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The fallacy of the willing victim*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

F.S. Naiden
F.S. Naiden
Affiliation:
Tulane University
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Abstract:

Following the lead of Walter Burkert, scholars have believed that the ancient Greeks required that sacrificial animals assent to being killed, or at least appear to assent. The literary evidence for this view, however, is weak, being confined mostly to dramatic scholia and Pythagorean sources, and ample visual evidence suggests an alternate view: the Greeks required that sacrificial animals make some display of vitality that would show that they were fit to present to a god. The Greek practice of inspecting sacrificial animals supports this alternate view.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 127 , November 2007 , pp. 61 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2007

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References

1 ‘Greek tragedy and sacrificial ritual’, GRBS 7 (1966) 87–121, revised as Savage Energies. Lessons of Myth and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Eng. trans. P. Bing) (Chicago 2001) 1–21.

2 Aristophanes: Zacher ad Ar. Pax 960–1, in light of a scholion to these verses, followed by Platnauer and Sommerstein ad loc. Fraenkel: ad Aesch. Ag. 1297.

3 RE 18.1.579–627 at 612: ‘Es war das wohl ein Teil des χενíπτεσσθαι’.

4 ‘Griechische Opferbräuche’, in Phyllobolia, für P. von der Mühll zum 60. Geburtstag am 1. August 1945 (Basel 1946) 185–288 at 266–7 reprinted at 2.998–9 in Gesammelte Schriften (Basel 1975) 2.907–1021. Neither Burkert nor Meuli cite a similar view expressed by Robertson Smith, W., Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (2nd edn, London 1914) 303–6.Google Scholar

5 Burkert (n.1) 107.

6 Homo Necans. The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (Eng. trans. P. Bing) (Berkeley 1983) ch. 1.

7 Vernant, J.-P., ‘Théorie générale du sacrifice et mise à mort dans la thusia grecque’, in Sacrifice dans l'antiquité (Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique 27, Geneva 1981) 1–21Google Scholar, esp. 7 = ‘A general theory of sacrifice and the slaying of the victims in Greek thusia’, in Zeitlin, F.I. (ed.), Mortals and Immortals. Collected Essays (Princeton 1991) 290–303.Google ScholarParker, R., Miasma. Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford 1983) 305Google Scholar, though he disagrees with Vernant.

8 Mention: Foley, H., Ritual Irony. Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides (Ithaca 1985) 29.Google Scholar Allusion: Seaford, R., Reciprocity and Ritual. Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State (Oxford 1994) 287Google Scholar, ‘the victim … must submit to being killed’.

9 Taplin, O., Greek Tragedy in Action (Berkeley 1978) 5.9.2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; so also Loraux, N., Façons tragiques de tuer une femme (Paris 1985) 63.Google Scholar

10 Perverse rituals: Zeitlin, F., ‘The motif of the corrupted sacrifice in Aeschylus' Oresteia’, TAPA 96 (1965) 463–508.Google Scholar Questionable if not perverse rituals: Goldhill, S., ‘The Great Dionysia and civic ideology’, JHS 107 (1987) 58–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 74, reprinted at 127 in Winkler, J. and Zeitlin, F. (eds), Nothing to Do with Dionysus? Athenian Drama in its Social Context (Princeton 1990) 97–130.Google Scholar

11 Van Straten, F.T., Hiera Kala. Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece (Religions in the Greco-Roman World 127, Leiden 1995) 101–2Google Scholar, cited at nn.43–52, 62–3, 68 and 78 below. Van Straten wrote in the same vein in ‘Greek sacrificial representations: livestock prices and religious mentality’, in Linders, T. and Nordquist, G. (eds), Gifts to the Gods (Uppsala 1987) 159–70Google Scholar at 170. For an earlier examination of artistic evidence leading to the same conclusion, see Ziehen (n.3) 611; for the same conclusion, but based on a smaller body of evidence, see Peirce, S., ‘Death, revelry, and thusia’, CA 12 (1993) 219–66 at 255–6.Google Scholar Tentative objections: Georgoudi, S., ‘“L'occultation de la violence” dans le sacrifice grec: données anciennes, discours modernes’, in Georgoudi, S., Koch Piettre, R. and Schmidt, F. (eds), La cuisine et l'autel. Les sacrifices en question dans les sociétés de la Méditerranée ancienne (Turnhout 2005) 2.1.Google Scholar For the conclusion that the assent was a formality, see Platnauer, Sommerstein and Fraenkel (n.2). Loraux (n.9) is similar.

