongly supports a connection withK c i p (see J. B. Hofmann, Etymobgidches Wbuterbuch drs GriechiacAen).



L . R. PALMPR-INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS OF GREEK JUSTICE 157

instance, writes : € 2 6' G X K W S nap& K a L p d v & v 3 p + I o ~ d p S ~ i 'OupG KT<UETUL 1. 199. In Aeschylus again, S i K a l w s is used

as th e opposite of C ~ K U ~ ~ W S-

yvc;uy 6: x p d v y 8 L a r r E U O d p E V O S

TdV TE 8LKUiWS K a l TdV Cik-alpos

T d h L V Ol KO Vp Of iV TU %OhLT&V

Agamemnon 807 R.

With this we may compare Clmphoroe 624 ff., where, as

Headlam points out , '' th e OZ ;K E ) V ~ ~ K W S of 1. 636 is synonymouswith the &alpus of 1. 622 ". A similar equivalence is found

in two lines of the Proinetheus V'inctus :--

p p O T O k T L TLp&S ;TUUUS T d p U 6 1 K T S 1. 30

cf. p< vuv /3por06s p2v &#AEL K U L ~ O C rlpa 1. 507.

Similar, too, is Hesiod's use of m p a K a l p L a in W D 329, where

he speaks of the man who mounts his brother's bed, a secret

adulterer, as napaicalpba ; E ' <WV . Liddell & Scott translates

this passage as " unseasonable, ill-timed ", but Hesiod hardly

seems to be rebuking t he timing of thi s deed. I n fact he sums

up these r r a p a K a l p i a Zpya as Zpya ~ " ~ L K U1. 334). It is this

close association of K a i p d s and 6 1 ~ 7 hich finally brings us

by a circuitous an d unp remeditated route to t h e problem

suggested by the title of this lecture.

I n view of th e meanings of K a L p d s which we have established

the thought irresistibly obtrudes itself that 6 1 ~ 7 ay have a

similar origin. We recall immediately t h a t 6 1 ~ ~s a derivativefrom the root "deild, to which it bears the same relationship

as 4uy . j t o 4 ~ t y . lThere is little doubt about the basic meaning of this root

*deik, which is exemplified in the verb G E ~ K V V ~ L' I show,

point out ". The root is widespread in inany languages : for

instance t h e German word Zeichen = " sign, ma rk '' is cognatc

with our token. I n L ati n, too, th e original significance " how,

point out " is present in such derivatives as index, indieare.

The most com mon sense of th e verb dTco is, of course, the

Scc Scliwyzer Griech. Cram. 1469.




secondary one, (‘ o say,” a development fo r which we haveseen m any para1lels.l B u t the original significance ( ‘ o point

ou t ”, is present in such phrases as iis istarvb viarib &GO.

Examples from man y languages show th a t th e semantic field

of this root bears a striking resemblance to that of modus,

rmrk, and t he rest.2 Bu t we should note th at Greek shows no

trace of the development ‘( o say ”,3 and 80 6 1 ~ 7cannot

mean pronouncement ” of th e judge. Greek is faithful t o the

primary significance of the root ‘(mark, indicate ”, and so we

m us t postulate for 6 1 ~ 7he primary significance (‘mark ” or

( ( indication ”. But this turns out to be no mere hypothesis,

for this is the m eaning w hich the word actually bears in many

of the earliest attested contexts. I am thinking of such

passages as Odyssey 19. 43, where Telemachus marvels a t th e

mysterious light which makes th e megaron blaze like fire an d

his father silences him an d says: ( ( this is th e 6 1 ~ 7f the Gods ”.I n other words (‘ his is the mark or sign, th e characteristic of

the gods ”. There are a iiurriber of such passages where ~ L K Vis used for the mark or characteristic, e.g of gods, old men,

1 Cf. Balto-Slavonic *rEditei‘ (Mi. rcidyti ‘‘ aeigen ”, etc.) cognatc with

Gothic rddjun ‘‘ rcden, sprechen ” a n d Oh. oruidiu ’‘ spreclie ” (Trau tmann

Y35, who quotm as a semantic parallel Runs. ukuzutt). Cf. further Lith.

sukyti ‘‘ say ” but OCS sotiti ‘ ndicare ’ (Trau tmann 255).

