
SACRIFICES OF THE GREEKS. 445 
P.c.), probably the two earliest, say nothing of a human sacrifice. Harpocration 
says (sub voc. dappaxds), in explanation of the words attributed to Lysias, “ At 
Athens they led out two men to serve as a purification of the city at the 
Thargelia, one for the men and one for the women.” ‘“ Ister (236 B.c.), in his first 
volume of the ‘ Appearances of Apollo,’ has stated that Pharmakos is a proper 
name, and that he, having stolen the sacred cups of Apollo, and being captured 
by Achilles, was stoned, and the custom observed at the Thargelia is an imita- 
tion of this.” Helladius’s account is :—“ It was a custom in Athens to lead two 
dappaxot, the one for men and the other for women, being led for purification ; 
and one of the men had black figs around his neck and the other white. 
They were named ovBdxyo.. But this purification was an averting of pestilential 
diseases, taking its origin from Androgeos, the Cretan, who having been put to 
death contrary to law in Athens, the Athenians suffered under a pestilential 
disease, and the custom always prevailed of purifying the city with the 
dappaxot,”* In both of these writers the ¢apyaxoi are led in procession. 
They are not put to death. 
If we turn to the scholiast on Aristophanes (Eq. 1136), we find the following 
note on the word dnpooitovs—“Supply oxen, or bulls, or some such victim. The 
dynpoowor are the so-called ¢apyaxot, who purify the city by their own murder ; 
or the dnpdow are those who are fed by the city; for the Athenians fed some 
exceedingly base and worthless people, and on the occasion of any calamity 
coming upon the city, such as a pestilence, they sacrificed these in order to be 
purified of the pollution, and these, therefore, they also called purifications 
(xa0appara), and in the Ranz, ‘one would not have readily used them without 
due consideration as dappakoi.’” Dinvorr, in his edition of the Scholia, has 
pointed out that the Scholia belong to very different ages. In this case, we can 
have little doubt in assigning the first clause to an Alexandrian grammarian, 
who gives the right interpretation, that Bovs is to be supplied to dypocious, and 
that the reference is to cattle fed for the public sacrifices. The rest of the note 
belongs to a date probably posterior to the time of Helladius, and we cannot be 
far wrong in supposing that the writer has based his story of the ¢dappaxoi on 
his misinterpretation of this passage. In the passage in Aristophanes, the 
Chorus rebukes Demos for allowing himself to be cajoled and flattered. Demos 
replies that he is not such a fool. He enjoys the fun of the flatteries. He 
allows the officials to gorge themselves with plunder ; but when once they are 
full he strikes them down. The Chorus replies—“ In this way you are acting 
well, and there really is, as you say, a very great amount of prudence in your 
conduct, if you nourish these as public property in the Pnyx for this purpose, 
and then, when you happen to have no dainty, sacrifice whoever of them happens 
* Photius Bibl. Cod. 279, p. 534, A, 2, Bekker. 
