SKRIFI'ER UTGIVNA AV SVENSKA INSTITUTET I ATHEN, 8°, XVIII

ACTA INSTITUTI ATHENIENSIS REGN! SUECIAE. SERIES IN 8°, XVIII

Greel( Sacrificial Ritual,

Olympian and Chthonian
Proceedings of the Sixth International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult,
organized by the Department of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History,
Gi.iteborg University, 25-27 April 1997

edited by

Robin I-Higg and Brita Alroth

STOCKHOLM 2005
Distributor Paul Astri.ims Fi.irlag
Mimersviigen 44, SE-433 64 Siivedalen, Sweden
Editorial Committee:
Prof. Charlotte Scheffer, Stockholm, Chairman;
Prof. Eva Rystedt, Lund, Vice-chairman;
Ms. Lena Borgstrom, Huddinge, 'freasurer;
Dr. Birgitta Leppiinen Sjoberg, Uppsala, Secretmy;
Prof. Hans Aili, Stockholm; Prof. Barbra Santillo Frizell, Rome; Dr. Kerstin Hoghammar, Upp-
sala; Prof. Lena Johannesson, Goteborg; Ms. Maria Lowe Fri, Stockholm; Prof. Jan-Olof Rosen- Contents
qvist, Uppsala; Dr. Ann-Louise Schallin, Athens; Prof. Margareta Strandberg Olofsson,
Goteborg.
Secretary's address: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Box
626, SE-751 26 Uppsala, Sweden.
Editor: Dr. Brita Alroth, Uppsala.
Distributor: Paul Astroms Forlag, Mimersviigen 44, SE-433 64 Siivedalen, Sweden.
The English text was revised by Mr. Neil Tomkinson. Preface ...................................................... · · · · · · · · · 7
Recommended abbreviation for this series ActaAth-8°. B.C. DIETRICH ('i'), Some thoughts on sacrificial ritual and meaning (abstract) ...... . 9-10
-- CHRISTOPH AUFFARTH, How to sacrifice correc!ly-without a manual ............ . 11-21
Published with the aid of a grant from SCOTT SCULLION, 'Saviours of the father's hearth': Olympian and chthonian in the
:)_ ) /{) J:)[ J/ The Swedish Research Council Oresteia ................ · · .................................... · · · · · · 23-36
v~ ~ vO :J ab {r;;~ ROBERT PARKER, wi; iipcot i:vayisEtV ..................................... · · 37-45
ALBERT HENRICHS, "Sacrifice as to the immortals": ritual distinctions in the lex sacra
Abstract ) 47-60
from Selinous and other inscriptions ..................................... .
Hagg, Robin & Alroth, Brita (eds.) BIRGITTA BERGQUIST C'n, A re-study of two Thasian instances of i:vm:Eilnv ....... . 61-70
Greek sacrificial ritual, Olympian and chtho11ia11. FRITZ GRAF, Magical sacrifice (abstract) ................................... . 71-73
Proceedings or the Sixth International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organized by the Department of DENNIS D. HUGHES, Sacrifice and the cult of the dead in ancient Argos ........... . 75-83
Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, Goteborg University, 25-27 April 1997. Skriftcr utgivna av
Svenska lnstitutet i Athen, 8°, 18. Stockholm 2005, 230 pp. ISBN 91-7916-049-2. NOEL ROBERTSON, Sacrifice to the sea: a custom prior to the ''Olympian" and
"chthonian" categories? ............................................... . 85-98
A collection of eighteen papers, read or circulated at an international seminar in Goteborg, that deal with the 99-112
ancient Greek sacrificial ritual, with special reference to the traditional dichotomy between the Olympian and CARLA M. ANTONACCIO, Dedications and the character of cult .................. .
the chthonian aspect, the relevance of which has been questioned in modern research. Among the special top- CHARLOTTE WIKANDER, The practicalities of ruler cult ........................ . 113-120
ics discussed arc sacrifices to heroes and in the cult of the dead, magical sacrifice, sacrifice to the sea, pig sac- DAVIDS. REESE, Fauna! remains from Greek sanctuaries: a survey (abstract) ...... . 121-123
rifice and the sacrifice of pregnant animals. Other aspects dealt with include the role of dedications in the cult ELIZABETH R. GEBHARD and DAVIDS. REESE, Sacrifices for Poseidon and Melikertes-
and the practicalities of ruler-cult, as well as the priest's role in Greek sacrifice. Several contributions discuss
Palaimon at lsthmia .................................................. . 125-154
the implications of the recently published lex sacra from Selinous for the understanding of Greek sacrificial
practice, reinterpreting previously known inscriptions in the light of the new evidence. Two papers deal with JANN. BREMMER, The sacrifice of pregnant animals .......................... . 155-165
descriptions of sacrifice in Greek tragedy (Aeschylus, Oresteia; Sophocles, 1h1chi11iac). There is a biblio- KEVIN CLINTON, Pigs in Greek rituals ..................................... . 167-179
graphical survey or fauna! remains from Greek sanctuaries and a special study comparing the animal bones 181-195
CLAUDE CALAME, Heracles, animal and sacrificial victim in Sophocles' Trnchiniae'? .
from sacrifices to the god Poseidon and those from sacrifices to the hero Melikertes-Palaimon at lsthmia.
FOLKERT VANSTRATEN, The priest's role in Greek sacrifice: iconographical con-
Keywords: altar, animal sacrilice, cult of the dead, gods, heroes, lex sacra, magical sacrifice, pig sacrifice, siderations (abstract) ................................................. . 197-199
pregnant animals, priest, ruler-cult, sacrificial imagery, tragedy.
NAN NO MARINATOS, Symbolic forms of sacrificial imagery in the Eastern Mediter-
Cm·er ill11stmtio11: Lex sacra on a lead tablet, formerly in the J. Paul Getty Museum, column A, drawing by ranean ............................................................ . 201-208
D.R. Jordan. After M.H. Jameson, D.R. Jordan & R.D. Kotansky, 11 lex sacra fim11 Selinous (GRBM, 11 ), Final discussion ..................................................... · · · 209-210
Durham, NC 1993, Folding Plate I. By courtesy of the editors or Greek, Roman, and !Jyza11ti11e Studies.
