26 The Rev. J. Hamilton on the Punic Passage in Plautus, 



and accounted obnoxious to a ban, execration, or anathema, disquahfying and 

 precludhig them from access to the gods, and the rites and privileges of religion. 

 Thus against such a one we find In the ffidlpus Tyrannus of Sophocles the 

 following Imprecation : tov avSpa tovtov — firj^e eu decov €V)(aL(Ti koivov ttol- 

 €i<Tdai — codeiv 5e as fiLaa-fMaTos rjfiiv ovtos- To which head we may also refer 

 Horace's repudlatory formula, Odi profanum — et arceo. According to the spirit 

 of such passages, one of the first articles In an Imprecation against an Andrapodlst 

 would run : " May they brand him as an object of abhorrence, and excommuni- 

 cate him from the gods as profane." Ut jwofanum arceant — fie^rjXcocn airo 

 Tcov decov ; a''3i'7Na im'7'7n% y'Vluhu malonim. For, the Hebrew term for 

 such repudiation, both In the Scripture and in uninspired writers, (as Malmo- 

 nidcs,*) is well known. In the Holy Scriptures it is uniformly the Hebrew 

 equivalent for the ^eOrjXoco of the Septuagint, '^'^n, designated in lexicons ver- 

 bum prohibitionis — abominationis. 



Moreover amongst the different punishments Inflicted by the ancients, there 

 was one which was designated Ari/xia, or Ignominia, another was the Demersio. 

 The ^^T\, which we have just adverted to, may be referred to the former head ; 

 that which we are about to allude to, in which the former frequently eventuated, 

 to the latter. It will be recollected, that there widely prevailed a custom, 

 especially amongst the Phoenicians and their colonists, of not only desecrating 

 such repudiated wretches, and repelling them as profane from holy rites, but 

 further, of following it up by their demersion ; devoting them, with the most 

 direful imprecations, to be thrown into the sea. So that the latter article being 

 included in the Imprecation with the former, it would embrace two distinct 

 clauses : first, the desecration, excommunication, or anathematizing of the 

 offender ; secondly, his ignominious and capital punishment, by publicly sinking 

 him in the sea. Accordingly the Imprecation of Hanno will be found to run, 

 " whom may they make him an anathema from the gods, and (one and all) may 

 they sink him in the sea."f B'ym is yrduhu =yrtoho, imini \j;ij^ Q''!. 



* Amongst the different classes of the captivity that are mentioned by Maimonides, as having 

 gone up from Babylon, viz. : — Sacerdotes, Levitae, Israelitae, nati, Peregrini, Liberti, Spurii, we find 

 the D'bbn, or Profanati, &c. 



f The word bbn in the imprecatory or optative form, that is, in the future tense will be b7^^ 



