Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece Человеческое жертвоприношение в древней Греции

316 Pages·2003·2.673 MB·English

by  Dennis D. Hughes Деннис Хьюджес

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