ossible action was sharply divided between
what was Themis and what was Not Themis, between lawful and _tabu_, holy
and unholy, correct and forbidden. To do a thing that was not Themis was
a sure source of public disaster. Consequently it was of the first
necessity in a life full of such perils to find out the exact rules
about them. How is that to be managed? Themis is ancient law: it is +ta
patria+, the way of our ancestors, the thing that has always been done
and is therefore divinely right. In ordinary life, of course, Themis is
clear. Every one knows it. But from time to time new emergencies arise,
the like of which we have never seen, and they frighten us. We must go
to the Gerontes, the Old Men of the Tribe; they will perhaps remember
what our fathers did. What they tell us will be _Presbiston_, a word
which means indifferently 'oldest' and 'best'--+aiei de neoteroi
aphradeousin+, 'Young men are always being foolish'. Of course, if
there is a Basileus, a holy King, he by his special power may perhaps
know best of all, though he too must take care not to gainsay the Old
Men.

For the whole problem is to find out +ta patria+, the ways that our
fathers followed. And suppose the Old Men themselves fail us, what must
we needs do? Here we come to a famous and peculiar Greek custom, for
which I have never seen quoted any exact parallel or any satisfactory
explanation. If the Old Men fail us, we must go to those older still, go
to our great ancestors, the +heroes+, the Chthonian people, lying in
their sacred tombs, and ask them to help. The word +chran+ means both
'to lend money' and 'to give an oracle', two ways of helping people in
an emergency. Sometimes a tribe might happen to have a real ancestor
buried in the neighbourhood; if so, his tomb would be an oracle. More
often perhaps, for the memories of savage tribes are very precarious,
there would be no well-recorded personal tomb. The oracle would be at
some place sacred to the Chthonian people in general, or to some
particular personification of them, a Delphi or a cave of Trophonius, a
place of Snakes and Earth. You go to the Chthonian folk for guidance
because they are themselves the Oldest of the Old Ones, and they know
the real custom: they know what is Presbiston, what is Themis. And by an
easy extension of this knowledge they are also supposed to know what is.
He who knows the law fully to the uttermost also knows what will happen
if the law is broken. It is,