Programme and participants of the Seminar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211-212
Abbreviations ...................................................... · · · 213
ISSN 0081-9921 Indexes .................. · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ........ · · · · · · · · · · · · 215-230
ISBN 91-7916-049-2
© 2005 Svenska Institute! i Athen
Printed in Sweden 2005
Textgruppen i Uppsala AB

("

; ...
36 Scott Scullion
!em is not that it pretends a polarity that is not
there, but that it gives it such a bad name by
making a claim it cannot meet, and thus we end
up disposing of it altogether. The basic evi-
dence for gods and other powers being roughly
classed as Olympians and chthonians, with a
good deal of room for crossing the boundaries
in between, is quite convincing, and one can
employ these as terms for classifying types of
ritual that more or less belong together. The
distinction may not be absolute, but that does
not mean it is not useful.
N. Robertson: I agree that this is an ancient dis-
tinction that has been elaborated. The question
is, how original is the ancient distinction? Do
you think that these two categories, however
rough and imperfect, are very early?
S. Scullion: I do not know where they came
from, for example where the first earth-god-
dess came from to influence the Greeks. But I
think that, as Greek religion evolved, these
sorts of distinctions were among the many fea-
tures that were carried from various cultural
backgrounds into the mix. Different types of
sacrificial procedure, attached to gods who
were conceived as earthly or heavenly, proba-
bly came as a package. It is very difficult to dis-
cuss these questions dispassionately once you
begin to make historical reconstructions.
A. flcnrichs: It is absolutely true that the terms
Olympian and chthonian, applied to ritual, do
not reflect any Greek terminology that can be
documented from the sources. In that sense,
they are of our own making. But ultimately we
have to use some terms in order to impose
some order on this wide variety of sacrificial
rituals that the Greeks practiced. And the
Greeks felt the same way, which is why we
have various attempts by the tragedians, in cult
inscriptions and elsewhere, to come up with
very different-perhaps even sometimes con-
tradictory-typologies of sacrifice. Any ter-
minology we use and can agree on, that helps
us to understand at least in a given period of
scholarship, what we are doing or how we are
reading the sources, is necessarily of our mak-
ing; the fact that we cannot corroborate it from
the Greeks directly need not diminish the valid-
ity of the terminology.
Wilamowitz used to ask, "Can you give me
the Greek equivalent of this?" especially in
connection with what he called the modern ten-
dency to come up with conceptualizations. Al-
though many of us sympathize with that, in
practice it does not work; we have every right
to go beyond the Greeks, but we also have the
duty to try to understand how the Greeks
looked at their own rituals. These two perspec-
tives are complementary: any historian of reli-
gion is used to the inside and outside views,
what the insiders think about religion and what
outsiders-including modern scholars-think.
So to approach the question of terminology and
the classification of sacrifice in terms of what
the Greeks used or did not use is valuable only
up to a point, I would say.
By
Robert Parker
Abstract
One binary distinclion in sacrificial practice that is
clearly attested in classical sources is that between
sacrifice lo immortals and lo heroes: to a well-known
passage in Herodotus has recently been added the
evidence of a new lc.r sacra from Selinous, which de-
ploys it three limes. This distinction is not identical
with the modern one between Olympian and chlhon-
ian sacrifice and cannot be extended lo encompass it:
the verb £vayit;Et v used by Herodotus of sacriCice lo
heroes is also used of sacrifice to the dead, never of
sacrifice to 'ch!honian gods'. As a linguistic cat-
egory, chlhonian sacrifice docs not exist.
Well allested though the distinction between sacri-
fice to gods and lo heroes is, Attic epigraphic dis-
coveries have raised doubts about the extent to which
ii was observed in practice. II will be argued that
though £vaytcrµa or holocaust sacrifice to heroes
was indeed, in Allica al leas\, ra\her rare, we need no\
conclude !hat most sacrifices to heroes were there-
fore conduc\ed in effect 'as to the gods', since o!her
differential markers (such as mode of killing, restric-
tions on removal of meal) also ex isled.
Why are we gathered here to discuss Olympian
and chthonian sacrifice? Many different
causes, obviously, have converged to this end,
but not the least important must be the fact that
some Greek texts explicitly make a binary dis-
tinction between two modes of sacrifice and
their respective recipients. The key exhibit has
always been a passage in which Herodotus 1 is
discussing what he sees as the dual nature of
Heracles:
Kat 80KEo'llcrt 8£ ~tot OU1:0l op8<hm:a
'EU.tjvwv JtolEElV, Ol 811;&. 'HpaKA£ta
i8pu0&.µi::vm EK''CllV'tat, Kat i:Q:> ~1£v o'ir;
a8av&.np, 'OA.uµrcicp 8£ ETCO)VWllllV
8DoU0l, 'tci'l 8£ £1:£pcp oir; f\pon £vayisoucrt
I think the best practice is that of those
Greeks who have established two shrines of
Heracles, and in the one case sacrifice as to
an immortal under the title of Olympian,
and in the other make offerings as to a hero.
But the distinction in recipients drawn by
Herodotus is not between two classes of god,
Olympians and chthonians, but between the
classes of 'immortal' and of 'hero'. Herodotus
also uses two different verbs for 'sacrifice', and
This paper has been substantially revised from the
oral version in the light of commenls by other par-
ticipants and further study. The following special ab-
breviations will be used:
Casabona, J. Casabona, Rcc/icrc!ies s11r le
\localmlail'C' desvocalmlaire des sacrifices e11 grec,
sacrifices Aix-en-Provence 1966.
Pfister, Fr. Pfister, Der Reliq11ie11k11lt im
Reliq11ienk11/t ;\/tert11111, Gicl.len 1909-1912.
Rohde, Psyche E. Rohde, Psyche, 8 ed., Tlibingen
1921.