For details see J. Gonda’s exhaustive study d d ~ ~ v p i ,msterdam,1929. 1 have not been convinced by this author’s attem pt t o show th at th o

primary meaning of *deik was “ ichten ” an d still less by his suggestion t h a t

the root *dik meant“

plaa ts ( in cen r ichting) ”. In th i s paper I havu

followed the advice of Pr ar u Skutsch, who once said th a t Lat in etymologiea

must be sought on the Tiber. Thu s I have here been primarily concerned

to plot semantic fields as they are revealed in actual contexts. In this wayI rccord, for instance, the semantic scatte r of Slcvonic word^ deriving from

wki) a nd *rok&, b u t I have ruled out such speculations as t h a t reko oontairin

the Indo-European root *wer “ s~ay . Faithful adherence to the samc

prinaiple also excludes th e assu mp tion of the semantic development “ say ”for BCLK - in Greek. ~ L K ? munt be understood from the position it occupienin the semantic field discloscd by the s tudy of Greek conte xts, Still less

do I believe that we can postulate *de ik “ say ” fo r IE, but concur with

Walde-Hofmann p. 349 : “ doch ist die im Lat. und z.T. im Germ. , . ,vertretene Bedeutung sagen ’ jedenfalls aus ‘ zeigen m it W orten, hin-

weisen ’ entwickelt.”

ThiR iri methodologically an impor tan t point.



L. R. PALMER -INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS OF GREEK JUSTICE 159

slaves, and so on, to behave in such and such a way (e.g.Odyssey 4 , 691, 14, 59 , 24, 255, etc.). It is this usage which

survived in the adverbial accusative in such phrases as K V V ~ S

X K Y V ,which may be translated into Latin as canis rnodo-

yet another link with “ imit ” words.

Our familiarity with the semantic fields of such ‘(mark-

words” now provokes the question whether 6 1 ~ 7 ad the

meaning (‘ oundary or limit ”. The idioms used in many

passages in early Greek literature from H om er onwards suggest

such ail interpretation of 6 1 ~ 7 . In Hesiod, for instance,

W D 36 ff., we read : u’hh’ a$& GLaKpivwpeBa V E ~ K O S B e l y n

S l ~ p an d again Theognis 85 : 6LaKplvovra B6pLuras

l O e l p G l ~ p dividing, separating the O + LM E S with

straight GlKaL ”, a phrase which echoes Homer’s U K O X L ~ S

K ~ ~ V W U L+u7as Iliad 16 , 387. This theme of straightness

and crookedness is inseparable from 81KaL. It is extremely

frequent in Hesiod, an d we find it in Homer :

e.g. r$ 8 6 p ~ v&- P E T& T O ~ LOdvraTa ~ ’ l n o ~ .

Iliad 18, 508.

e l 6’ Ly’ 2yAv a6r& B L K ~ U W ,Kal p’ oi; T L V ~ $qp~

a ”Mov E ‘ Z - L ~ ~ < & L V AavaGv. &ia ydp &nab

Iliad 23,579 f .

soion : EdeI;VEL2 xKasK o ~ L i i s y . P . 37.

Piiidar : E ~ ; O VVE haois 61Kas Pyth. 4. 153, and eluewhere.

The truly just man is ~ O V ~ ~ K ~ S .t was th e analysis of suchpassages which led Professor Latte to his conclusion : (‘Das

Urteil wird also als das Aufzeigen einer Linie gefasst, in der

sich richtiges V erhalten zu bewegenhat ‘’ (Zoc. cit., p. 15). This

underlying notion of a judgement as the drawing of a line is

rriade particularly explicit by Theognis, who writes, 453 ff. :-

XpG p~ nap& ur60prp K a l yvdpova T+SE BlKaauaL,

Kdpvr, 6 l ~ q v .

(‘ m ust decide this 6 1 ~ ~y carpenter’s line and se t square.”Among these contexts, too, we observe an instructive sub-

stitution of Karpo ’s fo r ~ I K V-



160 TRANSACTIONS OF TH E PIKILOLOGICALSOCIETY 1950

o"6r ycip aoA6 K a l noA@ &%rr~dp@ 6iaKpivEw $pev l p$ r a p & K a i p A v

6vcr.rraACs.

