PAGAN SACRIFICES. Theophrastus relates that the Egyptians were the first to offer first fruits to the deity, not of incense and perfumes, still less of animals, but simple herbs, which are the first productions of the earth. These first sacrifices were consumed by fire, hence the Greek words θύειν, θυεία, θυματήριον, which mean sacrifice , etc. Then they burnt perfumes, which they called ἀρώματα, from the Greek ἀράομαι, which means to pray . They did not begin to sacrifice animals until they had somehow laid waste to the herbs or fruits that were to be offered on the altar. The same Theophrastus adds that before the immolation of beasts, besides the offerings of the herbs and fruits of the earth, sacrifices of libations were quite ordinary, by pouring water, honey, oil, and wine onto the altars, and these sacrifices were called Nephalia , Melitosponda , Elæosponda , and Ænosponda .

Ovid asserts that the very word victim shows that they were slaughtered only after victories had been won over their enemies, and that the word host reveals that hostilities had preceded. Indeed, when men still lived only on vegetables, they were hardly going to immolate animals, some part of which, stated the law of sacrifice, they were supposed to eat.

Pythagoras rose up against this massacre of animals, either to eat them or to sacrifice them. He maintained that it would be at most forgivable to have sacrificed the hog to Ceres and the goat to Bacchus, because of the ravages that those animals make in the grains and vines; but that innocent lambs, and oxen useful for plowing the earth, could not be sacrificed without extreme cruelty, although men try futilely to cover their injustice with the veil of honoring the gods. Ovid espouses the same moral:

Horace also declares that the purest and simplest manner of appeasing the gods is to offer them flour, salt, and fragrant herbs.

The pagans had three sorts of sacrifices: public, domestic, and foreign.

The public ones, the ceremonies of which we shall describe at some length, were held at public expense for the benefit of the state to thank the gods for some signal favor or to entreat them to turn aside calamities that threatened or afflicted a people, a country, or a city.

Domestic sacrifices were practiced by members of a single family, and at their expense, which they often left to their heirs. Thus Plautus has a manservant named Ergasilus among his captives, who had found a pot full of gold, say that Jupiter had sent him so much good without his being charged to make any sacrifice :

“I have obtained a good succession without being burdened with the costs of the house’s sacrifices.”  [4]

Foreign sacrifices were those they made when they brought to Rome the tutelary gods of subjugated cities or provinces with their mysteries and the ceremonies of their religious observance.

Moreover, the sacrifices were still offered either for the advantage of the living or for the benefit of the dead, for the feast of the dead is ancient. The Romans had it before the Catholics; it was celebrated there in the month of February, as Cicero tells us: Februario mense, qui tunc extremas anni mensis erat, mortuis parentari voluerant. [5]

The material of sacrifices was as we have said, fruits of the earth or animal victims whose flesh and entrails were sometimes presented to the gods, and sometimes they were content to offer them only the soul of the victims, as Vergil has Entellus do, when he immolates a bull to Eryx for the death of Dares, exchanging one soul for another,

The sacrifices were different in relation to the diversity of the gods whom the Ancients worshipped, for there were sacrifices to celestial gods, to gods of the underworld, to marine gods, to gods of the air, and to gods of the earth. To the first they sacrificed white victims in uneven number; to the second, black victims with a libation of pure wine and warm milk which was poured into trenches with the blood of the victims; to the third, they immolated black and white victims by the seaside, hurling the entrails as far as they could into the waters, and adding to them an effusion of wine.

To the gods of the earth they immolated white victims, and raised altars to them as to the celestial gods; as for the gods of the air, they offered them only wine, honey, and incense.

They made the choice of a victim that was to be healthy and intact, with no blot or flaw, for example he must not have a pointed tail, nor a black tongue, nor split ears, as Servius remarks on this verse from the sixth canto of the Aeneid :

Id est, ne habeant caudam aculeatam, nec linguam nigram, nec aurem fissam : and bulls must not have been put under the yoke.

The choice of victim once made, they gilded its forehead and horns, principally bulls, heifers, and cows:

In book I of the Saturnalia , Macrobius reports a decree of the senate by which the decemvirs were ordered, in the solemnity of ludi apollinares , to immolate to Apollo a gilded ox, two white, gilded goats, and to Latona a gilded cow.