Rudhardt, J. Rudhardt, Notions .fiJ11da111c11-
Notio11s.fiJ11da- tales de la pensee religieusc et
111c11tale.1· acres co11srit111i(1· du rnlre dans la
Grh·c classiq11e, 2 ed., Paris 1992.
Scullion, S. Scullion, 'Olympian and
'Chthonian' chthonian ', ClAnt 13, 1994, 75-
119.
Sokolowski, F Sokolowski, Lois saCl'frs des
cith· grecq11es, Paris 1%9.
LSCG
Sokolowski, F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrees des
LSS cith· grccq11cs, S11pplcme111, Paris
1962.
Stengel, OtJfi'r- P. Stengel, OJ!/('rlmluclw der
hrii11clie Griec/irn, Leipzig & Berlin 1910.
I Hdt. 2.44.
38 Robert Parker
his differentiation between eun v and
£vayisnv is always adduced when Olympian
and chthonian sacrifice are being discussed.
But here too a distinction actually drawn in an-
cient texts is being used as basis for a broader
classification which is not ancient. A series of
later texts which take up Herodotus' distinction
apply it, as he does, to an opposition between
gods and heroes (or the dead), not an opposi-
tion within the divine world. 2 And in fact Hero-
dotus' verb £vayisetv is one regularly used of
offerings to the dead, regularly also of offer-
ings to heroes (whose status as quondam mor-
tals is thus stressed), but never in a text of any
authority of offerings to a god of any kind. 1
The qualification 'of any authority' is
necessary because a small number of scholia
speak vaguely of enagisma made to 'chthon-
ians' or even 'chthonian gods'; 4 and already in
Erotian, who wrote a lexicon of difficult
Hippocratic words in the first century A.D., we
find the gloss £vayisnv· 1o'lc; Ka1:0txoµ£vmc;
~ w'lc; Kmaxeovimc; eunv. 5 But this evidence
can be confidently set aside, because in such
passages we always come lo 'the chthonians'
by way of 'the dead' (as in the definition given
by Erotian); the usage merely illustrates a blur-
ring of the categories of 'the dead' and 'the
chthonians' which was widespread in the
Greek world of the Roman period, where the
ernl Kmaxe6vtot of funerary dedications are
often almost synonymous with di mancs. 6 It
must also be allowed that Heliodorus in his ro-
mance set in Egypt occasionally uses the word
for the kind of offering that in traditional lan-
guage would be a mpaytov, an animal (or per-
son) killed for a god but not eaten. 7
Against these vague expressions can be set
numerous uses of the word by authors describ-
ing specific rituals, authors with a concrete
context in view, and in these cases the recipient
of enagisnw is always a hero or a dead person.
The clearest evidence is that of Pausanias, who
uses a form of the word more than twenty
times; in every case the recipient is a hero,
never anyone remotely describable as a
chthonian god. 8
A new fifth century sacred law from
Sclinous adds valuable evidence, not on the us-
age of £vayiset v, but on the explicit distinc-
tions in sacrificial practice made by the Greeks.
Three time it specifies that particular sacrifices
are to be performed according to a particular
model or template: one is to be made 'as for the
heroes', one 'as for the gods', one 'as for the
immortals'.9 Since 'gods' and 'immortals' are
evidently identical, the new law provides in ef-
2
Sec Pfister, Reliq11ie11k11/t, 468, who cites e.g. Plut.
Malig11. //dt. 13, 857d, Paus. 2.11.7. Aristophanes fr.
504 Kassel/Austin, from Tagcnistai, is a comic list of
the benefits supposedly enjoyed by the dead, and in-
cludes ( 12-13) Kat OuofLEV "i' afrtotcrt 'tot<; f.va-
'ftO'fLacrtv I o\cr7t:Ep 0Eotcrt. This confirms the normal
polarity between gods and i':vayicrrim:a.
3
The fullest collection of material is still Pfister, Re-
liq11ienk11/t, 466-480; cf. Casabona, Vocalmlaire des
sacriJices, 204-208, who notes, p. 207, that £va-
yit;£tv 'est reserve au culte funcbre'; Rudhardt, No-
tions jimda111e111a/es, 2381'. and esp. p. 251: 'nous
n'avons jamais vu [evayit;Eiv] designer un sacrifice
ofTert a quelque clivinite'. Where rituals of the type
clesignatccl by £vayit;£tv were performed for the
gods, a different if in part related vocabulary was
used: oAoKaU'tEtV, KO:p1rn\iv, ciyit;Et v, K0:00:'ft1;Et v.
1 neatly into two classes, the Olympian and
I L Apo!!. Rhoe!. Argon. 1.587: 'tot<; µ£v oliv Ka-
-rmxoµi:voti; o'ii; 7t:Epl iif.iou oucrricxi; EVO:'fit;oucrt,
'tot<; 8£ oupo:vi8mi; imo -r~v f(J), avmi:Af.ov-roi; 'toD
ijf.(ou· i:v'toµa -ra O'<jlcX'ftO:, KUpt(J)i; -ra -ro\i; VEKpoti;
£vo:ytt;6ftEVO:, 8ta -ro £v -rfj yfj o:u-roiv a7to1i:rL-
vrnOo:t -r&.i; KE<po:f.ai;. oU't(J) ycY.p Ofoucrt wli;
xoovioti;, 'tOt<; 8£ o\ipo:vimi; c):y(J) UVO:O''tpE<jlOV'tE<;
-rov -rp&.x11t.ov mp&.t;oucrt v (I P on the same passage
amid other differences adds 'tOt<; xOoviot<; <0EOt<;> );
I Lucian Timon 43 p. 117 .18-20 E'tEAEt'tO oi: m\i-ro:
Kmcx -rov <I)E~pouaptov flll vo:, o-rE Ko:l w\i; Ko:-ro:x-
Oovioti; £v1l'f tt;ov. KO:t 7t&.<; ou'to<; o fl~ v avEt'tO -roli;
KU'tolXOfl!':Vot<; flE'tcX O''tU'(VO'tll'to<; 1tcXV't(J)V
7tpo'i6noiv £1Epov -rp67tov, ov Kai -rcx Litacrto:
crrnyvat;onE<; ihov 'A011vo:lot.
