1876.] Rajendralala Mitra— On Human Sacrifices in Ancient India. 79 



Thus anthropopathy resulting in devotion, penance, rejoicings, 

 vows and a desire to avert evil, or secure a coveted object by divine 

 intervention, vindictiveness, expediency, respect for the dead, necromancv and 

 depraved appetite, would all tend to human sacrifices ; and that they did so, 

 is abundantly evident from the history of human civilization in ancient times. 

 To quote, however, a few instances by way of proofs, though many of them 

 must be familiar to most of my readers. 



The Phoenicians frequently offered human victims to their sanguinary gods 

 Ba'al and Moloch to appease their thirst for blood. The Carthaginians did 

 the same to the same divinities. The Druids, both in Great Britain and 

 Scandinavia, likewise, satisfied the spirit of their gods by human sacrifices, often 

 burning large numbers of men in wicker baskets. The Scythians testified their 

 devotion by immolating hundreds at a time. In the Thargalia of the Athenians, 

 a man and a woman were annually sacrificed to expiate the sins of the nation. 

 Homer mentions that twelve Trojan captives were killed at the funeral of 

 Patroclus,* and Menelaus was seized by the Egyptians for sacrificing young 

 children with the Greek notion of appeasing the winds.f As an act of vin- 

 dictive devotion, Augustus immolated three hundred citizens of Perusia before 

 his deified uncle Divus Julius. The cruel practice of the Cyclops feasting on 

 their prisoners- of -war is well known. According to Euripides, " the most 

 agreeable repast to the Cyclops was the flesh of strangers," % and Homer 

 describes that six of the comrades of Ulysses were devoured by Scylla in the 

 cavern of the Cyclops. § One passage on the subject gives a vivid picture of 

 the cruel practice, and I quote Pope's version of it entire. 



" He answered with his deed ; his bloody hand 



Snatched two unhappy of my martial band, 



And dashed like dogs against the rocky floor. 



The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore. 



Torn limb from limb, he spreads the horrid feast, 



And fierce devours it like a mountain beast. 



He sucks the marrow, and the blood he drains ; 



Nor entrails, flesh, nor solid bone remains. 



We see the death, from which we cannot move, 



And humbled groan beneath the hand of Jove." Od. L. I., v. 282. 



Doubtless there is much poetical embellishment in this extract, but di- 

 vested of it it shows that the Cyclops indulged in human sacrifice. The 

 cavern evidently was, like many others on the shores of the Mediterranean 

 Sea, temples where the horrid rite of anthropothusia was regularly observed, 



* II. XL 33. 



f Herodot., II. 119. 



X Euripides, Cyclops, V. 126. 



§ Bryant's Ancient Mythology, II., pp. 15 ff. 



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