HUMAN SACRIFICE IN GREEK MYTH, CULT, AND HISTORY

INTRODUCTION: MYTH AND HISTORY

In this chapter I am interested principally in the ‘historical’ human sacrifices, by which I mean sacrifices which were presented as historical, and apparently believed to have been historical, by the authors who reported them, and which also have frequently been accepted as such by modern scholars. But first I shall discuss some myths of human sacrifice, which I have divided into two sections. In the first (‘mythical human sacrifices’) I treat myths in which specific (and most often named) individuals are sacrificed, usually offering themselves willingly in times of emergency, but also a few other miscellaneous stories of human sacrifice; in the second (‘mitigated human sacrifices and animal substitution’) I discuss in more detail some aetiological myths which served to account for existing rituals: according to these, earlier human sacrifices (usually repeated sacrifices, with anonymous victims) had been ‘mitigated’, i.e. replaced by non-fatal rituals or by animal sacrifices.

By distinguishing thus between mythical and historical human sacrifices I begin with the presupposition that the ‘myths’ of human sacrifice are indeed mythical and not historical. This, of course, is impossible to prove, and many scholars, while rejecting the historicity of individual human sacrifices in myths of my first category, nevertheless have felt that the legends preserve a memory of a practice of human sacrifice in earlier times.Wachsmuth’s statement, for example—‘wenn auch kein einzelner Fall Probe hält, bleibt dennoch in der gemeinschaftlichen Quelledieser mythischen Erzählungen, der aus uralter Zeit fortgepflanzten Sage von dem Brauche, Menschen zu opfern, Grund genug zum Glauben an denselben’—may be taken as typical not only for his century but for much of our own.1 Still, not all scholars have agreed with this assessment, e.g. Schwenn, who already in 1915 saw that ‘eine alte Opfersitte, die so manche annehmen, lässt sich aus diesen Sagen keineswegs erschliessen’.2 The difference of opinion is actually part of a much broader disagreement about the function and meaning of myth, but the old view which sees myths primarily as repositories of obsolete cultural practices and beliefs has in this century been called into question by more and more scholars, from a variety of viewpoints.

The myths of ‘mitigated’ human sacrifices connected with existing cult practices have more often been accepted as factual, but in recent years scholars have tended to reject these also. But this does not mean that these myths are unimportant for the study of Greek religious belief and ritual. If they did not preserve the actual histories of the rituals with which they were associated, they still may be presumed to have had meaning for the societies which created and maintained them. Exactly what this presumed meaning was may in many cases be unclear, and it is likewise uncertain how closely the myths were associated with the practices they served to explain. Did these aitia play an essential role in the beliefs of the worshippers, were they ‘cult myths’ integrally bound with the rites which they accompanied? Were they the inventions of local theologoi, or merely of poets, unconnected with the local cults, or even of later mythographers? Many of the preserved myths of this type appear to be relatively late inventions, some even showing the influence of Hellenistic romance. Still, the pattern exhibited by these myths—transgression, institution of human sacrifice, and its later abolition in favour of animal sacrifices or other rituals—is itself quite ancient (as its presence in the Iphigeneia story shows), and I believe that this type of myth was originally associated closely with cult practices. But the age of the myths does not really concern us: some meaningful function may be assumed for the later myths also, and the persistence of the pattern suggests a continuity of religious thought (or at least of mythopoetic inclinations) from Archaic into Hellenistic times. But of course aetiologies invented only in the Hellenistic age clearly cannot be taken to preserve the actual early histories of cult practices.

Finally, it is not always easy to distinguish the mythical from what is ‘presented as historical’ or ‘believed to have been historical’: such a judgement may be largely subjective and made from a modern point of view which does not always reflect that of the ancients, many of whom believed in the actuality of mythical characters and events or at least did not take adequate care to distinguish between the historical and the legendary.3 The division of the material into mythical and historical is therefore to some extent arbitrary. But my discussion of mythical human sacrifices is largely intended to serve as a preface to the ‘historical’ human sacrifices, many of which show marked similarities (such as the motifs of mitigation and animal substitution) with their mythic counterparts. Thus my division of the material into mythical and historical is not only somewhat arbitrary but also, as it were, temporary, for I strongly suspect—and in many cases hope to show—that most if not all of the human sacrifices discussed in the historical section belong rather to the realm of myth and pseudo-history.

