We are fortunate that sacrifices already abound in our oldest literary source, Homer (ca. 700 BC). The most detailed description occurs in the Odyssey (3.430-63), which we will take as our point of departure. When Telemachus arrives in Pylos, Nestor prepares a sacrifice in honor of the goddess Athena by sending for a cow to be brought by a shepherd. On its arrival, a blacksmith covers the horns with gold foil and Nestor, together with his family, goes in procession to the altar. Two sons guide the animal by the horns and the other three carry, respectively, a jug with lustral water and barley groats in a basket, an ax, and a bowl to collect the blood. Having arrived at the place of sacrifice, where the fire is already ablaze, Nestor begins ‘‘the rite with the lustral water and the sprinkling of barley meal,’’ prays fervently to the goddess Athena, cuts some of the hairs of the cow and throws them into the fire. Then the others pray and also throw barley groats forward. After these preliminary rites a son severs the tendons of the cow’s neck, an act greeted by the cry ololyge from the females present, Nestor’s wife, daughters, and daughters-in-law. Then the sons lift the cow up and cut its throat, and ‘‘its life-spirit left the bones.’’ They dismember the animal and cut out its thigh-bones, which they wrap up in fat at both folds, with bits of raw meat upon them. Nestor burns them on wooden spits, having poured a libation of wine upon them. When they have burned the thigh-bones and tasted the innards, they carve up the rest of the carcass and roast the meat on five-pronged forks. Having roasted it and pulled it off the spits, ‘‘they dine sitting,’’ and enjoy wine too. It is only after the end of this meal that for Homer the ceremony has come to an end.
Before the kill
Having seen the whole of a Greek sacrifice, let us now take a more detailed look at its parts. The sacrificial scene in the Odyssey starts with the choice of the animal. Naturally, Nestor sent for a cow, the largest domesticated animal available and the predominant victim in literature and art. Yet after the dark ages most sacrifices did not consist of cattle, and smaller animals were the rule for small communities and private sacrifices. Evidently, the cow was too valuable to be given away, even to the gods, and we should never forget that sacrifice is a matter of some economic calculation as well as a ritual obligation. As a symbolic statement, though, cattle remained the preferred animal and Athenian colonies and allies had to send a sacrificial cow to the Panathenaea. In important sanctuaries, cows (oxen) also constituted the majority, and in Apollo’s temple at Didyma they remained the favorite victim, although they were often sacrificed quite young, as in Artemis’ sanctuary in Boeotian Kalapodi.
The next most expensive full-grown sacrificial victim was the pig. Contrary perhaps to expectation, it was not the most popular animal in sacrifice. The pig was kept mainly for meat, in particular for fat, but it is a scavenger of human wastes; its rooting, digging habits make it less suitable for densely populated areas, and it needs the presence of water and shade, neither of which is continuously available in most places of ancient Greece. We do not find pigs, then, much employed in the great sanctuaries, except perhaps in Cypriotic sanctuaries of Aphrodite, and few gods were connected with the pig in particular. The exceptions, confirming the case, are Hestia (who was the customary recipient of a preliminary, usually cheap, sacrifice), Demeter (the goddess whose sanctuaries were often situated outside the city and whose myths and rituals contained peculiar, uncanny motifs), and Dionysus (the god of wine, but also of a temporary dissolution of the social order). The choice of the pig seems to confirm Demeter’s and Dionysus’ ‘‘eccentric’’ places in the Greek pantheon.
Piglets, on the other hand, were very cheap. They were therefore popular for preliminary and, in particular, purificatory sacrifices, which were not meant for consumption and had to be burned whole. Interestingly, many terracottas representing girls, much less frequently boys, carrying piglets have been found in sanctuaries on Sicily and the Peloponnese. Since the mythical daughters of king Proitos of Tiryns were purified with pig’s blood at the end of their initiation, a connection with adolescence seems very likely in this case.
The predominant sacrificial victims were sheep and goats, animals whose bones are often very difficult to distinguish. Attic sacrificial calendars prescribe mainly adult animals, but at Kalapodi Artemis received more she-goats than billy-goats. The state of the teeth shows that at Didyma adult animals were preferred to young or aged ones, but in Kalapodi younger animals were sacrificed throughout antiquity. Similarly, at the altar of Aphrodite Ourania in Athens, 77.2 percent of the sheep or goats were under 3-6 months and only about 3 percent as old as 2.5-3 years. In the case of Aphrodite even cheaper offerings were quite normal, and the sacrifice of kids and lambs fits this picture.