12 In print: Greek Religion (Oxford 1994) 41. Another objection of Bremmer's: the variability of sacri fice according to place and period, in ‘Religion, ritual and the opposition “sacred vs. profane”: notes towards a terminological “genealogy”’, in Graf, F. (ed.), Ansichten griechischer Rituale. Geburtstags-Symposium für Walter Burkert (Stuttgart 1998) 9–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 24. Similar: Price, S., Religions of the Ancient Greeks (Cambridge 2001) 17.Google Scholar

13 Burkert (n.1) 106.

14 As in Bremmer, J., ‘Scapegoat rituals in ancient Greece’, HSCP 87 (1983) 299–320Google Scholar at 307–8, reprinted at 279 in Buxton, R. (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Religion (Oxford 1990) 271–94.Google Scholar

15 Burkert (n.1) 114 pl. 5, fig. 5, a Cretan hydria showing a bull with a lowered head.

16 Burkert (n.1) 107 nn.43, 45. Ten sources in n.43, given in Burkert's order: Ael. NA 10.50, 11.4; Apoll. Mir. 13; Arist. Mir. 844a no.137; Plut. Pel. 22, Luc. 24.6–7; Porph. Abst. 1.25; Philostr. Her. 329, 294 ed. Kayser; Plin. NH 32.17. Six sources in n.45, also in Burkert's order: Porph. Abst. 2.9; schol. Ar. Pax 960; schol. A.R. 1.425; Plut. Q. conv. 729f, Defec. orac. 435b-c, 437a; Syll.3 1025.20. Burkert (n.1) 106 quotes Aesch. Ag. 1297 and Burkert (n.1) 107 quotes Ar. Pax 960. Burkert (n.6) 4 n.13 adds schol. Il. 1.449, but this passage is interpretive, not descriptive. Other works: Greek Religion (Eng. trans. J. Raffan) (Cambridge, MA 1985) 369 n.6, and the reprint of Burkert (n.1).

17 Men. Dysc. 393–8, brought to my attention by Bremmer, deals not with a sacrifice but with an attempt ed but incomplete sacrifice; it is discussed below.

18 Deip. 9.409b.

19 LSJ ss. vv.

20 Disputes about the order of the lines have no bearing on the animal's gesture unless, with Blaydes ad loc., the ‘shaking’ is attributed to Trygaeus and 960 is emended accordingly. For ‘shaking’ in the middle voice meaning ‘shake something off’, here water, see LSJ s.v. σεíω III.

21 9.409b.

22 LSJ ss.vv.

23 Syll.3 1025.20

24 LSJ s.v., citing this inscription in the sense of ‘supplicate’.

25 A further difficulty: LSJ s.v. ⋯πινεúω gives only one instance of this verb with any dative other than the dative of means or the indirect object, from a second-century AD papyrus in which the nod is given to a request, not an act (P.Giss. I.4 II 9).

26 1.415.

27 Cf. Van Herwerden ad loc.: ‘absurdum loci deprauati interpretandi conamen’. Ziehen (n.3) 612 prefers to base the ‘tradition’ about assent on Plutarch.

28 Thaumata vel sim.: Ael. NA 11.4, Aesch. Ag. 1297–8, Arist. Mir. 844b no.137, Apoll. Mir. 13, Philostr. Her. 294, 329, Plin. NH 32.17, Plut. Luc. 24.7, Pel. 22. Similar is idion: Ael. NA 10.50.