MYTHICAL HUMAN SACRIFICES

A number of myths tell of noble young maidens who, usually in accordance with an oracle, are sacrificed or voluntarily offer themselves for sacrifice in order to ward off an enemy attack or other calamity from their city. One or more daughters (accountsvary) of Erechtheus were sacrificed during a war with Eleusis, while in another version a daughter of Cecrops, Aglaurus, threw herself from the walls of Athens during the same war.4 Similarly, when plague and famine beset Athens during the war with King Minos, the daughters of Hyacinthus (sometimes identified with the daughters of Erechtheus) were slain on the tomb of the Cyclops Geraestus.5 The daughters of Leos were also slain to drive plague or famine from Athens, and a sanctuary, the Leokorion, was constructed in the agora in their honour.6 And Heracles’ daughter Macaria willingly offered herself for sacrifice when Athens was besieged by Eurystheus, and a spring at Marathon was named for her.7

Similar sacrifices are known from locales other than Athens. An oracle promises success to Heracles and the Thebans in theircampaign against Orchomenos if the noblest citizen among them should die willingly by his own hand; when Antipoenus demurs, his daughters, Androcleia and Alcis, readily volunteer themselves as victims.8 And another pair of Boeotian maids, the daughters of Orion (Metioche and Menippe), willingly offer themselves to deliver their city from pestilence.9 Nor was the theme of virgin sacrifice confined to wars of the heroic past: among the stories from the Messenian Wars (eighth and seventh centuries), whose ‘history’ was concocted after Messenian independence in 370 and preserved chiefly by Pausanias, is a long and involved tale according to which the Delphic oracle requires the Messenians to sacrifice a virgin to the gods of the Underworld; a series of reversals leads to Aristodemus’ murder of his own daughter, and in the end it is decided that the oracle has been fulfilled by her death (Paus. 4.9.3–10).10

Parthenius (Amat. Narr. 35) preserves a very similar story from Hellenistic romance (here the location is Crete and the victim Cydon’s daughter Eulime)—so similar in fact that there must be some connection between the two stories. In both tales an oracle is consulted and enjoins the sacrifice of a virgin, to be selected by lot; the allotted victim’s lover comesforward to claim that she is with child, and in the end her womb is cut open; but in one case (Parth.) the lover’s claim proves true, in the other (Paus.) false. If nothing else the similarity between the two tales indicates how fine was the line in this period between historical writing and romance, and how readily it could be overstepped.

In some cases it is young men, not young women, who aresacrificed. In the Phoenissae Creon’s son Menoeceus slays himself on the highest tower of Thebes, but the ‘myth’ may have been invented by Euripides himself.11 When the Tyndaridae invade Attica, in accordance with an oracle Marathus willingly offers himself for sacrifice before the engagement, thus giving his name to the deme Marathon.12 And when the Eleans consult the oracle during a prolonged drought, they are instructed to sacrifice a noble boy to Zeus. A youth named Molpis volunteers, rain falls, and the Eleans build a sanctuary of Zeus Ombrios, setting up a statue of Molpis there.13

Frequently mentioned together with myths of this type—but differing from them significantly—is the story of the Athenian King Codrus. An oracle had proclaimed to the Peloponnesians that they would be unable to capture Athens if they should kill Codrus. But the Athenians got wind of the oracle, and Codrus, pro patria non timidus mori, went out of the beseiged city disguised as a beggar and, having killed one soldier from the Peloponnesian camp, was killed by another, thus saving Athens from destruction.14 Like the daughters of Erechtheus and other heroines and heroes, Codrus died willingly to save his country, but he was not, strictly speaking, sacrificed, and Burkert has connected the dynamics of this myth with ‘scapegoat’ rituals, whereby a community sends an animal or human being from its midst in order to bring destruction upon an enemy.15 But the Codrus myth also shows a close affinity to another Greek story, in which both sacrificial and ‘scapegoat’ motifs are absent: Temon, a prominent citizen of the Aenianes, dresses as a beggar and goes among the Inachians, who give him a clod of earth in mockery, thus unwittingly fulfilling an oracle to the effect that they would lose all of their land if they shared any part of it (Plut. Quaest. Graec. 13, 294A—B). It therefore appears that in the Codrus story the motif of willing self-sacrifice and thematic patterns akin to scapegoat rituals have been grafted onto a more widespread type of folktale, in which disguise as a beggar serves to trick an enemy into the damaging fulfilment of a prophecy.16