Pindar 01. 8. 23 f.

B u t G l q keeps still other verbal company w hich betray s its

origins. I n Hesiod TVD 239 f. we read :-

o ts 6' CPpis T E pipqhe ,a,+ K a l oX&Aia 2 p y a

r o i s 82 6 1 ~ 7 ) ~pov lSqs rwpa lpEraL cz l rpdona Zeds.

It is a derivative from -&pap

meaning " a fixed mark, boundary, goal, aim, end" (see

Liddell & Scott 7 . 1 Here then Zeus " marks ou t the 6 1 ~ ~.B ut while we are dealing with r ftcpctlpopac it will suit our

purposes later in this lecture if I point out another passage,

where Hesiod rebukes his brother with the words :-

What is racpaIpraL Z

t ' p y q e v V + r l € m p u r

Epya r&.r' d v O p i n o m i &ol 6 L a r w p 7 j p a v r o

WD 398" h e works which th e gods marked out, assigned to, allocated

to, men."

It is such passages wJiich form the natural transition to th e

sense " allotted portion, rightful portion, lot, fa te ",which 8 1 ~ q

also bears in Homer. For instance, in bringing about th e

reconciliation between Agamemnon and Achilles Odysseus

says :-

a6rc ip &rctrci uc 6 a m l t ' v i ~ X i a l z s Epcu&aOwrrwip;?, Zva 1.4 T L Gl rcqs E'.rriGrv& E"Xgu6a.

' A r p c i " 6 7 , u6 6' E".rreLra SLKaidrcpos K a l &r' ZXAy

Zuueac.

i i iaa 1 9 , 1 7 9 i ~ .

I' B ut thereafter let him m ake amends to you i n his hu t with

a rich feast, th a t you m ay have nothing lacking of your S ~ K ' I ) .

And you, Atreides, hereafter shall be more Glrcaios towards

another man." Here the adjective Glrcaios is used of one

For &pap in the wnso of r6Aos ae0 Pindar Pyth. 2. 40 : Oe6s &av i d

2 A ~ i S r a a ~pap dv6masar.



L. R. PALMER-INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS OF CREEK JUSTICE 161

who observes propriety in the matter of rightful portions, a

sense which is clearly apparen t also in Od. 20, 293 f. :-

p o i p a v p i v 64 ( E ~ V O S + E L miXai &s E ) ~ ~ O ~ K E Y

Ibgv.

&‘Ecvovs.

0; ycip tcahdv ~T+LV 0682 GlKaLov

Thc meaning “ lot, fa te ”, is ap pa ren t also in Od. 19, 167.

ij’ p t v p’ dXkcoai Y E ~ & U E K

6 y & p 6 1 q , o “ n n o r ~ r p r l shr loaiv i EXopai.

$s &nkyu1 2v<p 76orTov xpdvov o“ouov +A v5v.“ Truly you will endow me with more woes than I am now

possessed of. This is a man’s lot when he is absent from his

homeland a s long as I.”

So far o ur hypothesis has accounted for most of th e usages of

6 1 ~ g nd t he peculiar idioms in which it is set. There remains

the verb 8 i K E b , which acts as the aorist of / 3 & h h ~ i v t o

throw ”. Hirzel and Ehrenberg regarded this meaning

as focal and were thus led to their interpretation of 61~7as fundamentally the throwing down of the a t c j j n ~ p o v

in a symbolical act of judgement. B ut from our present

vantage point of com parative semantics the semantic patte rn

appears in a different an d simpler light. 6lKE’iV “ o throw ”is merely the surviving representative of that part of the

semantic field which we have labelled “ marksmanship ”,examples of which have been quo ted previous1y.l

