80 Rajendralala Mitra— On Human Sacrifices in Ancient India. [No. l 



and shipwrecked mariners were the persons who afforded the readiest vie- 

 tims. 



The Lamias and the Lestrygons were equally cruel r in their religious 

 observances. Adverting to the former, Bryant says, " The Lamias were not 

 only to be found in Italy, and Sicily, but Greece, Pontus, and Libya. And 

 however widely they may have been separated, they are still represented in 

 the same unfavourable light. Euripides says that their very name was 

 detestable. Philostratus speaks of their bestial appetite, and unnatural 

 gluttony. And Aristotle alludes to practices still more shocking : as 

 if they tore open the bodies big with child, that they might get at 

 the infant to devour it. I speak, says he, of people, who have brutal 

 appetites.* 



These descriptions are perhaps carried to a great excess; yet the 

 history was founded on truth : and shews plainly what fearful impres- 

 sions were left upon the minds of men from the barbarity of the first 

 ages. 



" One of the principal places in Italy, where the Lamia seated them- 

 selves, was about Formiae j of which Horace takes notice in his Ode to 

 iElius Lamia. 



JEli, vetusto nobilis ab Lamo, &c. 

 Auctore ab illo ducis originem, 

 Qui Formiarum mcenia dicitur 

 Princeps, et innantem Maricas 

 Littoribus tenuisse Lirim. 



^ " The chief temple of the Formians was upon the sea-coast at Caiete. 

 It is said to have had its name from a woman who died here : and whom 

 some make the nurse of iEneas, others of Ascanius, others still of Creusa.f 

 The truth is this : it stood near a cavern, sacred to the god Ait, called Ate, 

 Atis, and Attis ; and it was hence called Caieta, and Caiatta. Strabo says,' 

 that it was denominated from a cave, though he did not know the precise 

 etymology. % There were also in the rock some wonderful subterranes, which 

 branched out into various apartments. Here the ancient Lamii, the priests 

 of Ham, resided :§ whence Silius Italicus, when he speaks of the place, styles 

 it Eegnata Lamo Caieta. || They undoubtedly sacrificed children here, and 

 probably the same custom was common among the Lamii, as prevailed 



* Aiistol. Ethics, L. 7., c. 6 , p. 118. 

 t Virgil. Mn. L. 7. V. 1. 

 X Strabo, L. 5, p. 357. 

 § Ibid., p. 356. 

 II Silius, L. 8. 