5
Erotian, Vorn111 llippocratirnn1111 Col/ectio, E80 p.
42 Nachmanson.
1
' Sec e.g. the index to /G XIV, p. 738.
7
llcliocl. Aithiop. 1.28.1; 9.24.5 (cl'. I0.16.7). 13ut in
Plut. /s.0.1·. 20, 359b the use of the word in reference
to Osiri<;, a dead god, is very careful. I am very grate-
ful to G. Ekroth for these references. Not much can
be made of Aelius Aristides' statement that the gods
take little pleasure in 1tOA u1£l.Etm £vuytcrfta-rrnv
(54.106, Dindorf ii. p. 683.5-6).
'See Pfister, Reliq11ienk11/1, 4711'.
' M.1-1. Jameson, D.R. Jordan & R.D. Kotansky, ;\
1 ideal, but a distinction attested in two fifth cen-
lex sacra/i'0/11 Sclino11.1· (GR13M, 11 ), Durham, N.C.
1993, A 10; A 17; 13 12-13.
J
OJ£' 1]pco1 ivayf?;El v
feet a second fifth century instance of the same
binary opposition as in Herodotus, between
'immortals' and 'heroes'. That is not an oppo-
sition between above and below, heaven and
earth, but between those who cannot die and
those who have died; and this opposition is not
only not identical with that between Olympian
and chthonian but in strict logic excludes it,
since chthonian gods arc unquestionably im-
mortal.
One of the many contributions of the new
text, it is true, is lo illustrate with great clarity
the way in which in practice sacrifices were not
divided into two and only two sharply opposed
types. As the editors have well observed,
'while the conceptual distinction between the
two types of sacrifice ... is clear, gradations or
modifications are seen to be possible'.]() But
their point can also be made in reverse: 'while
gradations or modifications are possible, the
conceptual distinction is clear', and that dis-
tinction is between divine and heroic sacrifice.
We have become used to the idea that, as a mat-
ter of practice, Greek sacrifices did not divide
chthonian. 11 The first point of this short paper
has simply been to underline that the distinc-
tion also fails at the level of explicit concepts.
There is no special expression in Greek mean-
ing 'to perform a chthonian sacrifice'. This
point is, it should be noted, a restricted one.
One can believe that the Greeks recognised a
class of chthonians 12 without believing that
they recognised a distinctive form of chthonian
sacrifice. It could even be that 'chthonian sac-
rifice' is a concept we might use with benefit,
however unfamiliar it may have been lo the
Greeks.
We will not pursue these questions here, but
turn instead to sacrifice 'as to a hero'. We arc
l'accd at once with a paradox. Unlike so many
classifications and discriminations in types of
sacrifice familiar from the old handbooks, the
opposition between divine and heroic sacrifice
is not a late antique construct or a philosopher's
tury texts, of very different character. If it turns
out that this true native distinction is itself false
39
to the complexities of contemporary practice,
we will be faced by a contradiction in lived re-
ligion, not just a clash between the realities of
one age and the academic constructs of an-
other.
Yet such a contradiction between theory and
practice seems to be visible. In the passage
from which we started, Herodotus uses the verb
eunv for sacrifice ·as lo an im111or1al',
£vayisEtV for sacrifice 'as to a hero'. If'hc else-
where somcti111cs uses eunv even of sacrifice
to heroes, this is commonly supposed to be be-
cause eunv is the most general (or unmarked)
term for 'sacrifice', which can be used even of
heroic sacrifice where the distinction between
the two types is of no importanceY Uut where
it is, there the heroic vo.r /i/'li/Jria £vayisuv ap-
pears. The main if not the sole difference be-
tween the practices indicated by the two words
is generally thought lo be that cvayicrfta'ta
were burnt whole, not eaten. But A.D. Nock
long ago showed, largely on the basis of cpi-
graphic evidence, that offerings lo heroes could
sometimes, and in Al!ica it seems normally, be
eaten by human participants; 11 and texts pub-
lished more recently have only strengthened
his findings. We can briefly note two particu-
larly compelling arguments. There existed in
Allica a form of religious association, the
group of orgconcs. the whole raison d 'ct re of
111 Jameson er al. (supra 11. 9), 63. 11 12-13 i-; a par-
ticularly helprul case: the sacril'icc is to be made ·as
to the immortals', but the animal is to be kilkd so
that the blood flows into the ground (mpat;L·-rrn 8'i\;
y&.v).
11
Sec e.g. Rudhardt, Notions Ji111dm11cnralcs, ch. 5:
M.H. Jameson, 'Notes on the sacriricial calendar
from Erchia', HCll 89, 1965, 154-172. esp. 162-
165: W. 13urkert, 1/01110 Ncrnns (tr. I'. Bing), lkrkc-
ley 1983,9n.41;Nock(inl'ra1L l4).
12 On this debate sec Scullion, 'Chthonian'.
t.' So e.g. Casabona, \!ornh11/airc des .1acriji'cc.1, 8·11'.
Against this should be set the possibility (sec below,
:u{d Pfister, Re/iq11ienk11/1, 477-480) that O\iEtV was
used in cases where there was in fact no dillcrcncc in
ritual between heroic and divine sacrifice.
II A.O. Nock. 'The cult or heroes', /IT/JR 37, 1944,
141-174 (= Essays 011 religion and r/Jc ancicnr
ll'orld, Oxford 1972, 575-602).

40 Robert Parker
which was to feast in honour of a hero; 15 here
the very shape of religious life implies hero
feasts as a norm. And if we look at those sacri-
ficial calendars which explicitly indicate that
certain offerings arc 'to be burnt (whole)', 16 we
find that only 4 out of some 39 animal victims
for heroes or heroines are marked for burning.
Thus the practice presented by Herodotus as a
distinctive mark of a hero-cult appears in fact
to be very uncommon.