They also adorned their head with a woolen chasuble from which hung two rows of beads with twisted ribbons, and the middle of the body with a fairly wide sort of stole that fell on the two sides; the lesser victims were merely adorned with hats of flowers and festoons, with white strings or garlands.

The victims thus adorned were led before the altar, and this act was expressed by the Greek word ἄγειν, ἐλ ν, agere, ducere . The victim was called agonia , and those who drove it agones . The small sacrifices were not led by the halter, they were simply guided, chasing them gently ahead, but the large ones were led by a collar to the place of the sacrifice . The victim must not struggle, or refuse to walk, for the resistance it made was held to be a bad omen, since the sacrifice had to be free.

The victim led before the altar was again examined and studied quite attentively to see whether it did not have some flaw; this act was called probatio hostiarum et exploratio . After this examination the priest, decked in his sacerdotal garments and accompanied by the victimaries [10] and other ministers of the sacrifices , after washing and purifying himself according to the prescribed ceremonies, began the sacrifice with a confession that he made out loud of his unworthiness, admitting his guilt for several sins for which he begged forgiveness by the gods, hoping that they, paying no attention to them, would be willing to grant his requests.

When the confession had been made, the priest cried out to the public, hoc age , be meditative and attentive to the sacrifice; at once a sort of usher holding in his hand a wand that was called commentaculum went about the temple to send away any who were not yet instructed in the mysteries of religion and those who were excommunicated. The custom of the Greeks, from whom the Romans borrowed it, was that the priest coming to the altar asked out loud: τίς τ δε, who is here? The people replied: πολλοὶ καὶ ἀγαθοί, several persons and good people . Then the usher cried out to every part of the temple: κὰς, ἑκάς ἐστε βέβηλοι, which is to say: away with the wicked ; or else κὰς, ἑκὰς ἴθι ἀλιτροί, away with the profane . The Latins ordinarily said: nocentes, profani, abscedite ; among the Greeks, all who were expelled from the temples were included in these general terms: βέβηλοι, ἄμυστοι, ἀκάθαρτοι, etc.

Ovid named in his Fasti (book II) most of the sinners who could not attend the mysteries of the gods. Here is his list, which should serve us as a rule:

From these beautiful verses we learn that, generally speaking, there were two sorts of persons who were forbidden to attend the sacrifices : to wit, the profane, in other words those who were not yet instructed in the worship of the gods, and those who had committed some horrible act, as having struck their father or mother. There were certain sacrifices in Greece from which girls and slaves were excluded. In Chaeronea the priest, holding a whip in his hand, stood before the gate of the temple of Matuta and in a loud voice forbade Aetolian slaves to enter. Among the Magi, people who had red blotches on their faces could not approach the altars, according to the testimony of Pliny ( book XXX, ch. ii ). It was the same among the Germans for those who had lost their shield in battle, and among the Scythians those who had not killed an enemy in battle. Roman ladies could only attend sacrifices veiled.

After the profane and the excommunicates had withdrawn, someone cried: Favete linguis or animis, et pascite linguam , to call for silence and attention during the sacrifice . The custom of the Egyptians, for the same purpose, was to bring out the statue of Harpocrates, god of silence, whom they called σιγαλόεντα. As for the Romans, they placed on the altar of Volupia the statue of the goddess Angerona, who had her mouth covered, to teach that in the mysteries of religion one had to be attentive in body and mind.

Meanwhile, the priest blessed water for aspersion by the ordinary ceremonies, either by casting into it the ashes of the wood that had been used to burn the victims, or by extinguishing in it the torch of the sacrifice ; he sprinkled the altars and all the people with this holy water while the choir of musicians chanted hymns in the honor of the gods.

Next they censed the altars, the statues of the gods, and the victims; the priest, his face turned toward the east, and holding the corners of the altar, read the prayers in the book of ceremonies, and began them with Janus and Vesta, offering wine and incense to them before any other deity. Heliogabalus ordered, however, that the preface of the prayers be addressed to the god Heliogabalus. Domitian also wanted to begin them by addressing Pallas, whose son he claimed to be, according to the testimony of Philostratus. Nevertheless, the Romans restored this honor to Janus and Vesta.

