specialist lawyers to advise him, but the judgment was his unless he chose to
delegate it.^39
Where there is judicial authority, of course, there is always (except in the
best regulated societies) the possibility of influencing it by means of gifts or
bribes. The king or official who accepted them was perhaps said in Indo-
European parlance to ‘eat’ them. The Hittite wisdom text known as the Song
of Release contains two parables, really variants of a single parable, about a
dog or another animal who stole a loaf from an oven, dipped it in oil, and ate
it. It is explained that this stands for a governor who exacts excessive tribute
and embezzles it, is denounced by the citizens, and has to ‘pour out before his
lord those items of tribute which he was continually swallowing’. Hesiod
refers to βασιλHε δωροφα ́ γοι, ‘gift-eating kings’. By a similar idiom a king
might be castigated as δημοβο ́ ρο, ‘eating the people’ (Il. 1. 231); this is
paralleled in a humorous simile in the Rigveda, where Agni (Fire) is said to
eat the forests as a king does his dependants (1. 65. 7, íbhya ̄n ná ra ̄ ́ja ̄ vána ̄ni
atti), and also in later Sanskrit.^40
The king’s justice and the land’s fertilityJustice and right were conceived as being not merely a function of human
society but an alignment of the cosmic order. This fine abstract formulation is
of course not ancient; it is our own attempt to give theoretical form to an
ancient persuasion that finds expression in more concrete propositions. It is
expressed particularly in the doctrine that the justice of the ruler conditions
the fertility of the earth and livestock in his territory. We find this doctrine in
the Indian and Iranian epics, and in Greek, Irish, and Norse literature, and it
is also attested for ancient Burgundy.^41
Where King Yudhis
̇
t
̇hira dwells, it is declared,there will be no people who are discontented, jealous, offensive in speech, or envious.
Everyone will be avowed to his own Law.... There, no doubt, God Parjanya will rain
in the proper season and the earth will bear rich crops and be free from plagues. The
rice will be fine, the fruit juicy, the garlands fragrant... Cows will be teeming, none
of them lean or poor milk-givers; the milk, curds and butter will be tasty and whole-
(^39) M. Gerriets, Celtica 20 (1988), 29–52; McCone (1990), 126.
(^40) Song of Release§§18 f., 21 f., trs. Hoffner (1998), 71; Hes. Op. 39 δωροφα ́ γοι; West (1978),
151; V. M. Apte in R. C. Majumdar (ed.), The Vedic Age (The History and Culture of the Indian
People, i, London 1951), 433.
(^41) It is not exclusively Indo-European, being also part of the ideology of Mesopotamian and
Hebrew kingship. See West (1978), 213; (1997), 136. For other parts of the world cf. Frazer
(1911–36), i. 353–6.
422 11. King and Hero