Most scholars would now agree that these myths of human sacrifice have no historical value. For one thing, the wars (not to mention the plagues, droughts, and famines) during which the sacrifices are performed are themselves mythical (and sometimes interchangeable, as the identification of the Hyacinthides and daughters of Erechtheus shows), as are the oracles which enjoin them.17

Also, many of the myths served as aetiologies for the names of various places and cult areas (Marathon, the sanctuary of Aglaurus, the Leokorion, the rock of Molpis, the spring Macaria), in which case, it is generally agreed, the thing explained precedes, historically, the explanatory myth. Furthermore, the similarity of the myths (a city is threatened with attack or afflicted by plague or famine; the oracle is consulted, and a human sacrifice ordained; the daughter or son of a king or nobleman comes forward; the city is delivered) does not argue for their historicity: history repeats itself, it is true, but not with such ideal regularity and felicitous outcome. It is clear that new stories of human sacrifice continued to be fashioned upon earlier models, although it is not possible to trace the thread back to a single paradigmatic myth.

The majority of the stories described above are myths in the full sense, in that they have partial reference to things of collective importance to the societies which created and maintained them, even if this reference is only to the name of a person or place.18 But the origin and function (beyond aetiology) of these myths is uncertain. Although the occasion of the human sacrifice is sometimes plague or famine, a close association with military practices is probable: before war the Athenian army sacrificed at the sanctuary of the Hyacinthides, and Athenian ephebes would swear an oath at the sanctuary of Aglaurus before departing for battle.19 It is therefore problematic but highly interesting that the victims are most often women, while in ancient Greece war was strictly the domain of males.20

Burkert sees in such myths a manifestation of the sexual renunciation required of hunters and warriors: ‘Man declines to love in order to kill: this is most graphically demonstrated in the ritual slaughter of “the virgin,” the potential source both of a happy union and of disruptive conflict within the group.’21 But I would interpret the myths somewhat differently. The selfless devotion of these legendary victims, particularly poignant in the case of young maidens, served to inspire the army to courage and patriotism in the face of the enemy. But perhaps poignancy is not the principal effect of the stories; rather their value may lie chiefly in the contrast inherent in the sexual ‘role reversal’, which would pose a direct challenge to the male warrior. This is apparent both in Lycurgus’ speech against Leocrates (which preserves a lengthy extract from Euripides’ Erechtheus, fr. 50 Austin, where the male-female opposition is already implicit) and in the funeral oration attributed to Demosthenes: ‘if women dare to do this, indeed men must keep their devotion for the fatherland unsurpassed’ (Lycurg. Leoc. 101); and (with reference to the daughters of Leos) ‘when those women possessed such manliness they [the Leontidae] regarded as not right that they prove lesser men than those women’ (Dem. 60.29; cf. Cic. Nat. D. 3.19, 50, and Diod. Sic. 17.15.2). Thus tales of women who died selflessly to save their country effectively inspired men to be prepared to do the same, although the women in the myths are accorded a sacrificial death rather than a ‘manly’ death on the battlefield.22

Still, I should not wish to argue that this was the sole function, or the original function, of these stories, for possibly earlier myths created for other reasons were adopted to serve this inspirational purpose only in the fifth and fourth centuries BC.

There are a few other Greek tales involving human sacrifice which differ, to a greater or lesser extent, from those described above. During a storm on his return voyage from Troy, the Cretan king Idomeneus vows to sacrifice the first thing he shall encounter upon landing. This turns out to be his son: in one version Idomeneus sacrifices him, while in another the intended sacrifice is never carried out (Serv. Verg. Aen. 3.121 and 11.264). Similarly, when one of the rulers of Haliartus consults the Delphic oracle about a drought, he is instructed to kill the first person he meets on his journey home. He is met by his son Lophis, whom he dutifully slays on the spot; and from the place where the blood falls water rises up, becoming the Lophis River (Paus. 9.33.4).23