After this short preface, the officiant made a long orison to the god to whom he addressed the sacrifice , and then to all the other gods who were entreated to be propitious to those for whom the sacrifice was being offered, to assist the empire, the emperors, the principal ministers, individuals, and the state in general. That is what Vergil has religiously observed in the prayer made to Hercules by the Salii, adding, after relating his good deeds:

Apuleius gives to the goddess Isis a thanks that deserves to be related here because of its singularity:

Tu quidem sancta et humani generis sospitatrix perpetua, semper fovendis mortalibus munifica, dulcem matris affectionem miserorum casibus tribuis, nec dies, nec quies ulla, acne momentum quidem tenue tuis transcurris beneficiis otiosum, qua mari terraque protegas homines, et depulsis vitæ procellis salutarem porrigas dexteram, quâ fatorum etiam inextricabiliter contorta retrac tas licia, et fortunæ tempestates mitigas, et stellarum varios meatus cohibes.

Te superi colunt, observant inferi, tu rotas orbem, luminas solem, regis mundum, calcas tartarum; tibi respondent sidera, redeunt tempora, gaudent numina, serviunt elementa, tuo natu spirant flumina, nutriunt nubila, germinant semina, crescunt gramina. Tuam majestatem perhorrescunt aves coelo meantes, feroe mon tibus errantes, serpentes solo latentes belluoe, ponto natantes.

At ego referendis laudibus tuis exilis ingenio, et adhibendis sacrificiis tenuis patrimonio. Nec mihi vocis ubertas, ad dicenda quoe de tua majestate sentio, sufficit, nec ora mille, linguæque totidem, vel indefensi sermonis oeterna series. Ergo quod solùm potest religiosus quidem, sed pauper, alioquin efficere curabo, divinos tuos vultus, numenque sanctissimum, intra pectoris mei secreta conditum, perpetuo custodiens, imaginabor. [13]

These prayers were made standing, sometimes in a low voice, sometimes aloud; they made them seated only in sacrifices for the dead.

Vergil says:

Next the priest recited a sort of sermon for the prosperity of the emperors and the state, as we learn in Apuleius ( book II of the golden ass). [16] After the procession had been brought back into the temple of the goddess Isis, he says, one of the priests called grammateus , standing before the gate of the choir, assembled all the pastophores, and mounting onto a high place, took his book, read aloud several prayers for the emperor, the senate, the Roman cavalry, and the people, adding some instruction in religion: Tunc exiis quem cuncti grammateum vocabant, pro foribus assistens, cætu pastophorum (quod sacro sancti collegii nomen est) velut in concionem vocato, indidem de sublimi suggestu, de libro, de litteris fausta voce proefatus principi magno, senatuque, equiti, totique populo, noticis, navibus, etc. [17]

At the completion of these ceremonies, the sacrificer being seated and the victimaries standing, the magistrates or the private persons who were offering first fruits along with the victim sometimes made a little speech or type of compliment; that is why Lucian has the ambassadors of Phalaris make one to the priests of Delphi while presenting to them a brass bull which was a masterpiece of the art.

As each one presented his offering, he went to wash his hands in a special place in the temple to prepare himself more worthily for the sacrifice and to thank the gods for being willing to receive their victims. The offering made, the officiating priest censed the victims and sprinkled them with holy water; then, going back up to the altar, he prayed the god aloud to find pleasing the victims he was about to immolate for public necessities, and for such and such private reasons; and after that the priest descended the steps of the altar and received from the hand of one of the ministers the sacred dough called mola sacra , made of barley or wheat flour kneaded with salt and water, which he scattered on the victim’s head, sprinkling over it a little wine; this act was named immolatio, quasi molæ illatio , as an outpouring of that dough, Mola salsa , says Festus, vocatur far totum, et sale sparsum, quo deo molito hostiæ aspergantur .