To explain the phenomenon of hero feasts,
older commentators appealed to texts such as
that where Isocrates speaks of Menelaus and
Helen receiving sacrifice in Laconia 'not as he-
roes but as gods'. 17 But Isocrates' point is that
such a mark of honour was exceptional. We
cannot interpret the treatment given by the
Erchians, say, to every humdrum hero by refer-
ence to the special destiny of the few who had
crossed the hero/god divide. Another possible
- response to the anomaly might be to argue that
here, as so often, Attica is the exceptional polis:
elsewhere a heroic sacrifice followed by a ban-
quet was an exception, only in Attica a norm.
But the frequency of hero-feasts in Attica is re-
vealed, above all, by the abundant epigraphic
documentation available for Athens but not for
other states. So what is unusual about the
Athenians may well in this case be not what
they did, but the amount we happen to know
about them. (The issue of the biases in our dif-
ferent types of evidence for hero-cult is one
that deserves careful attention: in particular a
confrontation between Pausanias and earlier
material might be instructive.) A further possi-
bility is that the conventional interpretation of
£vayis£t v is simply wrong; the distinction
drawn by Herodotus between divine and heroic
cult would not then be a matter of whether the
meat was eaten or burnt but of something (still
to be determined) quite different. Though there
are indeed various texts which explicitly
present £vayicrµma as a type of offering that
is not eaten, none dates from earlier than the
2nd c. A.O., 18 and it is not impossible that
somewhere between the 5th c. B.C. and the 2nd
c. A.D. the old term should have come to be un-
derstood in a new way. But this solution too
---------------="""---------::---==-~-·-
should probably be rejected. Even if the link
between £vayis£t v itself and burning is not
certainly attested until the 2nd c. A.O., there is
much earlier collateral evidence in the usage of
rXYlSEt Vand K<X8ayi1;;£t V, which do seem to be
used of offerings that arc either burnt or wholly
destroyed in other ways. 19 And there appears to
be no use of £vayis£tv where the sense 'burn'
is impossible; that is to say, where heroic sacri-
fices are mentioned that certainly led to a feast,
the verb used is 8u£tV or another, never
£vayi1;;£t v. 20
The conclusion cannot, after all, be escaped:
though the rite of £vayi1;;ct v is indeed a mark of
heroic as opposed to divine sacrifice, it is not,
as the careless reader of Herodotus might as-
15 See E. Kearns, I Jeroes (!/'Attica (BICS Suppl., 57),
London 1989, 73-77.
16 The calendar of the genus of Salami11ioi (Sokolow~
ski, LSS 19.79-96) marks one victim for a hero (oi
heroine, or group of such) as to be burnt, against.
twelve (excluding Heracles) not so marked: that ol
the demc Erchia has three (if we count Basile as a
heroine: the other two are both for Epops) to be
burnt, eight (excluding the Anakes) not b~rnt
(Sokolowski, LSCG 18); that of the deme Thonkos
(SEG XXXlll, 147) has fifteen (excluding the
Anakes) not marked for burning, none so marked~
but a sacririce to Zeus is to be a holocaust. The
Marathonian calendar (Sokolowski, LSCG 20) docs
not mark holocausts at all.
17 Isoc. 10.63.
18 See Pfister, Reliq11ienk11lt, 477f. Note especially
Paus. 2.10.1 (on the Sicyonians' sacrifice to Her-
acles) Kat vuv i:n &.pvcx oi :E1Kuvwvw1 acpa~~v-r~i;
J(C(L wui; )-l ljpoui; E1tt WU P(l)J-lOU J(C(UaCXV'tES w µ~v
foeioumv r.iii; c'rno iEpEiou, -i:a 0£ dii; ijpOJt :ow
KpEo)v £vcxyi1;oum; also Philostratus, Hermk 0 -1
53.11-13 (p. 68. l 0-19 de La11110y) and e.g. Hesycli.
and Suda £vcxyia1-1cx-i:cx· oA.oKCXD'tOl)-tcx'tCX.
1'! See Casabona, Vocalmlaire des sacriji'ccs, 198-
204. To avoid circularity, I do not use the argument,
in itself plausible (cf. the references in R. Parker,
1Vlia.1·11w, Oxford 1983, 3281'.), that £vcxyil;EtV means
'to make taboo' and so necessarily refers to inedible
offerings.
211 Clearclrns fr. 58 Wehrli (from Athcnacus 344c) u;_
0
fact is a probable instance from about 300 U.C. ,
£vcxyil~ElV ='to burn': KA.fopxoi; o' EV wli; .. nEP'.
Pi(l)V cpil.1xeuv 'tlVCX avcxypacpcov cp11aiv OU'tOl~
TEXVOJV 0 ncxA.moi; CXDAlj'tlli; Xap)-toD WU cxuA.11-i:.0 ~
'tEAED'ttjCTCXVWi; (~V ()£ cpiA.tX8Di;) anonup(ocxi; ETCL
WU 1-1v111-tcxwi; £v1jy11;cv cxu-i:Ql.
we; !JpOJl £vayf(l'lV
sume, a necessary or defining mark. Rather,
from the various possible ways of sacrificing to
a hero, Herodotus has picked out that one
which, by its association with the cult of the
dead, most clearly differentiates Heracles the
quondam mortal from Heracles the god. It is
the extreme rather than the typical case.