Thus far the analysis of th e idioms an d contexts in which

8 1 ~ 7 ccurs has strengthened its evident etymological con-nection with th e root *&& = m ark , point, show ”. Its semantic

ramifications have beeii paralleled by numerous examples from

other I-E. languages. B ut such parallels would not themselves

justify the conclusion indicated in the title which this lecture

bears. The evidence so far adduced would not necessarily

imply th a t t he Greeks derived this peculiar concept of justice

1 Perhaps the best example is the Balto-Slavonia *&a- (Trautmnnn74 ) :

“aksl. go&, ~ ~ i p d r ,pa, Rkr. y15d ‘‘ Besttag ”,L ‘ J ah r ” : ru . god “ Jahr,

Zeit ”. 6 . hodim, hoditi ‘‘ wcrfcn ” ; u. dial. gob, gotlit6 “ aogern, warten,

zielen ”.PIIILO. TRANS. 1950. M



162 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PIIILOLOGICAL SOCIETY 1950

and judgement as the respect for certain limits from thepare nt Indo-E uropean. The sema ntic developments “ mark ”,“ boundary mark ”, ‘‘ judicial decision ”, and the rest might

be considered so natural as to have taken place iiidependently

and so not justify any conclusions about a common I-E.

origin of this conception of justice.

To proceed furthe r, 1 must introduce a new notion-that of

fiemantic structures. This notion of structure h as been applied

b y Professor DumBzil in his long sustained efforts to pen etrate

the secrets of Indo -European religion. Qu ite simply tlic

principle is this : an isolated fact, say, of Roman religion,

which is fouiitl t o resemble one of H indu religion, would no t b y

itself be of any great interest or significance to the com-

paratist. B ut if a group of religious concepts is found t o have

a definite structure and this strueture, with complex inter-

relations of it s component features recurs elmwhere, then th e

likelihood of a purely accidental resemblance becomes pro-

gressively less the m ore peculiar an d complex tthe stnructure s.It is this notion of structure th at I now propose to apply to

the seman tic problem with w hich we are dealing to-day.

S I K ~ , e have seen, is a mark and inore specifically a

boundary inark. But so fundamental a word of the moral

vocabulary is no t isolated. I t impliesa peculiar Weltmi,schauu~,q

which must reveal itself in othe r expressions dealing with the

same sphere of ideas. If this notion of Ltoundttry or limit is

focal, then we should expect to find th at other t e rms for moral

ideas harmonize with it. I n wha t remains of this paper, I shall

try to deinonstrate that such a &xucture, such a harm ony ,

exists in Greek ; and , further, th at i t occurs elsewhere in the

111: world in so peculiar a form that it justifies a conclusioii

ab ou t Indo-Ruropean origins.

I n the first place we note th at the just ma n is < V ~ L K O S ,

quite literally he remains “ within his marks or limits ”;

unlike his opposite, who is E K ~ L K O S . B ut w hat are these limits ?

They are the limits of his proper portion or allotment, his po+aor a h . The systeni of mu tually determining ,uoipaL is thus

cxpressed by Aeschylus :-



L. R. YALMER-INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS OJ?GREEK JUSTICE 163

E L 82 p$ r m a y p l v a

po ipa po ipav ZK OeGv

dpy E prj T M O V 4 E I P E L V .

Agamemnon 1025 R.

A.Y for the synonym a b a , we find that a h p a Zpya are

synonymous with 6 l q in Odyssey 14. 84, while the com-

pounds E'valaLpos and E'(aluLos parallel & ~ L K O S and ; ; C ~ LKOS

(e.g. A h a . . . r d v 6' E'valaipov ria, Aeschylus Ag. 775).

Another such pair is Zvvopos a i d ZKVO~OS , .g. &as 06

rvyxcivovaiv E'vvdpov Aeschylus Suppl. 384. B ut wh at of the

ac t by which a man passes from one sta te t o the other ? As many

scholars have pointed out, it is an act of " stepping over "," respass ", '( ransgression ", 6nepj laola (cf. p 6 h c - r ~ o h

~ L X E L ,d A ~ r ' .E'ml r h p a aepGu' 0 1 6 ~ 4 . Sophocles Oed. Col.

883 ff.). Perhaps the best-known expression of this view of

the universe where each element has its appointed portion

and limits is Heraclitus fr. 94 +LOS y& p 03x d m p j l i u e r a ip&rpa* EL 62 prj ' E ~ L v ~ E s ,lurp inluovpoi, E)&vp'l juovaw.