Vergil expressed this ceremony in several places in his poem, for example:

Jamque dies infanda aderat mihi sacra parari,

Et salsæ fruges, et circum tempora vellæ. Æneid, book II . [18]

When the priest has scattered crumbs of this salted dough over the victim’s head, this constituted the first consecration; he took wine with the simpule, which was a sort of cruet, and after first tasting and had the assistants taste it, he poured it between the horns of the victim, pronouncing these words of consecration: Mactus hoc vino inferio esto , which is to say, May this victim be honored by this wine to be more pleasing to the gods. That done, he pulled some hairs from between the victim’s horns and cast them into the lighted fire.

He then commanded the victimary to strike the victim, and he felled him with a great blow of the mallet or ax on the head; quickly another minister called popa plunged a knife into his throat, while a third collected the animal’s blood that came bubbling out, with which the priest sprinkled the altar.

After the victim’s throat was slit, he was opened, except in burnt offerings, where they burned the skin with the animal; they detached his head, which they garnished with garlands and festoons, and attached it to the pillars of the temples along with the skins as banners of religion which were carried in procession in some public calamity: that is what we learn from a passage of Cicero against Piso: Et quid recordaris cum omni totius provinciæ pecore cumpulso, pellicum nomine omnem quæstum illum domesticum paternumque renovasti?  [19] And again by this other one of Festus: Pellem habere Hercules fingitur, ut homines cultus antiqui admoneantur; lugentes quoque diebus luctus in pellibus sunt.

Not that the priests did not often cover themselves in the victims’ skins or that others did not go sleep on them in the temple of Esculapius and that of Faunus in order to have favorable responses in a dream, or to be relieved of their illnesses, as Vergil assures us in these beautiful verses:

After the priest has led the victims to the spring and has immolated them there, he lays their skins during the night on the ground, lies on them, and goes to sleep. Then he sees a thousand phantoms fluttering about him; he hears different voices, he speaks with the gods of Olympus, and even with the deities of hades. The king, in order to learn the fate of the princess, thus sacrificed a hundred lambs in this forest to the god Fauna, and then lay down on their outstretched fleeces.

Cappadox, a slave dealer, complains in Plautus’s comedy entitled Curculio that after going to sleep in the temple of Esculapius he had a dream about this god going away from him, which made him decide to leave, unable to hope for healing:

They would open the victim’s entrails, and after studying them attentively to draw presages from them, according to the science of the auspices, they would dust them with flour, moisten them with wine, and present them to the gods in basins, after which they would be thrown into the fire by pieces: reddebant exta diis , for which reason the entrails were called porriciae, quod in aroe soco ponebantur, diisque porrigebantur , so this ancient way of speaking, porricias inferre , means to present the entrails in sacrifice .

Often they were sprinkled with oil, as we read in book VI of the Aeneid:

Sometimes they would sprinkle them with milk and the victim’s blood, particularly in sacrifices for the dead, which we learn from Statius ( book VI of the Thebaid):

The entrails being consumed, all the other ceremonies accomplished, they believed that the gods were satisfied and that they could not fail to see the realization of their wishes, which they expressed by this verb, litare , in other words all is well done; and non litare on the contrary meant that something was deficient in the integrity of the sacrifice and that the gods were not appeased. Suetoniuis, speaking of Julius Caesar, says that he could never sacrifice a favorable victim the day he was killed in the senate: Cæsar victimis cæsis litare non potuit. [23]

The priest dismissed the crowd with these words: I licet , which were also used at the end of funeral ceremonies and comedies to dismiss the audience, as we can see in Terence and Plautus. The Greeks used this expression for the same purpose: λαο ς ἄφιστις, and the audience replied: feliciter . Finally, they raised the banquet or holy feast, epulum , to the gods; they put their statues on a bed and served them the meat from the offered victims: this was the function of the ministers of the sacrifices , which the Latins called epulones .

It results from the detail we have just read that the sacrifices had four principal parts: the first was called libatio , the libation, or that brief test of wine that was made with effusions on the victim; the second, immolatio , the immolation, when after scattering on the victim the crumbs of salted dough he was slaughtered; the third was called redditio , when its entrails were offered to the gods; and the fourth was called litatio , when, the sacrifice had been accomplished with no mistakes.

