layer with twelve of his kin must swear
that he would be content with the payment if the case were his,
and the friends of the deceased must swear to let the matter
drop.[1751] Amongst the tribes of the Caucasus, who live by
custom, blood revenge is now a living institution. The Ossetes
have the father family in its extremest development. The surname
is the mark of kinship, and the duty of blood revenge falls on
those with the same surname to the hundredth cousin. One's
mother's brother is not in one's kin, and there is no duty of
blood revenge for him. Sometimes blood revenge is superseded by
the arbitration of a tribunal which is voluntarily
accepted.[1752]

+548. Blood revenge in Israel.+ The law of Israel was, "Ye shall
take no ransom for the life of a manslayer, which is guilty of
death; but he shall surely be put to death."[1753] This law
upheld blood revenge by forbidding the first and most obvious
alleviation of it, but verses 22 and 23 distinguished accidental
from intentional homicide and verse 27 provided that the avenger
of blood should not be guilty of blood. This arrested any feud.
The institution of cities of refuge was derived from the
Canaanites and developed in Israel.[1754] Blood revenge was a
duty of the whole family and was originally directed against the
entire family of the slayer.[1755] This the later law
forbade.[1756] At first also every beast or inanimate object
which caused death was guilty. In Deut. xxi provision is made
for the case of a murdered man whose corpse is found, with
customs of wide range for performing rites of purification, and
washing hands to put away guilt or suspicion.

+549. Peace units and peace pacts.+ The in-group when it is merged in a
state by conquest and compounding becomes a peace unit. All in the same
civil body are united by a peace pact. If the central authority cannot
suppress local war and private war, it is inadequate, and the state is
liable to disruption. The Roman empire was a peace unit of high
integration and complete efficiency. It could not, however, maintain
itself, and broke up by internal strife which the central authority
could not suppress. The Roman law was the peace pact of that peace unit.
It was so good a solution of the collisions of human interests that it
has been borrowed, or used by modern states as a model. The Romish
church in the Middle Ages tried to ru