Thus the same motif employed in the story of Idomeneus’ return provides here an aetiology for the river’s name, although in this case the killing is not represented as a sacrifice. The folk-motif, familiar from the story of Jephthah’s vow in the Old Testament,also appears in an aetiology for the name of the river Maiandros: in return for success in battle Maiandros vows to sacrifice to the Mother of the Gods the first person to greet him on his return. Heis met by his son, wife, and daughter, but after leading them to the altar he has second thoughts and throws himself into the Anabainon River, which henceforth is called the Maiandros.24

Herodotus tells a story which he claims to have learned from the Egyptian priests, according to which Menelaus, after the Trojan War, finally finds Helen in Egypt. But unable to leave because of adverse winds, Menelaus sacrifices two native children, thus incurring the wrath of the formerly hospitable Egyptians (Hdt. 2.119.3). And just as the Greeks, so also the Trojans encounter unfavourable sailing conditions in their flight from Troy.25 During a tempest Chaon, one of the companions of Helenus, vows to sacrifice himself should they escape alive; they do, and Chaon becomes the eponymous hero of Chaonia in Epirus (Serv. Verg. Aen. 3.335, with an alternate version). A story of human sacrifice is also connected with the foundation of Methymna. An oracle instructs the colonists to offer a maiden to Amphitrite, and the lot falls to a daughter of Smintheus. But in an effort to save her a young man named Enalus grabs her and leaps into the sea; he later appears in Lesbos bearing tales of his marvellous rescue by dolphins.26

Finally, a well-known myth tells of a tribute of maidens and young men sent from Athens to feed the Minotaur in Crete in atonement for the murder of Androgeos.27 This tribute is not, technically speaking, a human sacrifice, although it has often been called one. The myth, although unique in its details, belongs to a large group of stories in which young women and men are offered to appease the wrath of monsters of various kinds.

Laomedon must expose his daughter Hesione to a seamonster sent by Poseidon, but she is saved by Heracles; and in a similar story Perseus rescues (and then marries) the Aethiopian princess Andromeda, who has been tied to a rock as a meal for another Poseidon-sent monster.28 And Pausanias informs us that the ghost of one of Odysseus’ sailors, who had raped a virgin and been stoned to death by the people of Temesa, remained in the land killing young and old alike. Upon instructions from the Delphic oracle the inhabitants built a shrine for the ‘Hero’ and gave him annually the most beautiful virgin in the city as a bride, until Euthymus, three times an Olympic victor in boxing in the early fifth century, fell in love with the maiden to be offered that year, rescued her, drove out the Hero, and married the girl (Paus. 6.6.7–11).29

In Thespiae the citizens were required each year to select by lot a young man to be offered to a dragon which was besetting the land; one year Menestratus, the lover of the allotted victim (Gleostratus), devised a breastplate covered with fishhooks and, offering himself in place of Cleostratus, destroyed the monster (Paus. 9.26.7–8). Similarly, a giant beast called Sybaris (or Lamia) ravaged the area of Delphi, killing men and cattle daily. When the Delphians consulted the oracle about leaving the region, the god told them to expose a youth before the monster’s cave; a beautiful young man, Alcyoneus, was chosen by lot, but the hero Eurybatus, who happened to pass by while Alcyoneus was being led to his death, fell in love with the youth and, taking his place, killed the monster (Ant. Lib. Met. 8).

The absence of sacrificial language in these stories is notable: the young victims are given either as nourishment or as sexual partners to the monsters, and they are exposed rather than killed in the act of sacrifice.30 And although a certain likeness can be observed between these stories and myths of human sacrifice (both those described above and those to which we shall presently turn), according to a traditional (if no longer fashionable) distinction, they might better be termed folktales than myths.31 But several of the tales are connected, at least superficially, to cult practices: there was a shrine to the Hero at Temesa (Paus. 6.6.8 and 11; Strabo 6.1.5), the story from Thespiae served as an aetiology for Zeus’ epiklesis, the ‘Saviour’ (Paus. 9.26.8), and the episodes surrounding the Cretan tribute provided aitia for several Attic,Naxian, and Delian rites (Pl. Phd. 58A–B; Plut. Thes. 17.6, 18, 20.5, 21, 22.3–5, and 23; Hesych. s.v.