But does it follow that, in the typical case,
sacrifice to a hero was indislinguishable from
sacrifice to a god? Such sometimes seems to be
the working assumption of those who have ab-
sorbed the lesson that heroic sacrifices very of-
21
ten did not take the form of £vayiaµa-ra. But
treatment of the meat is not the only way in
which the two modes might have been differ-
entiated. Many further distinctions are men-
tioned in later sources, sometimes with refer-
ence to particular cults, sometimes as a general
rule-time of day, 22 mode of killing, 23 type of
altar, 24 treatment of the blood,25 colour of vic-
tim.26 Such sources are rightly under suspicion
sometimes of error, sometimes of elevating oc-
casional practices into fixed rules. These dif-
ferential markers were used only, it might be
argued, as a part of full heroic sacrifice, the
type characterised by complete destruction of
the victim, £vaytcrµa. But one should remem-
ber that even if such distinctions existed in
other cases too, there is no reason why they
should be visible in our sacred calendars,
which are not designed as detailed 'how to'
guides to the performance of ritual. For two
reasons one may hesitate before accepting that
the forms of divine and heroic sacrifice were
normally indistinguishable. One is of a general
and theoretical character. Ritual is much con-
cerned with ranking: it sometimes confers sta-
tus, sometimes confirms and displays it, in the
human and in the divine world. Here then,
more than anywhere, one might expect dead
27
mortals and immortals not to be confounded.
And on a more concrete level we have the clear
. discrimination in the new Selinous law be-
tween divine and heroic templates for sacrifice.
The challenge therefore is to discover ways
in which a sacrifice which was not an
£vaytcrµa might none the Jess be recognisably
of heroic type. Three possibilities will here be
,-
41
considered. Two arc suggested by a single pas-
sage in Pausanias, in which he is describing the
!ieroo11 of the Founder-Hero of the Phocians: 28
21 So e.g. M. Jameson, 'Sacrifice and ritual: Greece',
in Ci1'ilizatio11 of the A11cimt Mediterra11ea11, Grei'Cc
and Rome, 2, eds. M. Grant & R. Kitzinger, New
York 1988, 959-979, at 974: 'Heroes oflen received
normal victims in normal sacriricc'.
22 See Rohde, Psyche, 149 n. 2 (whence Pfister, Re-
liq11ie11kult, 491 f.), with the qualifications of Stengel,
Op/erbrii11cile, 133L It is said that heroic sacrifices in
general occurred or should occur in the afternoon/at
sunset (a recommendation of Pythagoras in Diog.
Laert. 8.33; I Apoll. Rhod. 1.587 [supra 11. 4 J, etc.),
and particular instances of night sacrifice to heroes
are recorded (Pind. /slli. 3/4.83-4 Snell, Paus. 2.11.7;
8. 14.11-the last two arc £vcxyiaftcxm). Uut Rohde
was rash to assume a rule.
23 Victims for heroes were supposedly killed with
head pressed forwards and down, for gods with it
pulled up and back: I Ap. Rhod. 1.587 (supra n. 4)
and related texts (I A [from the D tradition, accord-
ing to Erbse] Horn. /I. 1.459, Et. Gen. and Et. Mag.
s.v. £vw1-1cx): cf. Stengel, Opferbrii11che, 103f., 113.
On the iconographic evidence which appears to in-
validate this distinction in some cases at least sec
Jameson as cited in Scullion, 'Chthonian', 97f. n. 60.
2-1 Ammonius, De dij{(•rentia 1•ocalmlom111, s.v.
Pw1-t6~. cites various views (cf. FGrllist 361 FI) on
types or altars, among them that or Ncanthes or
Cyzicus FGrflist 84 F 7, who i8fcoi; Poi1-wui; 8£c~JV
(jl'JlO"lV, foxapcx~ ()' lJpOJ(l)V; cf. Jacoby on both these
FGrl fist fragments, Pfister, Reliq11ie11k11/t, 474-476,
and for the archaeological evidence that confutes
Neanthes n. 38 below.
2; On a\ftaKoupfa or slaughter 'into' the ground, a
pit, a grave etc. see below and e.g. Stengel, Opfcr-
/Jrii11che, 120.
26 In the double offering of Philostratus, lleroikos,
53.8-14 (p. 67f. de Lam10y) the victim !'or Achilles
the god is white, for Achilles the hero black; and l'or
instances of black heroic offerings see Pa us. 5.13 .2;
Strabo 6.3.9 p. 284 and cf. Plut. Mist id. 21.3. 1lut the
sheep burnt whole with wineless libations for Basile
at Erchia was to be white (LSCG 18 1l 14-20), and
heroes regularly in the Attic calendars receive vic-
tims of unspecified colour.
21 Cf. C. Bell, Ritual theory, ritual practice, New
York & Oxford 1992, index s.v. Ritual control.
Rohde, Psyche, 149 11. l, adduces Arrian, A11ahasis
4.11.3 cxu-i:o1v -ro1v 8£o1v <'.(A.A.mi; ci1'A.m 'ttftal
npoaKEtV'tCXl, KCXL ijpcoatv &.A.Am, iml cxu-i:m
c'xnoKEKptJ-lEVcxt wu 8Eiou.
2x 10.4. 10; on attempts to locate the shrine sec most
recently J. Mclnerney, 'The Phokion and the hero
Archegctes', llespcria 66, 1997, 193-207.
42 Rohert Parker
'He receives honours every day: the Phocians
bring victims and pour the _bl~od i~to the grave
through a hole; the meat 1t 1s their custom to
consume on the spot'. With the last phrase can
now be compared the evidence of the calendar
from Erchia, in which six participatory sacri-
fices to heroes or heroines (seven if we include
Semele) are marked 'no carrying away [of
meat]', and none (if we allow that Anakes and
Alochos may be viewed as gods) lacks that
specification. 'On the spot' sacrifices, it has
been argued, represent a middle way between
holocausts, where the worshippers are denied
use of the meat, and those where they can dis-
pose of it exactly as they please. 29 Such restric-
tions are also found in divine cults, and cannot
count as an exclusive marker of heroic sacri-
fice. But it may be that they were an invariable
marker of it, 30 and there was no hero feast from
which meat was carried away.
We revert to the Founder-Hero of the
Phocians. Blood was poured into his grave
through a hole. He received, therefore, a
'blood-glutting' or a.iµa.Koupia. of the kind so
relished by heroes. But the meat of the victim
which provided it was none the less consumed.