The same conception is fundamental in the cosmology of

Anaximander :-&$ 6 v 82 $ y k v ~ u l s2urL roTs O ~ U L ,ual r $ v

40opdv E ~ S racra ylveo0ai K u r d r d X P E & V * 616ovaL y&p

a;& G i q v ual rluiv &hh?jho i~jjs L6iulas uar6 r$v roc

xpdvov rd f i v . fr. 2.

Over this universal system of allocations a nd proper portions

there broods a jealous, watchful spirit which punishes trespasses

an d encroachments. This is Nemesis, '' distribution" or " dis-tributor ", for the origin of this te rm is quite transparent. It is

the action noun from v l p m = The part

played by Nemesis in the distribution of po ipa i i8 made

explicit by Pindar :-

dxopai &p#~lKahGv polpq N6pEuiv GiXdjlovXov p+j

I distribute ".

B&€V.

01. 8. 86.

and pozpav v+mv is a frequently occurring idiom (e.g.

Aeschylus PV 294, Sophocles Trach. 163, 1238, etc.).




T ha t Greek cosmological, political, a nd moral thinking wasdominated by this notion of appointed portions and proper

limits is n fact so familiar arid so often discussed th at I need

do no more than refer to the late Professor F. M. Cornford's

luminous pages of analysis in the early chapters of From

Religion to Philosophy : " th e fTalnewOrk of prim itive re ligious

representation ia Greek is a system of departments (moirai)

clearly marked off from one another b y boundaries of inviolable

taboo, an d each (department,) th e seat of a potency w hich

pervades that department, dispenses its power with it and

resists encroachments from without ') (p. 38). And again :

"i t is necessary to grasp that Nomos does not suggest

uniformity of temporal sequence, hu t exercise of power, within

spatial or departm ental boundaries. We must think of Law

as a dispensation or system of provinces within which all the

activities of a comm unity are parcelled oiit an d co-ordinated )'

(p. 30). B ut perhaps the clearest expression of this connection

of law and justice with boundaries of provinces is to be foundin words given by Sophocles to Antigonc :--

066' $ r$&VOlKOS 7 & V K a ' T W %€&V A ~ K V

r o l o w 6 ' av Cl'v%pd.rro1s p l a € v v d p o v s .

Antigone 461 f.

" It was not Justice who dwells with the nether gods who

marked out the boundaries of such vdpo~.)'

We may now tu rn to Dr. J. T. Sheppard's discussion of this

set of ideas in the introductory essay to his edition ofthe Oedipus Tyrannus. Particularly relevant to us a t t he

moment are his remarks on the Partheneion of Alkman.

I quote : " The girls for whom Alcman made his Partheneion

have been singing of the wicked ambition and the ruin of

certain heroes, who aspired to marriage with the imniortals.

For excess in matters of Aphrodite and the desire to makc

great marriages are among the many forms assumed by the

tendency of mortal men to thoughts th at are above mortality.This is how they moralize this story before they turn to

lighter themes.



L . R. PALMER-INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS OF GREEK JUSTlCE 166

( The gods avenge and h appy hewho weaves in cheerful piety

his day without a tear.' "2arL TLS orGv r h s .

6tdpp.v GLanX&cri

a "KXa v r 0 s .

0" 6' 6 h a L O S , &TlS Ev"4pWV

We firid ourselves at that poiiit of the ode where iiiyth

crystallizes into maxim, a maxim which takes the form-" Seek no t t o wed Aphrodite-aspire not t o heaven ". But the

m yth concludes jus t before th e maxim with the baffling lines :--

KP$T~ JUE y& p A b a navrGv

KaZ n d p o s yEpaLrClToi

ai Gv.Who are Aisa and Poros, the oldest of the gods, whose inter-

vention is provoked hy such attempts to overstep man's

proper h i t s 1 For Aisa the case is clear enough ; but who or

what is Poros '1 The context an d its linking with Aisa suggests

th at i ts meaning is " apportionment ". It is th e noun from th e

root *per which we find in &pas '( he limit ", etc., in th e root

aorist ~ O P E T V ,while the perfect passive participle r d n m p w p & o v

is yet another Greek word for "fate, destiny, the allotted

portion ".I In this phrase ('Part and Apport ionment , the

oldest of the gods " we have the mythological expression for

that primal dasmos or act of distribution which Cornford

postulated as prior t o th e emergence of th e Olympian dynastyin the world. B u t peculiar as it is, this conception is no t

unparalleled and here perhaps the cornparatist may again

render a service.

