SACRIFICES OF THE GREEKS. 433 
ransom, and “all day long they appeased the god with song and dance, 
celebrating the Far-darter ; and he rejoiced in his mind, listening to the song.” 
The priest, moreover, prays to the god to cease afflicting the Greeks. Here 
the god is pacified by large offerings, by a feast, by singing and dancing, and 
by satisfaction done to the priest. There is no consciousness that sin, as such, 
requires a sacrifice; there is no idea that the life of the animal is the substitute 
for the forfeited life of the sinner; but they are conscious that they have done 
an injury to the god and his priest; they pay ample damages, and they soothe 
both in the best way they can. 
The real state of the case is still more distinctly brought before us in the 
ninth book of the Iliad. Achilles is enraged with Agamemnon, exactly in the 
same way as Apollo was enraged with the Greeks. An embassy is sent to 
try to reconcile him; and among other arguments addressed to him, it is said, 
“ You ought not to keep a pitiless heart; for the gods themselves can be moved, 
and men turn away their anger by offers of incense, and by soothing vows, by: 
libations, and steam of fat, praying to them whenever one is insolent towards 
them or neglectful of them.’* Oras Hesiod, quoted by Plato, says, “ Gifts 
persuade the gods ; gifts persuade awful kings.” + 
These sacrifices, therefore, have two objects. They first repair the injury 
done ; and, secondly, they try to bring the god into good humour. The idea of 
sin never appears in them. 
The only idea approximating to that of sin is the idea of pollution. But 
sacrifices did not take away pollution. The Greeks, in the first book of 
the Iliad, are polluted by the numerous funeral pyres; and before offering 
up the sacrifice, they get rid of their pollutions by casting them into the sea. 
The sea is the great source of purity. In the Homeric poems blood is never 
used to purify, and no intimation is given that the Homeric Greeks believed 
that blood could purify. Purification, moreover, was essential to the acceptable 
offering up of a sacrifice. “I have a religious horror of offering up a libation 
of sparkling wine with unwashed hands,”{ says Hector,; “nor is it seemly to 
pray to dark-clouded Kronion stained with blood and gore.” LEurycleia, the 
nurse, recommends Penelope to wash herself with water, and put on clean 
robes, and go up to her chamber with attendant women, and pray to Athene, 
the daughter of A‘gis-bearing Zeus, for then she might rescue Telemachus from 
death.§ Achilles had a cup from which he alone drank, and he made libations 
with it only to Father Zeus. When he sends Patroclus into the field instead 
of himself, he takes this cup out of his chest, purifies it with sulphur, then 
cleans it with pure water, washes his own hands, pours out the wine into it, 
eoulix. £97, 
+ The verse is quoted anonymously by Plato: it is ascribed to Hesiod by Suidas and Macarius. 
t IL vi. 266. § Od. iv. 753 