And there are two further cases in Pausanias of
animals which were eaten after being sacri-
ficed 'into a pit'; such was, it turns out, the des-
tiny even of the animal that at Olympia gave
Pclops a 'blood-glutting' made famous by
Pindar. 31 Perhaps we should also adduce here a
fourth century decree from Thasos that regu-
lates the honours to be paid to the Good Men
who have died for their country: 32
ava.ypacpct v 0£ a.u'to)v 'ta 6v6µma.
rtmp68iov de; wuc; 'Aycx8ouc; wuc;
n:oA.qtapxouc; Ka.1 'tov ypcx~tµmfo 'tfic;
~ouA.11c; KCY.t KCY.Actcr8m CY.D'tO)V wuc;
n:mEpa.s rn1 wus n:a."loa.s iha.v ~ n:6A.ts
£v'tE~L VT\t 1:01s 'Aya.eo1s.
The polemarchs and the secretary of the
council arc to inscribe their names and pat-
ronymics on the list of the Good M~n, '.md
their fathers and children are to be 111v1tcd
when the city 'cuts' (offerings) for the
Good Men.
The verb found here, EV'tEµVEtV, is used by
Thucydides when he speaks of the honours
paid by the people of Amphipolis to Brasidas
'as a hero' .33 It stresses the act of cutting the
victim's throat and so probably suggests again
the idea of a 'blood-glutting'. But at Thasos the
cutting sacrifice was apparently followed by a
banquet, to which the fathers and children of
the Good Men were invited. EV'tE~LVEtV and
EvcxyisEtv would not, then, be synonyms,
though both refer to the heroic sphere; rather,
an animal killed in the manner indicated by
EV'tEµvEtv might or might not then be burnt as
an £vaytcr~ta..:1 -1 Unfortunately, the conclusion
in this case is not beyond question, since it is
not certain that what was eaten at the banquet
was the meat of the 'cut' animal. However that
may be, no doubt attaches to the three instances
from Pausanias of sacrifices from which par-
ticipants ate but which also provided a 'blood-
glutting' or distinctively heroic type.
A third mode or aspect of heroic sacrifice
may be suggested by a passage from the new
Selinous law. It runs
2''See the important discussion of Scullion, 'Chthon-
ian ', 98-112, especially on Erebia 105 n.. 85'. where
the disastrous omission by Sokolowski of three
added ou <popa indications is corrected. The impor-
tance or 'on the spot' regulations in hero-cult was
noted by P. Stengel, Die griechiscl1e11 K11/111.1'-
a/tcrtii111cr\ Munich 1920, 142: SlG' 1024.40--41 is
apparently another. The social signif'i~ance of
ftEpillf:~ sent out (like pieces from a wcddmg cak_e)
from a sacrifice is shown e.g. by Menander, Sanua,
404, Thcophr. Char. 17 .2.
"'See Scullion, 'Chthonian', 1141'.
31
Paus. 9.39.6; 5.13.2; Pind. 01. 1.90.
12 J. Pouilloux, Rffherches sur /' !1istoire et !es rn/tcs
de Thasos I (Eludes thasiennes, 3), Paris 1954, 371-
380, no. 141.7-11 (Sokolowski, LSS 64).
13
Thuc. 5.11: die; iipwi w £vi:£µ voucrt Kat 'ttfta~
6EliwKacrt v aycJ'iva~ Kat E'tljO"lOU~ 8ucr(a~. On the
verb sec Stengel, Opf"cr/Jriiuche, 1031". and Casabona,
Vocalmlaire des sacrifices, 225-227.
11
Cf. the phrase ivi:i:µ6v'tE~ Kat £vay(crav'tE~ in
Philostrat. Hcroikos 53.13 (p. 68.15 de Lam10y).
Pouilloux (supra n. 32) assumes the 'cut' '.mimal to
have been eaten. But the text of Thucydides 5.11
possibly implies a distinction between a rite of
EV'tEftVEtv and the participatory eucria.
o)r; 1]plUI ivayi(Elv
w'ic; Tpt 'tOrta.'tpEucrt 'tote; µta.po"lc; h6crn:Ep
w"ic; hep6rnt, FOLVOV /mn:oA.hEi lj!CY.S ot'
6p6qio Kat 'tav ~totpav 'tav Evamv Ka.-
'tcxKcxiEv µia.v 15
which the editors translate '(Sacrifice) to the
Tritopatores, the impure, as (one sacrifices) to
the heroes, having poured a libation of wine
clown through the roof, and of the ninth parts
burn one.' (The last phrase can be accentuated
and translated in slightly different ways, but
without substantial change of sense.) It is not
clear whether the requirement to 'burn one of
the nine parts' is an element in a normal sac-
rifice 'as to the heroes' or a strengthening
modification in the particular case. A more im-
portant uncertainty concerns the source of the
meat burnt for the impure Tritopatores. The
editors suppose that they do not receive a vic-
tim of their own-none is specified-but have
to share in one of those mentioned earlier; what
they get, the ninth share, is therefore burnt
whole. But even on this view the text is very
vague as to what the offering to the impure Tri-
topatores consists in; and victim-sharing of the
type postulated would be most anomalous. It is
better to suppose that the Tritopalores had their
own animal. 36 On this view, the offering to
them is explicitly said to be conducted 'as to
the heroes' even though most of the meat from
it is not burnt. Possibly one modality of heroic
sacrifice may have been for more of the meat to
be burnt than in divine sacrifice-an extra
ninth-but still not the whole animal. The mys-
terious practice of 'ninthing', EVCY.'tEUctV,
which is perhaps here alluded to is on present
evidence confined to heroic culls, if we accept
Semelc as a heroine; but only two cases arc
known.:17
Amid some uncertainties, various forms of
heroic sacrifice have none the less emerged.
What remains very unclear is how for to press
the argument. One extreme view would be that,
with the rarest exceptions, 38 victims offered to
heroes were always slaughtered 'into the
ground' or 'into a pit'; and their flesh, if con-
sumed, was always consumed on the spot.
