A long forgotten label for unique retribution, ultion was last mentioned in George Bernard Shaw's 1901 play, The Admirable Bashville.

My mission here Is to wreak ultion for the broken law.

By the time Shaw composed The Admirable Bashville at the turn of the century, " ultion " was an antiquated synonym for "revenge." The term fell out of favor (Shaw's is its last published citation according to the Oxford English Dictionary) and no longer bore an association with the more familiar talionic payback.

Ultion , then, proves a useful term for distinguishing new revenge narratives from their classical predecessors.