I must not forget to observe that between these public sacrifices there were others called stata , in other words fixed, immobile, which were performed every year on the same day; and other, extraordinary ones called indicta , specified, because they were ordered extraordinarily for some important and unanticipated occasion; but the curious will find more details in Stucki, De sacrificiis veterum , [24] and in other authors who have dealt with this subject deeply. See also the articles Host and Victim.

I will add only a word on the sacrifices of the Greeks in particular. They distinguished four sorts of general sacrifices: 1 ^st free will offerings, which one made in consequence of a vow, in Greek χαριστήρια, or εὐκτα℘α, as for having won a victory; it was again the first fruits of crops offered by farmers to obtain an abundant harvest from the gods; 2 ^nd the propitiatory offering, ἱλαστήρια, to turn aside the wrath of some offended deity, and such were all the usual sacrifices in the expiations; 3 ^rd supplicatory sacrifices , αἰτητικὰ, for the success of all sorts of undertakings; 4 ^th sacrifices expressly ordered by all the prophets or oracles that had just been consulted, τὰ ἀπὸ μαντείας. With respect to the rites of all these various sacrifices , consult Potter, Archaeologia graeca, vol. l, p. 209 and ff . [25]

With respect to human sacrifices , I shall remove it from the letter S, which will be quite full, and move that article to the word Human victim. [26]

1. “Of old the means to win the goodwill of gods for man were spelt and the sparkling grains of pure salt” (Ovid, Fasti , I, 337–338, trans. James G. Frazer); satis appears to be an error for salis .

2. “For some, even crimes like these are not enough, they have imputed to the gods themselves abomination – they believe a god in heaven above, rejoices at the death of a laborious ox.” (Ovid, Metamorphoses , XV, 127–129, trans. Brookes More).

3. “It is not required of you, who are crowning our little gods with rosemary and the brittle myrtle, to propitiate them with a great slaughter of sheep. If an innocent hand touches a clear, a magnificent victim does not pacify the offended Penates more acceptably, than a consecrated cake and crackling salt.” (Horace, Odes , III, 23, vv. 13–14, 19–20, trans. C. Smart).

4. Plautus, Captivi , act IV, sc. 1.

5. “They therefore ordained that the people should sacrifice for the ghosts of the dead in the month of February, then the last month in the year” (Cicero, De Legibus , II, 21, trans. C. D. Yonge, 1853).

6. “This better life I offer you, Eryx, instead of the death of Dares; here victorious I lay down the gauntlet and my art!” (Vergil, Aeneid , V, vv. approx. 483–484, trans. H. R. Fairclough).

7. “You gods, whose kingdom is the deep, over whose waters I run, gladly, in discharge of my vow, will I on this shore set before your altars a snow-white bull, and fling entrails into the salt flood and pour liquid wine!” ( Aeneid , V, vv. approx 236–238, trans. Fairclough).

8. “Now it were better to sacrifice seven bullocks from the unbroken herd, and as many ewes fitly chosen” ( Aeneid , VI, 39, trans. Fairclough).

9. “And place a young bull with a gilded forehead” ( Aeneid , IX, 627).

10. Victimaires : subordinate priests for Roman sacrifices, “The victimaries bound the victims, prepared the knife, the water, the dough, and the other things necessary for the sacrifices” ( Dictionnaire de Trévoux ).

11. “Come none but the innocent! Far, far from here be the unnatural brother, and the mother who is harsh to her own offspring, he whose father lives too long, he who reckons up his mother’s years, and the unkind mother-in-law who hates and maltreats her daughter-in-law. Here is no place for the brothers, scions of Tantalus, for Jason’s wife, for her who gave to husbandmen the toasted seeds, for Procne and her sister, for Tereus, cruel to them both, and for him, who’er he be, who amasses wealth by crime.” ( Fasti , II, viii, trans. James G. Frazer.)

12. “Hail, undoubted offspring of Jove, added to the gods an ornament to their assembly; both us and these thy sacred rites with thy auspicious presence visit” (VIII, 301–302).