29 Aesch, . Ag. 1297–8.Google Scholar

30 Ael. NA 10.50, ἄγει.

31 Philostr. Her. 294, 329.

32 Plut. Luc. 24.7.

33 Ael. NA 11.4, Plut. Pel. 22, Plin. NH 32.17.

34 Arist. Mir. 844b no.137; so also Apoll. Mir. 13.

35 Plut. Luc. 24.7, Philostr. Her. 294, 329.

36 Ael. NA 11.4, Philostr. Her. 294, Arist. Mir. 844b no.137. Similar later report: Apoll. Mir. 13.

37 Ziehen (n.3) 611.

38 Ael. VH 83 and Paus. 1.28.10 accordingly report a subsequent trial of the axe with which the animal was slain. Recent literature: A. Henrichs s.v. Bouphonia, OCD3 258. Some hunted animals protest by supplicating at an altar, but sacrificial victims do not; see Naiden, F., Ancient Supplication (Oxford 2006) Appendix 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Oὔ σε θέμιζ кτείνειν ⋯ίων γένoζ ⋯στ⋯ βέβαιoν, ἔγγoνε Θειoπóπων. ὅ δ’ ⋯кoύσιoν ἄν кατανεύσηι χέρνιβ’ ⋯πιθύειν τò δ’, Ἐίσкoπε, φημ⋯ διкαíωζ Valentinus: βιαίωζ justifying Delphi's change of front, but challenging Burkert's (and Porphyry's) assumption that the animal deserves general or absolute protection against violence.

40 Q. conviv. 729e-f.

41 Obbink, D., ‘The origin of Greek sacrifice: Theophrastus on religion and cultural history’, in Fortenbaugh, W. and Sharples, R. (eds), Theophrastean Studies (New Brunswick, NJ 1988) 272–96 at 283–6.Google Scholar

42 Plut. Luc. 24.7, ὥσπερ αὐ δεσμὦ кαταεινóμεεναι Arist. Mir. 844b no.137.

43 Kneel: Van Straten (n.11) no.370 in the catalogue of paintings at 194–274, plus 101 n.307; Himmelmann, N., Tieropfer in Grieschischen Kunst (Cleve 1997) fig. 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Buck: Van Straten (n.11) no.91 in the same catalogue. Run away: no.71. Hang upside down: no.64.

44 Nos.90, 129, 370.

45 Nos.5, 6, 8–9, 11–13, 16–17, 19, 21, 25, 30, 31, 35–6, 38–9, 41, 43–4, 49, 50–2, 54–5, 58, 60–1, 62, 67–9, 72, 74–6, 78, 80, 82, 84–6, 89, 91, 96, 98, 106, 108, 112–15, 118, 121, 123–4, 126–8, 130–1, all identified as such by Van Straten (n.11), who describes the animal as ‘driven” or ‘led’ in his catalogue.

46 Nos.38, 42, 65, 69, 107 (bottom), 121, 127, 128, 130, 131, 135, 136, 140.

47 The Hague Gemeentemus. OC (ant) 5–71, Attic red-figure bell krater = Va n Straten (n.12) fig. 34 and no.136.

48 Goat: no.16, 36, 118. Fawn: no.139.

49 Nos.21 (top), 107 (top), 123. Others: nos.9, 28, 39, 41, 43, 55, 68, 72–4, 76, 78–9, 85, 89, 91, 98, 107, 115.

50 Carried under arm: no.77. By leg: nos.22, 83, 92, 94, 100, 103, 104, 139. On shoulder: no.64 (with a pole).

51 No.71.

52 NY Met 56.171.149, Attic red-figure bell krater, Kekrops Ptr., ARV 2 1347/3 = Van Straten (n.11) fig. 54 and no.91.

53 Himmelmann (n.43), figs 22, 23, reproducing Carey's drawing of pieces 1–3.

54 Himmelmann (n.43) fig. 40.

55 19.251. ‘Holding’: ἕχων.

