SS 
SACRIFICES OF THE GREEKS. 435 
to bring a lamb to Zeus. On the arrival of Priam and his friends the heralds 
carry in the victims, and mingle the wine, and pour water on the hands of the 
kings. Then Agamemnon cuts hairs from the heads of the lambs, and the 
heralds distribute them among the chiefs. After this Agamemnon offers up a 
prayer to Zeus, the sun, the rivers, and the earth, and the avenging gods below, 
that punishment may befall the man who violates the treaty. He then cuts the 
throats of the lambs, and places the animals quivering on the ground ; and they 
poured out the wine from the goblet, and prayed to the immortal gods, “ who- 
ever first breaks this treaty may his brains and his children’s flow to the ground 
like this wine.” * Priam refuses to remain, and accordingly mounts his chariot, 
taking the lambs along with him. In another case of a similar nature a boar 
is the victim. Agamemnon cut off some of the hairs, and prayed to Zeus. He 
then killed the boar, and the herald Talthybius threw it into the sea.t In 
these two cases the only portion of the service corresponding to the sacrifice is 
the offering up of the hairs. The killing of the animal is merely symbolical of 
the fate of the man who breaks the treaty. No part of the animal is burned 
or eaten, but it is taken away and cast into the sea. 
6. There is no instance of substitution of any kind, or no consciousness of 
any kind of substitution, except in one case. The companions of Ulysses, after 
seizing the cows of the sun, offer some of them up to the gods; but not having 
barley, they substitute the leaves of the oak, and not having wine to pour over 
the burning sacrifices, they substitute water.{ 
To sum up, most of the Homeric sacrifices cannot be connected with the 
idea of sin in any way. They are given to the gods to gain favour with them, 
and they are believed to please their senses. The few that are specially 
intended to appease the anger of the gods are not dictated by a consciousness 
of sin, but by the calamities which are brought upon mortals for having acted 
insolently to some god, or having neglected to honour him; and they are of the 
nature of compensation for the injuries done, and of gifts for the purpose of 
soothing and pleasing the god, There is no instance in Homer of a human 
sacrifice offered up to a god, and there is no instance or consciousness of sub- 
stitution for it. Ifthe phenomena of the Homeric poems are thus in every point 
antagonistic to the second theory, it seems to me that it can derive no support 
from the Greek sacrifices. Homer is certainly nearest to the original man, and 
therefore ought to give us most exactly the original ideas in regard to sacrifice. 
If changes are introduced in subsequent periods in the mode of offering up 
sacrifices, or of thinking of them, it is antecedently probable that these changes 
are the result of the progress of the nation, or of foreign introductions. 
= IL im, 103, 104, 245, 268, 310. + Il. xix. 268. t Od. xii. 357, 362. 
VOL. XXVII. PART IV. De 