Against the first part of this position it might be
43
objected that votive reliefs dedicated to heroes
more often show them with high altars than
with the low altars or pits that arc the expected
accompaniment to such earth-directed rites.I''
But the objection is inconclusive, because any
animal, parts of which were to be eaten, re-
quired altar fire; the innards of a victim slau~h­
tercd 'into a pit' might still be roasted on a high
altar. A less extreme, but not necessarily more
accurate, view would be that some victims
were killed in full heroic style (holocaust),
some with mixed forms, some and perhaps a
large number in effect 'as to the gods' (but
possibly with the restriction that meal could not
be carried away). The 'clements of Greek sac-
rifice form a lexicon with few glosses', as
Jameson long ago observcd,.io and we shall
long need to keep different possibilities of de-
cipherment open.
Ro/Jcrt Parker
New College
OXFORD OXl 3l3N
Addendum
In a very important study, G. Ekroth has now
ar<>ued that a typical heroic sacrifice was indis-
tii~guishablc from a typical divine sacrifice:
.i.i Jameson ct al. (supra 11. 9), A 9-12. .
·' So K. Clinton, 'A new lex sacra from Sc,l~1~us:
6
kindly Zeuscs, Eumenides, impure and pure Into-
patorcs, and Elastcroi', CP 91, 1996, 159- 179 · at
171.
.n Sec Dcrgquist's contribution in this volume.. .
'"Euripid. llemc!idae 1040-1041 is mtcrest1ng m
this regard (Eurystheus is speakmg):
<X/1),<X flll'tE flOt XO<XS , ,
µije' alft' £am1't' Eis t'ft6v cr'taE,m :?."-<pov. .
ls this is a ban on aiftm:oupicx specI11caUy, m on
sacrifice or every kind? The strongest ob.11:ction l can
think of to making cr<pasEtV £~ yfjv th~ mark p<~r ex-
cellence or heroic sacrifice is B 13 ot the, Sclmous
law, which reveals indeed the importm~cc ol thc l:r.'.1c-
tice but treats it as a possible modificatmn lo sacnl1ce
'as to the gods'. .
·"'Sec F.T. van Stratcn, 'Did the Greeks kneel bclorc
their gods?', B!\Bcsch 49, t974, 159-189, esp. 187-
189.
111
· Jameson (supra n. 1t),165.
44 Robert Parker
The sacrificial rituals of' Greek hero-cults
(Kernos, Suppl., 12), Liege 2002. The same
case is argued in brief for Attica by A. Ver-
banck-Pierarcl, 'Heros attique au jour le jour.
Les calendriers des demes', in Les Pa11thC011s
des cites des origines d la Periegese de Pausa-
nias. Actes du Co!loque organise cl!' Universite
de Liege du 15 au 17 mai 1997 (Kernos, Suppl.,
8), ed. V. Pirenne-Delforge, Liege 1998, 109-
128. For a response to the argument presented
above on chthonian sacrifice, see S. Scullion,
'Heroic and chthonian sacrifice. New evidence
from Selinous', ZPE 132, 2000, 163-171.
Discussion
G. Ekroth: I agree completely with you that the
vast majority of sacrifices to heroes were not
conducted in a manner different from the sacri-
fices to the gods. If you look at all the evidence
of sacrifices in hero cults, both literary and epi-
graphical, there is very little deviation from the
sacrificial practices for the gods. This is found
mainly, as you said, in very late sources, and it
is possible that these sources either misunder-
stood the rituals or pressed the matter too hard,
or that the hero cults had changed with regard
to sacrificial practices in the Roman period as
compared to the early Greek period. In regard
to what you said about £vcxyis£tv not being per-
formed to a god, there are a couple of instances,
for example Heliodoros' Aethiopica 1.28. l and
I 0.16.7, but of course it is a late source and in
an Egyptian context.
R. Parker: I am surprised about Heliodoros; I
thought I had looked at all the material. But I
do not think it matters a great deal. On the first
point I think you're giving me a more extreme
position than I want to have. I do wish to pre-
serve some distinction between heroic and di-
vine sacrifice; otherwise I cannot understand
what meaning that passage in Herodotos would
convey to the reader. That seems to be the
problem in all the reconsideration of the issue
of heroic sacrifice, with the discovery that the
distinctions are very unclear.
UJ£" ijpwz £vay(()::1 v 45
G. Ekroth: The problem with that passage is black victims and so forth-that undoubtedly place during the day, when the time or day is
that it seems to be unique. Herodotos is speak- sometimes applied, but I doubt whether they specified?
ing of Herakles, who is best not compared with were universal.
the rest of the Greek heroes, since his cult had R. Parker: I would need to look into that.
a Panhellenic spread and he was considered E. Gebhard: Do you know about any that took
more as a god than as a hero. Perhaps there ex-
isted some urge to emphasize the two sides of
Herakles, divine and heroic, and to do so by
performing a special destruction sacrifice for
the heroic side. I do not think that this dual rit-
ual can be applied to the Greek heroes in gen-
eral, considering Herakles' particular status.
R. Parker: But it is not unique any more, be-
cause we now have Selinous.
G. Ekroth: You have to see that in the light of
all the other material where there is no indica-
tion of a difference between gods and heroes.
R. Parker: But if the crucial distinction lies in a
form of killing-where the head was-would
we expect to find that distinction in our evi-
dence? If divine and heroic sacrifices were
conducted basically in the same way and were
followed by a feast, but there was a small dif-
ference in the technical way of performing the
killing-and most probably the distinction
about which way the head of the animal was
facing, and what was done with the blood-I
do not know that we can expect that to be re-
vealed in our sources, because we do not have
the right kind of sources.
E. Gebhard: I want to add another criterion to
Robert Parker's distinction: the time of day of
the sacrifice. This is often specified: we already
find it stated in Pindar (lsthm. 3/4.79-84) that
the offering to the sons of Herakles is made at
sunset. Plutarch again makes this distinction
when he speaks about lsthmia: the rites to
Melikertes at night and so on.
R. Parker: I certainly agree that that was quite
often the case. What I was looking for is some
universal distinction between the two types. It
is unlikely that all heroic sacrifices were per-
formed at night. There are many distinctions-