13. Metamorphoses , XI, 25: “Oh holy and eternal comfort of humankind, who ever nurtures mortals with your generosity, you apply a mother’s sweet affection to the misfortunes of the wretched. Not a day or night or even a little moment goes by indifferent to your blessing. ¶ You protect men on land and sea. Driving away life’s storms, you reach out with your saving hand and you unwind the threads of the Fates, even those that are inextricably twisted. You calm the tempests of Fortune and you restrain the hurtful course of the stars. ¶ The spirits above honor you, the ones below worship you. You turn the sphere of heaven, you give light to the sun, you govern the universe, and you keep Tartarus at bay. To you, the heavenly bodies reply, the seasons return, the divine power gives praise, and the elements give their devotion. ¶ At your command, the winds give breath, the clouds nourish, the seeds of the earth sprout forth, and their seedlings grow. At your greatness tremble the birds moving in the sky, the beasts wandering the hills, the serpents hiding in the den, and the monsters that swim in the deep. ¶ My nature, however, is too feeble to speak your praises, my inheritance too meager to offer you sacrifices. My voice does not have the power to say what I feel about your greatness—nor would a thousand mouths and as many tongues, or even an eternal flow of indefatigable speech. ¶ I will, therefore, take care to do the only thing a pious but poor person can do: I will hold your divine expression and your most holy will in the secret places of my heart, forever keeping them and remembering.” A Prayer to Isis.

14. “While with many prayers he addressed Jupiter, standing all the time, with eyes upturned, on the tips of his toes.” Martial Epigrams, bk. XII, epigram 77, trans. Walter C. A. Ker (London, 1919-1920).

15. ‘Turnus then by chance was reposing himself in the grove of his progenitor Prolemnis, which lay in a consecrated vale’ (Aeneid, IX, 3–4, trans. London, 1794).

16. The Golden Ass ( Asinus aureus ) is another name for the author’s Metamorphoses .

17. “But when we arrived at the temple itself, the chief priest and those who carried the divine images, and who, some time prior to this, had been initiated in the venerable mysteries, being received into the sanctuary of the Goddess, disposed in a proper order the breathing resemblances. Then one of these, whom all of them called a scribe, standing before the doors, the company of the Pastophori, which is the name of the members of that sacred college, being cited as to an assembly, uttered from a lofty chair auspicious wishes, from a book in which they were written: FOR THE GREAT EMPEROR, THE SENATE, AND THE EQUESTRIAN ORDER, AND FOR ALL THE ROMAN PEOPLE; and likewise for the nautical ships,” etc. Apuleius, Metamorphosis, trans. Thomas Taylor (London, 1822), book XI, pp. 275-277.

18. ‘And now the day of horror was at hand; for me the rites were preparing, the salted meat, and the fillets for my temples’ (II, 133–134, trans. Fairclough).

19. “Do you remember anything of that magazine of arms, when having got together all the cattle of the province, you renewed all that profit that was made by your father and others of your family upon skins?” (Oration against Piso, § xxxvi, trans. William Duncan, 1796).

20. “Hither the priestess brings the offerings, and as she lies under the silent night on the outspread fleeces of slaughtered sheep and woos slumber, she sees many phantoms flitting in wondrous wise, hears voices manifold, holds converse with the gods, and speaks with Acheron in lowest Avernus. Here then, also King Latinus himself, seeking an answer, duly slaughtered a hundred wooly sheep and lay couched on their hides and outspread fleeces.” Aeneid VII, v. 86-95, trans. Fairclough.

21. Aeneid VI, 253–254.

22. “Foaming bowls of wine are outpoured, and beakers of black blood and pleasant milk yet warm from the udder” (Statius, Thebaid , VI, 211–212, trans. J. H. Mozley).

23. Lives of the Twelve Caesars.

24. Perhaps the reference is to Johann Wilhelm Stucki (1542–1607), Sacrorum et sacrificiorum gentilium brevis et accurata descriptio, universae superstitionis ethnicae ritus cerimoniasque complectens, 1598.

25. John Potter (1674–1747), Archaeologia Graeca, sive veterum graecorum , 2 vols., 1702. For an English translation: Archaeologia graeca: or, The Antiquities of Greece (London, 1751)

26. In French “Victime humaine” falls under “V” and thus appears in a later volume.