s Gunn and Jarmerik
contrived to slay the king and queen of the Slavs and made their escape,
they were pursued by the barbarians, who shouted after them that if they
would only come back they would reign instead of the murdered monarch,
since by a public statute of the ancients the succession to the throne
fell to the king's assassin. But the flying regicides turned a deaf ear to
promises which they regarded as mere baits to lure them back to
destruction; they continued their flight, and the shouts and clamour of
the barbarians gradually died away in the distance.(102)

(M38) When kings were bound to suffer death, whether at their own hands or
at the hands of others, on the expiration of a fixed term of years, it was
natural that they should seek to delegate the painful duty, along with
some of the privileges of sovereignty, to a substitute who should suffer
vicariously in their stead. This expedient appears to have been resorted
to by some of the princes of Malabar. Thus we are informed by a native
authority on that country that "in some places all powers both executive
and judicial were delegated for a fixed period to natives by the
sovereign. This institution was styled _Thalavettiparothiam_ or authority
obtained by decapitation. _Parothiam_ is the name of a supreme authority
of those days. The name of the office is still preserved in the Cochin
state, where the village headman is called a _Parathiakaran_. This
_Thalavettiparothiam_ was a terrible but interesting institution. It was
an office tenable for five years during which its bearer was invested with
supreme despotic powers within his jurisdiction. On the expiry of the five
years the man's head was cut off and thrown up in the air amongst a large
concourse of villagers, each of whom vied with the other in trying to
catch it in its course down. He who succeeded was nominated to the post
for the next five years."(103) A similar delegation of the duty of dying
for his country was perhaps practised by the Sultans of Java. At least
such a custom would explain