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HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREECE HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREECE Dennis D.Hughes London and New York First published 1991 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 1991 Dennis D.Hughes All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Hughes, Dennis D. Human sacrifice in ancient Greece. 1. Rituals. Human sacrifices, history I. Title 291.34 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hughes, Dennis D. Human sacrifice in ancient Greece/Dennis D.Hughes. p. cm. Revision of the author’s thesis (Ph.D.)—The Ohio State University, 1986. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Human sacrifice—Greece. 2. Greece—Religion. I. Title. BL795.H83H84 1991 393–dc20 90–46761 ISBN 0-203-03283-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-20791-2 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-03483-3 (Print Edition) For Lisa Contents Preface ix Abbreviations xiii 1 Sacrifice and ritual killing: terminology 1 and types 2 Archaeological evidence 13 3 Funerary ritual killing in Greek literature 49 and history 4 Human sacrifice in Greek myth, cult, 71 and history 5 The pharmakos and related rites 139 6 Strangers in a strange land: the Locrian 166 maiden tribute 7 Conclusion 185 Appendix A Cut marks and mass burials 194 Appendix B Pylos tablet Tn 316 199 Notes 203 Bibliography 258 Index locorum 278 Subject index 288 vii Preface Three quarters of a century have now passed since the appearance of Friedrich Schwenn’s Die Menschenopfer bei den Griechen und Römern, which has remained since its publication the standard work on the ritual killing of humans in ancient Greece and Italy. But much has happened in seventy-five years: the majority of the archaeological material was discovered after 1915; several relevant papyri have been published, including a fragment of a commentary on Callimachus which shows that the ‘scapegoats’ at Abdera were not killed and another which restores the divine recipient of a human sacrifice allegedly performed in Attica to his proper home in Lesbos; and Schwenn overlooked quite a few ancient texts available to him. Also, since 1915 numerous scholarly books and articles have appeared which have a bearing on nearly every aspect of this broad topic. Indeed in recent years there has been quite a renaissance in the study of Greek myth and ritual, on both sides of the Atlantic. An up-to-date, comprehensive study of the evidence has long been overdue. But just as a comprehensive study is long overdue, so too is it now, I believe, beyond the capabilities of any one individual, unless that person be not only a philologist (with expertise in a wide range of literature, from Homer to the Byzantine period) and historian of Greek religion, but also a physical anthropologist; a social anthropologist, perhaps; an archaeologist certainly (with specialities in Minoan religion and Mycenaean burial customs); and a scholar of the early Greek language preserved in the Linear B script. Non omnia possumus omnes. My aims, therefore, have been limited: to collect, organize, and present the evidence in order to make it available to classicists, archaeologists, students of Greek religion, and other interested ix