448 DR DONALDSON ON THE EXPIATORY AND SUBSTITUTIONARY 
the calm came on because Agamemnon had killed a stag belonging to Artemis, 
and had acted insolently towards the goddess.* And Euripides doubts the whole 
story, sends her to the Tauric Chersonese, and, moreover, objects to the idea 
that the Tauric Artemis accepted human sacrifices.t “But I censure these 
wiles of the goddess; for if a mortal touch the blood of a murdered man, or 
woman in childbed, or a corpse with his hand, she drives him away from her 
altars, regarding him as abominable, and yet she herself delights in human 
sacrifices. Yet it is impossible that Leto, the spouse of Zeus, could have given 
birth to such an ignorant being. I, for my part, judge that the banquet given 
by Tantalus to the gods is a thing incredible, that it is incredible they should 
have pleasure in eating a child. And I think that the men of this place, being 
themselves slayers of men (dév@pwoxrdvous), attribute the same evil custom to 
the god: for I think that none of the gods is wicked.” These words may 
mean that the men of the Tauric Chersonese delighted in murdering men, and 
that they represented their goddess as delighting in seeing the murders perpe- 
trated. But it is more probable that the poet intended to say that the men of 
the Tauric Chersonese were at one time cannibals, and that they believed that 
their goddess enjoyed the flesh of men. 
No other mythic sacrifice is mentioned in the extant works of Aéschylus and 
Sophocles. In Euripides there are several. First there is the sacrifice of 
Macaria. Eurystheus and the Argive army are coming to Athens to demand the 
expulsion of the Heraclide. Demophon is prepared to resist the demand, but 
the oracle declares that, if he is to be successful, he must sacrifice a virgin of 
noble. family to the daughter of Demeter.{ “But I,” says Demophon, “ will 
neither kill my own daughter, nor will I compel any other of my citizens to kill 
his against his will; and with his will who has such an evil soul as to give up 
his dearest children out of his hand?”§ The passage shows that the Greek 
mind, at this period, revolted from human sacrifices. In this case an easy solu- 
tion is found. Macaria, daughter of Heracles, voluntarily offers herself as a 
sacrifice, and she thus gives a brilliant example of a course of conduct on which 
the Greeks delighted to lavish their praise,—the duty of the individual to 
sacrifice himself for the general welfare. It is noteworthy that she calls her 
death a cause of pollution (uiacpa), and that this sacrifice is a kind of substitu- 
tionary sacrifice. ‘ You see me giving the bloom of my marriage to die instead 
of these.” || If she had not died her kindred would have perished, and so she is 
said to have died instead of them. But there is no idea of substitution as 
producing the efficacy of the sacrifice. The sacrifice is commanded by the 
oracle. No reason is given for it. 
* EY, Ooo. + Iph. in Tauri, 380. 
+ The reading is doubtful. Some read, “ A maiden to Demeter.” 
§ Heraclide, 411. || Lbid. 580. 