Listing victims in the way we have done could suggest that they were all more or less acceptable to the gods. Such an impression is hardly true. In addition to the age of the victim, the worshipers also had to make decisions about its sex and color. In general, male gods preferred male victims, whereas goddesses preferred female ones. Yet this was not a fixed law but rather a rule with notable exceptions, since in Artemis’ sanctuary at Kalapodi the bones of bulls have been found and in the Samian Heraion those of bulls, rams, and boars, and Persephone frequently received rams. Similarly, sacrificial regulations often specified the color of the victim, black being the preferred color for chthonic deities.
Having looked at the choice of victim, we now turn to its treatment. Naturally the gods only rejoiced in splendid gifts, so the victim had to be perfect and undamaged. Admittedly, sacrificial calendars often specify wethers (castrated rams), and indeed bones of a wether have been found in Kalapodi, just as in Didyma the bones of castrated oxen have been encountered, but these animals had evidently been reclassified as ‘‘undamaged.’’ This mental operation must have been facilitated by the fact that castration improves the size of animals and the quality of their meat. It was only in Sparta that sacrifices were small and cheap, and even allowed mutilated animals. This practice must have been influenced by Spartan ideology. Too much free meat would have softened up the warriors, and the main Spartan meat supply had to come via the hunt; indeed, Laconian hounds were famous all over the ancient world.
In order to enhance the festal character of the occasion, Nestor has a smith cover the horns of the cow with gold. This was obviously something only a king or a wealthy community could afford, but the practice lasted well into hellenistic times. It was more normal, though, to adorn the victims with ribbons and garlands round their heads and bellies. The sacrificers themselves also rose to the occasion. They took a bath, put on festive white clothes and, similarly, wreathed themselves; it was only in a few preliminary or peculiar sacrifices that wreaths were lacking. When, during a sacrifice, Xenophon heard that his son Gryllus had fallen in the battle of Mantinea (362 BC), he took off his wreath, but when he later heard that his son had fought courageously, he put it on again and continued the sacrifice. Yet a bath, white clothes, and wreaths could also fit other festive occasions. The sacred character of the sacrifice was stressed by the absence of shoes, as the vases clearly show.
In Homeric times, we do not yet hear about these extensive preparations on the part of the sacrificers, but by the classical period the Greeks had clearly dramatized the beginning of sacrifice. This appears also from the sacrificial pompl, which in the Odyssey is only small, but in archaic times developed into quite a procession, as texts and vases clearly demonstrate. In fact, archaic black-figure vases only show the processions but never scenes around the altar. These only became popular on the later red-figure vases (cf. Chapter 26 in this volume).
At the front of the procession an aristocratic girl (the kanephoros) walked with a beautiful basket on her head, sometimes of silver or even gold-plated, which contained the sacrificial knife covered over with barley groats and ribbons. Male adolescents led the victim along, and a male or female piper played music to dictate the walking rhythm. Depending on the occasion, there could be various pipers and (exclusively male) players of string instruments. The great Panathenaeic procession may even have known as many as sixteen musicians: the largest orchestra known from classical Greece! This music had become such an integral part of the ritual in postHomeric times that Herodotus (1.132) was struck by its absence from Persian sacrifice. Then adult males and females followed in a throng, sometimes with knights among them. It is interesting to note that the central place of sacrifice was reflected by the participation of representatives of the whole community in the event. Boys and girls, men and women - all had a role to play.
In the Odyssey the animal is guided along by the sons of Nestor. Evidently, it does not give any trouble, as is to be expected in a text portraying an ideal sacrifice. Indeed, the willingness of the victim was an important part of Greek sacrificial ideology, which stressed that the victim was pleased to go up to the altar, sometimes that it could hardly wait to be sacrificed! This emphasis on willingness goes back to archaic hunting practices, where the hunters pretended that the animal had voluntarily appeared in order to be killed. The importance of the theme appears from the fact that even in the twentieth century legends about voluntarily appearing victims were recorded in those countries still practicing sacrifice: Finland and modern Greece. Obviously, ideology and practice did not always concur, and vases show us ephebes struggling with the victim, or ropes tied to its head or legs in order to restrain it.
Having arrived at the sacred place, the worshipers stood around the altar, as the texts say. In reality, the topography of the ancient temple indicates that they must have stood in a semi-circle between the altar and the temple, with the temple at their back. Now the actual sacrifice could begin. One of the sacrificial assistants carried a jug with lustral water and the sacrificial basket round the altar, counterclockwise, rightwards being the favorable direction. Then the sacrificer dipped his hands into the jug, as can be clearly seen on the vases. Subsequently, he took a brand from the altar, dipped it in the jug, and sprinkled and purified the participants, the altar, and the sacrificial victim. This inaugural act separated the sacrificial participants from the rest of the population and constituted them as a distinct social group.
