THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

362 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
Mainotes moreover offended the President's sense of
administrative order, and for these he held the old
chief largely responsible. He began, therefore, to
treat Petrobey with increasing coldness, and to oust
him more and more from the counsels of the Government.
The character of the Mainotes was scarcely such
as to appeal to a believer in a cut-and-dried system of
government;
and perhaps, in the eyes of any modern
ruler, despotic or democratic, their picturesqueness
would not compensate for their obvious deficiencies as
citizens of a civilised State. They had, indeed, their
own code of morality, which they enforced with ruthless
severity; * but it was hardly such as could have
been included in the statute book of Hellas.
They
were taught to reverence women and old men, to obey
their chief, to honour their parents, to keep their word,
to show courage in battle, to rob without being
found out, and, above all,
never to forget an injury.
Blood feuds were handed down from generation to
generation; they were transmitted by will, by adoption,
by marriage even, the man who married a woman
i Death was the penalty for seduction; but, under certain
circumstances, the seducer might be allowed to leave
the country, in order to make money sufficient to enable
him to marry the girl. If he failed to return at the time
appointed, the girl was put to death.