SACRIFICES OF THE GREEKS. 437 
passage from the Ninth Book of the Iliad with reprobation. He alludes to 
the same passage in the “‘ Laws.” ‘To whom of the above-mentioned classes 
of guardians would any man gravely compare the gods? Will he say that they 
are like pilots who are themselves turned away from their duty by draughts of 
wine and the savour of fat ?”* 
Now it is impossible, if the masses connected the idea of sacrifice with that 
of sin, that Plato should have thus argued and spoken. The sacrifices were 
in the popular mind, as in the Homeric days, gifts to the gods to persuade 
them to confer benefits and to forgive offences. Plato maintains that this is 
to think of the gods as if they could be bribed—as if they could be seduced 
into winking at iniquity for the sake of the presents. 
2. The principal element through which the food offered on the altar passed 
to the gods is still fire. There is in Herodotus a curious instance of the trans- 
ference of this notion to the conveyance of goods to the dead. Melissa, the 
wife of Periander, appeared after her death to her husband; but refused to 
give him information, because, as she said, she was cold and naked, for the 
garments buried with her were of no use, as they had not been burned. 
Whereupon Periander brought, by a stratagem, all the Corinthian wives 
together, stripped them of their clothes, threw the clothes into a pit, and, 
calling on the name of Melissa, burned the whole heap. The ghost of Melissa 
was thereby pacified, and granted to her husband the information which he 
had in vain sought from her before.t 
There is no doubt that a considerable change passed over the opinion of 
the cultivated among the Greeks in regard to the pleasure which the gods 
derived from sacrifice; and we find a tendency to gratify them more by splendid 
temples and beautiful works of art, than by appeals to the grosser passions. 
We also occasionally meet with substitutions, no doubt arising from the belief 
that the gods did not care particularly for the special dainties usually set 
before them, and that they regarded the disposition of the worshipper rather 
than the gift. Accordingly, we hear of pigs of dough, or even of clay, being 
presented instead of real ones; and, when there are no means of offering up 
the proper sacrifice, rather than give up the sacrifice altogether, they contrive 
some figure or representation of it, and offer up that.t 
No stress is anywhere laid on the blood as the essential, or indeed as any 
part of the sacrifice. On the contrary, many of the sacrifices were bloodless, 
fruits, and cakes and incense; and so far were the Greeks from regarding 
blood as essential to a sacrifice, that Aristotle believed that the first sacrifices 
were sacritices of the first fruits of the earth. The passage is a remarkable 
one, and shows the Greek mode of thought. “ All these associations,” he says, 
* Lege, x. p. 906 E. Prof. Jower1’s Translation. + Herod, v. c. 92. 
} Many examples given by Lasauux, p. 259; see also Guruarp, “ Abhandlungen,” vol. ii. p. 340. 