In Homer, Nestor starts the sacrifice with the ‘‘lustral water and the barley groats.’’ These two elements are carried by one of his sons, and in classical times beardless sacrificial assistants can still be seen on the vases with a jug of lustral water in one hand and the sacrificial basket in the other. Only after Nestor had pronounced a prayer do other participants in the sacrifice ‘‘throw the barley groats forward.’’ In classical times they were employed in a fashion somewhat parallel to that of the lustral water, as the barley, now mixed with salt, was sprinkled, or thrown, over the altar and the victim during the prayer. In fact, the barley groats had become so prominent that Herodotus (1.132) noted their absence from Persian sacrifice; despite their prominence, however, their meaning still remains obscure. Compared with Homer, then, the beginning of the sacrifice was considerably dramatized. This dramatization was also evident at Athenian public meetings, where at this point an officiant asked, ‘‘Who is here?’’ and the participants replied, ‘‘Many good men.’’ The sacrificial prayer could be spoken by the highest magistrate but also by priests or individuals. Its content depended of course on the occasion. In Euripides’ Electra Aegisthus prays to the nymphs to harm his enemies, and in Isaeus’ oration On the Estate of Ciron (8.16) the grandfather prays for the health and wealth of his grandchildren. As some scholars see sacrifice as little more than a roundabout way of getting meat (see below), it is important to note that prayer was an absolutely indispensable part of sacrifice.
The kill
After these preliminaries the time has come to kill the sacrificial victim. The throwing of the barley groats has uncovered the sacrificial knife, which was lying hidden below them in the sacrificial basket. The officiant now took the knife and, as Nestor does, first cut a few hairs from the brow and threw them in the fire, the beginning of the actual killing. The gesture was such a clear indication of the coming death that quite a few representations of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia in Aulis show us the sacrificer cutting a lock of her hair, rather than the actual murder.
It made a difference, of course, whether a large or a small animal had to be killed. With a bovid or a large pig it was wiser to stun the victim first. In the Odyssey it is one of Nestor’s sons who performs this act, and on the island of Keos at least it seems to have remained the duty of young men, but in classical Athens a special officiant, the ‘‘ox-slayer’’ (boutypos), was charged with delivering this blow. It is only on two nonAthenian vases that we can see an ax hovering over the head of an ox, and the instrument is never mentioned or shown in connection with the sacrificial procession, where it would have disturbed the festal atmosphere. Presumably, it was produced only at the very last minute.
The participants in the sacrifice now lifted up the (stunned) victim with its head up high, towards heaven, and a priest or another officiant cut the throat with the sacrificial knife. At this very emotional moment the pipes stayed silent but the women present raised their high, piercing cry or ololyge, which Aeschylus in the Seven Against Thebes (269) refers to as the ‘‘Greek custom of the sacrifice-cry’’ (ololygmos). The cry poses two questions which are hard to answer. First, why was it raised by women and, secondly, what did it mean? In the Odyssey Eurykleia wants to
Shout the cry from joy when she sees the suitors killed (22.408, 411), and in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (595) Clytaemnestra raises the ololyge as a cry of jubilation. This seems indeed to be the most natural interpretation in connection with sacrifice. Admittedly, the piercing character of the cry also made it suitable for other occasions, such as lamentation or Dionysiac ritual, but originally it will have been a cry at the moment that the tension was broken. As the males were busy with the actual sacrifice, it is perhaps understandable that the women played a more vocal part. In any case, the custom lasted well into hellenistic times because a ‘‘piper and an ololyktria" were still employed during sacrifices to Athena in Pergamum in the second century BC.
Great care was taken not to spill the blood of the victim on the ground. When the animal was small, it was held over the altar and its blood blackened the altar itself or was allowed to drip onto a hearth or in a sacrificial pit; for larger animals, a bowl (sphageion) was used to catch the blood first. In Homer the blood is not mentioned, only the bowl (Odyssey 3.444), but in the classical period the blood is prominently present on the altars, as many vase-paintings show: the lasting proof of the otherwise perishable gifts to the gods.
It was now time to skin the victim and carve it up. Whatever the local differences, it seems clear that in this phase the gods were the main objects of attention, even though their share was not very impressive. After the two thigh-bones had been taken out and all meat removed from them, they were wrapped in a fold of fat, small pieces ‘‘from all the limbs’’ were placed on top, and the whole was burned as an offering to the gods. In later times, the latter part of the ritual is only rarely mentioned and it had probably fallen into disuse in most places, but the removal of the thigh-bones has left archaeological traces, since in Ephesus deposits of burnt thigh-bones have been found, whereas in Samos these proved to be absent among all the bones found: evidently, they were buried elsewhere. Homer interpreted the small pieces on top as a first-fruit offering (Odyssey 14.428), but historical and anthropological comparison shows that these acts reproduce age-old customs of hunters. By gathering the bones the sacrificers symbolically returned the animal to the god(s) to ensure future success in the hunt.