Furthermore, the story of Theseus and the Minotaur (as many other of Theseus’ deeds) has been thought to have originated inAttic rituals of initiation of adolescents.32 Indeed it is possible to see an initiatory origin in all of these tales which involve the exposure and threatened consumption (or devirgination) of young maidens and men, averted only by last-minute rescue by a youthful hero (and which often end in marriage, or, we may presume, homosexual union). Still, there is no need to claim (and no way to demonstrate) that all such stories owed their existence to particular rituals of initiation, for myths and folktales certainly may exhibit ‘initiatory patterns’ and initiatory motifs independent of any existing rites. But perhaps a closer connection between initiation ritual and myth can be seen in myths involving ‘mitigated’ human sacrifices of young women and men.

Notes

1 Wachsmuth (1846) 2:551. Cf. Pearson (1913) 847; Frazer (1921)
2:119 n.1; Parke and Wormell (1956) 1:296; Nilsson, GGR 1:23. Farnell (CGS 4:209), in a discussion of human sacrifices prescribed by Delphi, wrote as follows: ‘The instances quoted above are myths, it is true: but for the purpose of our investigation into prehistoric thought and practice, myths are facts.’2 Schwenn (1915) 132. More recently: Brelich (1969b) 195; Henrichs (1981) 195.
3 Cf. Veyne (1988) passim.
4 Daughters of Erechtheus: Lycurg. Leoc. 98–101, with a lengthy excerpt from Euripides’ Erechtheus (=fr. 50 Austin); Phanodemus, FGrHist 325 F 4; Apollod. Bibl. 3.15.4, with other sources in Frazer (1921) ad loc.; Parke-Wormell no.195; Fontenrose (1978) no. L32. Aglaurus: Philochorus, FGrHist 328 F 105. On the chronological difficulty of having a daughter of Cecrops sacrificed during the reign of Erechtheus see Jacoby’s commentary ad loc.
5 Apollod. Bibl. 3.15.8; further references in Frazer (1921) ad loc. Identified with daughters of Erechtheus: Eur. fr. 65.73–4 Austin;
Dem. 60.27; Phanodemus, FGrHist 325 F 4
 6 Dem. 60.29; Ael. VH 12.28; Paus. 1.5.2; further references in Frazer (1921) 2:118–19 n.1; Parke-Wormell no.209; Fontenrose (1978) no. L44.
7 Eur. Heracl. 406–629; Paus. 1.32.6; Schol. Pl. Hp. Ma. 293A.
8 Paus. 9.17.1; Schachter (1981–6) 1:35.
9 Ant. Lib. Met. 25 (=Corinna fr. 3 Page); Ov. Met. 13.65–99; Schachter (1981–6) 2:116–17; Dowden (1989) 168.
10 Cf. Diod. Sic. 8.8 (=Myron, FGrHist 106 F 9–10); Parke-Wormell nos 361–2; Fontenrose (1978) no. Q14; Dowden (1989) 24. Messenian Wars: Pearson (1962) 397–426.
11 Eur. Phoen. 903–1094; Paus. 9.25.1; Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.7, with further references Frazer (1921) ad loc. For Euripides’ apparent invention of the incident see O’Connor-Visser (1987) 74 and 83–5 and Foley (1985) 107–8, with references 108 n.7. 12 Plut. Thes. 32.4 (= Dicaearchus fr. 66 Wehrli); the story appears only here, and elsewhere the eponymous hero is named Marathon.
13 Schol. and Tzetz. Schol. Lycoph. Alex. 160, explaining the obscure reference in Alex. 159–60. Cook, Zeus 3.1:525–6, argued for actual human sacrifices in the cult of Zeus Ombrios (cf. Farnell, CGS 1:42). 
14 References in Burkert (1979) 169–70 n.13; Latin quotation: Hor. Carm. 3.19.2.
15 Burkert (1979) 62.
16 See Halliday (1928) 76.
17 Parke and Wormell (1956) 1:296; Fontenrose (1978) 25 (Topic Ic).
18 Burkert (1979) 22–6.
19 Burkert (1983) 66 with n.33 and (1985) 439 n.13. In Orchomenos, koroi and korai made yearly offerings to Metioche and Menippe (Ant. Lib. Met. 25), which may suggest an association with initiations of both sexes.