Among the Indo-Iranian peoples we also find that '' in the

physical world there rules a regular order Rta . . . which is

clearly an inheritance from the Indo-Iranian period "(Berriedale Ke ith, Religion and Philosophy of the Veda, p. 83).

R ta is also ( ' onceived as a firm an d abiding principle residing

Note, too, tha t n e i p a p besides meaning ' imits ' can also mean ' judiciel

decision' : Q+w 6' i k u 0 ~ vin; hropt ~ ~ i p a p"Arut9aiIliad 18. 500. SeeG. Bjorck, Mdlanges Boisacq I 144.




in man ” (p. 247). But how amoral this conception is we maygather from the fact that ‘I the Dawns arise in the morning

according to the &a, the Fathers have placed the sun in the

heavcn according to the Rta ” (p. 83). Professor Keith tells us

further that “ no great stress is laid on the moral quality of

the gods and the sense of sin is only very feebly represented

in the hymns and the moral aspect of the Rigveda is practically

confined to the case of the Varuga, the Adityas, and Aditi

herself” (p. 244).

Now, in his book Servius et la Fortune, Professor G. Dumhzil

has examined some of the myth8 relating t,o a primordial act of

distribution which produced the order of the universe and

society as the ancient Hindus saw it. Concerned in this dis-

tribution Professor Dumezil finds the pair of Adityas, Arilqa

and Bhaga, literally “ portion ” and “ distribution ” or

“ distributor ”. This is precisely Alkman’s Aisa and Poros.

But let us concentrate for the moment on Bhaga ‘(distribu-

tion ” or “ distributor ”. T t is the name of a divinity, anhditya from whom welfare is expected. It also means

“ portion ”, ‘‘ lot ”, or “ fortune ”. Rut a derived verb

bhalcpti means = ‘ eats, devours, consumes”. On the other

hand, in Old Persian Rug@has become generalized and means

‘‘ god ”, and this word has found its way into the Slavonic

languages. We have here a peculiar semantic structure :

(1) divide, apportion, (2) feast, (3) god, especially as the

bestower of wealth. Does this recall nothing in Greek ? Have

we not GalopaL = “ distribute, divide ” with the nounSaupds, which figures in e number of significant contexts dis-

cussed by Professor Cornford P This same root figures again

in a set of words denoting “ feast, banquet ”, e .g . Sat?, S a l v v p ,

SaLTpdv, etc. But, most remarkable of all, it forms the basis of

the most general Greek word for a supernatural being-Salpwv.

Little time remains to me to discuss this important word

The cognates of this

word in Germanic show a semantic pattern strikingly similar to those dis-

cussed above. f quote from Fdk-Torp 161 : tfmm m. Zeit ags. t8ma

m. Zeit, reohte Zeit, Gelegenheit ; . . . tih n. Gelegenheit, Ziel . .. piltmnd.

ti1 n. Creme, Ziel, ahd. Zil n. Grcnec, Ende, Ziel.

Sulpwv is derived from IE* d t i /aa i ‘divide ’.




and I must content myself with a few illustrative quotations.That the Galpoves are bestowers of wealth, like Bhaga, is

clear from Hesiod W D 122 ff., where the S a l p o v ~ s eceive the

epithet ?rhauroGdrai. R ut an evil portion, too, may be meted

out by the daimon, for Homer speaks of Galpovos a h a

The equivalents of Amga arid Bhaga are to be found in the

Slavonic world, too, as has been pointed ou t to me by Professor

Roman Jakobson, with whom I had the privilege of dis-

cussing this paper shortly before it went to press. H e has

very kindly allowed me to quote from his forthcoming article

in the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and

Legend, Vol. 11, New Y ork, 1950, p . 1026 ff.

