
SACRIFICES OF THE GREEKS. 449 
There are two other mythic sacrifices in Euripides, but they are not properly 
of the nature of sacrifices to gods. The one is that of Menoikeus. Teiresias 
tells Kreon that he can succeed against Polynices only on condition of slaying 
his own son. Here no god is mentioned as receiving the sacrifice, and indeed 
it comes out that it is not a sacrifice, but a payment of blood for blood, such as 
might have taken place among men. Cadmus had slain the dragon, the 
offspring of Ares, and Ares now demands vengeance from the race of him that 
had wrought the evil deed or he will not assist them. ‘The young man must 
be slain in recesses where the earth-born dragon dwelt, the guardian of the 
fountain of Dirce, and pour out his blood as a libation to earth, in consequence 
of the ancient wrath against Cadmus of Ares, who now avenges the murder of 
the earth-born dragon.”* Kreon utterly refuses to perpetrate such a cruel act, 
but the young man happened to be present when Teiresias informed Kreon of 
the necessity of his slaughter; and he himself slays himself at the appointed 
place, another example of that self-sacrifice for one’s country of which Euripides 
delights to sing. 
The other instance of sacrifice is that of Polyxena, mention of which is made 
both in the Hecuba and the Troades. The ghost of Achilles appeared above 
his tomb and demanded that Polyxena, the daughter of Hecuba, should be 
given to him as a prize (yépas),t detaining the Greek host until his demand 
should be granted. Here we have an unquestionable sacrifice, and the son of 
Achilles acts as priest.{ But the object of the sacrifice is to gratify the desire 
of a dead hero. The shade of the hero is asked to drink the blood of the 
maiden. ‘“O son of Peleus, and my father, receive these soothing libations at 
my hands, that evoke the dead; and come that thou mayest drink the dark 
pure blood of the maiden which I and the army present to thee!”§ We have 
here no act of worship, but a shade below desires a drink of blood, as all the 
shades do, according to the Odyssey, and gets it. 
The case of Alcestis is an instance of genuine substitution, but it is not a 
sacrifice. She died instead of her husband. There is no slaughter, no priest, 
no altar, and she is offered up to no god. She simply passes away from life, 
and her husband is spared because she dies. 
These are all the sacrifices noticed in the extant works of Euripides; it 
we know from various sources that several others of a similar nature were 
taken as themes by the tragic writer. There was a special reason for selecting 
such tales of self-sacrifice. The patriotic Lycurgus, in lis oration against 
Leocrates (330 B.c.), thinks Euripides deserves great praise for selecting the 
sacrifice of the daughter of Erechtheus as the subject of a play. “ Justly,” he 
says, “would one bestow praise on Euripides, because, while in other respects 
* Phenisse, 938. + Hee. 41. { Ibid. 224, 521. § Ibid. 532. 