20 Cf. Graf (1984) 245–54.
21 Burkert (1983) 64.
22 Cf. Loraux (1987) 31–48.
23 Parke-Wormell no.532; Fontenrose (1978) no. L128.
24 [Plut.] De fluviis 9.1 = Timolaus, FGrHist 798 F 1, and Agathocles, FGrHist 799 F 1; cf. the alternate version in De fluviis 9.2 and a similar dive by Aegyptus (upon sacrificing his daughter) in 16.1. Jephthah’s vow: Judges 11.29–40. For the motif of sacrificing the first thing one meets cf. Callim. fr. 200b Pfeiffer; see also Frazer (1921) 2:394–404 and Thompson (1955–8) 5:317, no. S241, and 6: index, s.v.First.
25 Lack of favourable winds prompts the sacrifice of Polyxena (see pp. 61–2), while a storm at sea leads to Idomeneus’ sacrifice of his son. And Sinon pretends that he was chosen to be sacrificed to placate the winds (Verg. Aen. 2.108–44; cf. Quint. Smyrn. 12.375–86). The sacrifice of Iphigeneia before the Greeks’ departure for Troy seems to have inspired tales of human sacrifices required before their return (Schwenn (1915) 122–3), and the connection is made explicitly in Sinon’s fictitious oracle (Aen. 2.116–19).
26 Plut. Conv. sept. sap. 20, 163A–D, and De sollertia animalium 36, 984E (=Myrsilus, FGrHist 477 F 14); cf. Ath. 11.15, 466C–781C (=Anticleides, FGrHist 140 F 4), where the maiden is sacrificed to Poseidon.
27 Bacchyl. 17; Hellanicus, FGrHist 323a F 14; Eur. Heracl. 1326–8; Diod. Sic. 4.60.1–61.4; Plut. Thes. 15–19; Apollod. Bibl. 3.15.8 and Epit. 1.7–9, with further references in Frazer (1921) ad loc.; Schwenn (1915) 106 n.2; Parke-Wormell no.210; Fontenrose (1978) no. L45.
28 Hesione: Hellanicus, FGrHist 4 F 26b and 108; Diod. Sic. 4.42; Philostr. Jun. Imag. 12 (ecphrasis); Apollod. Bibl. 2.5.9, with further references in Frazer (1921) ad loc.; Schwenn (1915) 135 n.3. Andromeda: Soph. fr. 126–36 Radt; Eur. fr. 114–56 Nauck; Apollod. Bibl. 2.4.3, with further references Frazer (1921) ad loc.; Schwenn (1915) 135 n.4; ecphrases in Philostr. Imag. 1.29 and Ach. Tat. 3.6–7.
29 See also Callim. fr. 98–9 Pfeiffer and Bremmer (1983a) 106–7. This is often called a ‘sacrifice’, and it would be natural to assume that the maiden would not return from her conjugal visit. But Strabo (6.1.6) mentions only a tribute (dasmos), and the Diegeseis on Callim. fr. 98 now make the nature of the tribute clear: a bed and a young girl were left for the Hero; the next morning her parents would return to escort their daughter—a virgin no longer—home.
30 Eusebius (Praep. Evang. 5.18.5) says that the Athenian youths were sent to Crete to be sacrificed and human sacrifice is
mentioned in Soph. fr. 126 Radt, but not in direct reference to the exposure of Andromeda. And there is occasional sacrificial
colouring: Alcyoneus is led by a priest to the cave crowned with stemmata (Ant. Lib. Met. 8.4–6; cf. Hdt. 2.45.1 and 7.197.2; Eur. IA 1080, 1478, 1567; Eur. Heracl. 529; Callim. fr. 481 Pfeiffer). It is perhaps unnecessary to dwell on the non-sacrificial character of these exposures; but often they are called ‘human sacrifices’ and have been taken as evidence for actual practices, e.g. by Frazer (1921) 1:208 n.2 (of Andromeda and Hesione): ‘Both tales may have originated in a custom of sacrificing maidens to be brides of the Sea.’
31 See e.g. Kirk (1970) 31–41. For similar stories in the folk literature of other cultures see Thompson (1955–8) 5:319 (no. S262) and Burkert (1983) 64 n.25.
32 E.g. Jeanmaire (1939) 227–383; Calame (1977) 1:228–9.

By Dennis D. Hugues in "Human Sacrifice In Ancient Greece", Routledge, UK, 1991, excerpts pp. 71-79. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.