In addition to the thigh-bones, the gods also received some other parts, such as the gall bladder and the tail. Athenian vases often represent the tail of the sacrificial victim burning on a high altar and, like the thigh-bones, the tail-bones are lacking among the bones found in the sanctuary of Artemis at Kalapodi and the Heraion of Samos. Understandably, ancient comedy made fun of this ‘‘important’’ present to the gods. Is it perhaps the poor quality of these gifts which led to their being reinterpreted in later times and to the tail and gall bladder being used for divination (see Chapter 9)?
In classical times the gods also seem to have received a share of the innards, splanchna, in which the Greeks included the spleen, kidneys, liver, and, probably, the heart and lungs. These parts of the victim were the first to be eaten. This preliminary consumption also belonged to the inheritance from the hunting peoples, who presented the innards often only to a select group or the gods. It was not that different among the Greeks, since Nestor’s son presents a share of the entrails to Telemachus and the disguised Athena on their arrival in Pylos (Odyssey 3.40-4). Many vases show a boy, the splanchnoptes, holding the innards on long (sometimes 165 cm) spits, obeloi, roasting them over the fire. The meat sometimes went together with the pelanos, a kind of cake, which had apparently been brought along in the sacrificial basket, often shown standing next to the burning altar. The close connection of obeloi and pelanos also appears from the fact that both developed into terms for money, without us knowing exactly how or why. Together with the food, the gods received a libation of mixed wine, just as the humans combined food with drink. Athenian vases often portray the sacrificer pouring a libation from a cup in his right hand, while he extends his left hand in a gesture of prayer. The custom was traditional, since Nestor also performs a libation, although he says a prayer before sacrificing (above).
After these preliminary acts, the actual carving of the victim was continued. This was a complicated affair, which in classical times was entrusted to a specialist ‘‘butcher,’’ the mageiros. Various vases show chunks of meat hanging in the trees: testimony to the pleasure that was taken in the display of the meat. After the carving, the meat had to be boiled before it was distributed; archaeologists have even dug up supports for the ancient cauldrons in which the meat had to simmer. The act of distribution was so important that the Homeric term used for banquet, dais, is etymologically connected with the root *da ‘‘divide, allot.’’ However, distribution must have created big problems in the first instance, as not all meat is of the same quality or easily cut into exactly similar portions. In Homer, we often find the combination phrase dais else, ‘‘an equal feast,’’ but this expression should not be taken to mean that everybody always received an equal share. On the contrary. In the strongly hierarchical Homeric society, meat was distributed depending on the rank and status of the guests. Typical in this respect are the scenes in the Odyssey in which Eumaios offers the chine of a pig to Odysseus (14.437), and those in the Iliad, where Agamemnon offers a prime cut, the chine complete with ribs, to Ajax, although the feast is explicitly called a dais else (7.320-2). Evidently, the ideology of equality did not exclude unequal distribution in the case of special persons or special merits. In fact, unequal distribution lasted well into classical times, since in Sparta the chine was offered to the kings; in Crete the best pieces were given to the bravest and the wisest, and in democratic Athens a decree of around 335 BC ordered the officials in charge of the sacrifices during the Lesser Panathenaea to give special portions to the prytaneis, archons, strategoi, and other officials. On the other hand, the ideology of equal distribution also remained alive, and in hellenistic Sinuri the portions of meat had to be weighed before distribution.
The importance of the distribution also appears in a different way. The names of the most important gods of fate, Moira and Aisa (related to Oscan aeteis, ‘‘part’’), are also words meaning ‘‘portion.’’ The name of Ker, ‘‘Death,’’ the god connected with man’s definitive fate, is probably related to keiro, ‘‘to cut,’’ and the Greeks usually blamed a daimen, literally ‘‘distributor,’’ for sudden and malevolent interference. The Greeks apparently derived their ideas about fate from sacrifice, the occasion in life where portions were cut and distributed. Even the later Greek word for ‘‘law, order,’’ nomos, literally means ‘‘dispensation’’; originally, it may have meant the right order of sacrificial distribution. Evidently, the importance of sacrifice for early Greece can hardly be overrated.
After the distribution of the meat the meal could start. In Greek literature, division and distribution of meat is regularly described in detail, but its consumption is hardly ever mentioned. Similarly, vases never show anyone eating, although the various phases of sacrifice are often represented.
World History