“ Both Slavs and Iranians eliminated the Indo-European

name of the worshipped (sacred) sky (= d&?uus). They agree

(1) in substituting the name of the cloud for that of the sky,

(2) in converting the derivative ‘ celestial ’ (= deiwos) used

by Indo-Europeans to denote gods into the name of hostiledemonic beings (cf. the term divii attested in the demonology

of various Slavic peoples and the corresponding she-demon

divii, diva, i v o h a ) , and (3) in assigning the general meaning

of god to a term which originally signified both ‘ wealth ’and its giver (bogic). . . . Like the Vedic VFtrahan the Slavic

Svarogii generated th e sun-Xiiwii Daiibogii according to th e

Old Russian records. These designations su rvive among o ld

personal names, Dadzbog in Polish, I irs in Serbian. Helmold’s

ydolum . . . Podaga ” is perhaps a distortion of Dabog. For

the bookmen, Daiibog 6 was identical with Helios. I n old

Russian tradition both the celestial an d th e hearth fire is said

to be Svarogii’s son. Xiirsii is an obvious borrowing from th e

Iranian expression fo r the personified radiant su n (Xursid in

Persian). Daiibogii means the ‘giver of wealth ’ like the Vedic

Bhaga. Stribogii, the neighbour of Daiibogzi on the Kievan hill

before Russia’s conversion, means literally the apportioner of

wealth ’ like Bhaga’s partner Arnqa” (italics mine). To thisevidence we may add th a t of t he Russian expressions for

fatc-ddlja and dasti, both of which mean “ par t , share ”

IK a K T .




(see Schrader-Nehring RL TI 291) and provide us with

exa ct Slavonic equivalents of th e Greek poipa and a h .

B ut i t is opportune for me, too, t o observe th e proper limits

of time a nd to draw tig ht the boundary ropes of my argument

in to a narrow compass. To recapitulate briefly, a purely

philological quest starti ng from w ha t was apparently a rem ote

field, has led us to the hea rt of Greek moral thinking. Here we

have confirmed the views of earlier scholars, such as Cornford,

who established that " the Greeks believed that there was anorder in human affairs which cohered with an order in

surrounding nature an d derived its sanction from that world

order ". This order was the result of an elemental act of

apportionment whereby each co rq o n en t of the universe, gods,

men, and natural objects had its allotted portion, the

boundaries of which might not be transgressed without grave

results. This view of the world finds expresHioii in a closely

cohering structure of moral terms among which a b a , poipa ,

V ~ ~ J L E L T L S ,nd Salpwv are etymologically tran sp are ikl W hat

I hope to have shown to-day is that 6 1 ~ ~oes riot mean

" a p a t h " or " pronouncement )', but in t h e sense of

" boundary mark " forms an integral part of that coherent

structure, and further to have made o u t a t least a prima facie

case for believing that this peculiar structure of ideas occurs

elsewhere in t he IE world and so justifies th e postulate of an

IE origin. It is this 1E inheritance, perpe tuated in G reek idiom

an d so passed down from generation to generation, which wasagain laid bare in Plato's keen analysis of justice as 4 r d

a&ov^ Tpd-rrEw K a l p$ noXvnpaypoveiv (Republic IV, 4338) .

Where there is

respect for %K V , the boundary, there reigns rivopia, proper distribution,

and that state of balance and tranquillity which tho Greeks called a 'p$v?.

It is this which is cxprevsed in the myth which makes AL'KV Edvopia nnd

Ei p j v q tho dnughterx of Themis (Hcnitrd ' l 'hogony 901). To them threc

sisters the Greeks g i ~ v t ' he namc 'Qpac . Is it an ncoidcnt tha t $pa is aliio the

Greek w u r d for a divixiun of timc, part of t,hc year, fitting timc or sewon ?

The system w as also exprcsscd in it mythological form.

Palmer, L. R._the Indo-European Origins of Greek Justice_1950_TAPhS, 49, 1, Pp. 149-168

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Transcript of Palmer, L. R._the Indo-European Origins of Greek Justice_1950_TAPhS, 49, 1, Pp. 149-168