XLIX] Studies in primitive Greek religion. 39 



Lacedaemonians are reported to have sacrificed to the same 

 powers on Mount Taygetus '); but the Greeks, before under- 

 taking dangerous voyages or when pressed on the sea by an- 

 gry wind-demons, not nnfrequently seem to have had recourse 

 to human sacrifices in order to appease these powers. Legend 

 as well as history afiford iQStances of this. Thus when the 

 Greeks were afflicted by stress of weather at Auhs, they were 

 bidden to sacrifice Iphigeneia, „as an ofifering which would 

 lull the winds" (navadvef^iog ifvaLO) 2), or „as a means of con- 

 juring Thracian tempests" {éno^doc. 0QrjxtMV årjf^iäroov) ^). Hero- 

 dotus tells US that when Menelaus was desirous of sailing away 

 from Eg3'pt and was detained by contrary winds he sacrificed 

 to them two Egyptian children *). Similarly we are told in 

 Euripides' Hecuha, that Polyxenes was sacrificed in order to 

 secure prosperous winds for the voyage home^). For a similar 

 purpose Themistocles before the battle with the Persians sacri- 

 ficed captured enemies^), and Agesilaus was bidden to do the same 

 in a vision when he was about lo sail against the Persians from 

 Aulis, although he substiluted a hind for a human victim ''). 



The opinion that the castom of ofifering human sacrifices 

 to winds was not originally Greek, but due to Oriental influence ^) 

 is an expression of the stränge tendency which appears in some 

 writers to ascribe barbaric rites and religions ideas in general 

 among the Greeks to foreign influence. Whether human sacrifices 

 took place even in the earliest prehistoric times may be doubted, 

 because as a rule this custom appears only at somewhat 

 higher stages of culture. But as endeavours to appease with 

 the most valuable offerings that could be found, angry deities 

 who seemed to be thirsting for human blood, these sacrifices, 

 both when addressed to wind-gods and to other cruei powers, 

 no doubt formed a native Greek custom. 



') Festus, p. 181. 



'-) Aescli. Agam. 214. 



») Ibid. 1118. Cf. Verg. Aen. II, 116. 



*) Herod. II, 119. 



«) Eurip. Hec. 536 sqq. 900 sqq. 1289 sq(i. 



**) Plut. Themist. c. 13. Arist c. 9. 



') Plut. Ages. c. 6. Cf. Xen. Hell. III, 5. 3. 



*) See Steugel, Die Opfer der Hellenen an die Winde, in Hermes> 



1881, p. 347. 