56 As at Xen. Hell. 4.2.20.

57 Od. 14.73–4.

58 To judge from no such description being cited by Bömer, F. in his extensive Untersuchungen über die Religion der Sklaven in Griechenland und Rom (Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 14, Wiesbaden 1981).Google Scholar

59 Ar. Pax 937. ‘Fetch’: ἄγ” … λαβών

60 J., Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period. A Handbook (Oxford 1978) fig. 112.Google Scholar

61 Boardman (n.60) fig. 69.

62 Van Straten (n. 11) 55 n.145.

63 So also Van Straten (n.11) 55–6. He cautiously excluded from his catalogue of vases many images in which a herdsman might be carrying or driving an animal as part of his work, and not to an altar. He included only nos.1, 3, 4, 20, 57, 88, 93, 125 in his catalogue.

64 Syll.3 1025.20–1. ‘Drive’: ⋯π⋯γειν

65 Od. 12.356–8. ‘Herd’: περιεήσαντo. Similarly, Od. 3.439, ⋯γέτην

66 London 39.40, reproduced in Himmelmann (n.43) fig. 25.

67 Atlante dei complessi figurati (Enciclopedia dell' arte antica, classica e medievale 9, Rome 1973) pl. 286 top = Himmelmann (n.43) fig. 40.

68 Evidence for lifting: Van Straten (n.11) 109–13, ‘The butchers who laughed at Stengel’, referring to the German scholar who accepted several butchers' opinion that a bull or cow was too heavy to lift. See Stengel, P., Opferbräuche der Griechen (Berlin 1910) 115.Google Scholar

69 Queyrel, F., L'autel de Pergame. Images et pouvoir en Grèce d'Asie (Paris 2005) 44.Google Scholar

70 de la Genière, J., ‘Hécatombes à Claros’, in Greco, E. (ed.), Architettura, urbanistica, società. Giornata di studi in ricordo di Roland Martin (Tekmeria 2, Salerno 1998) 79–84Google Scholar at 82 with fig. 4, a drawing reproduced in Queyrel (n.69) as fig. 7. Similar but fuller conclusions: de la Genière, J. and Jolivet, V., Cahiers de Claros 2: L'aire des sacrifices (Paris 2003) 190–1Google Scholar with pls 38–9.

71 de la Genière (n.70, ‘Hécatombes à Claros’) fig.3.

72 de la Genière (n.70, ‘Hécatombes à Claros') fig.5 with p. 83.

73 Paus. 4.32.3; Plut. Luc. 24.6, Prop. 2.34.47–8.

74 Ziehen (n.3), citing Syll.3 57.33.

75 Amm. Marc. 25.4.17.

76 Dio 57.4, cited by Georgoudi (n.11) 15.

77 Grandin, Temple (ed.), Livestock Handling and Transport (Cambridge, MA 2000).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

78 Louvre C 10.754, Attic red-figure stamnos, Eucharides Ptr., ARV 2 228/32 = Van Straten (n.11) fig. 47 and no.135.

79 Cf. Himmelmann (n.43), noticing the ‘Wucht’ of the animals on the Parthenon frieze. But he accepts Burkert's view, 39.

80 Plut. Defec. orac. 437a-b, especially: δεῖ γ⋯ρ τò θύσμoν τε σώματι кα⋯ τηι ψυχηι кαθαρòν ε⋯νσι кα⋯ ⋯σιν⋯ζ кα⋯ ⋯δι⋯φθoρoν … περ⋯ τò σɷμα кατιδεῖν. oὐ π⋯νυ χαλεπóν ⋯στι, τήε δ⋯ ψυχ⋯ν δoкιμ⋯ζoυσι τoῖζ μ⋯ν ταύρoιζ ἄλφιτα τoῖζ δ⋯ к⋯πρoιζ ⋯ρεβίνθoυζ παπατιέντεζ. τò γ⋯ρ μ⋯ γευσ⋯μενoν ὑγιαίνειε oὐк oἴoνται

81 Plut. Defec. orac. 437b: τ⋯ν δ' αἶγα διελέγχειν εò ψυχρòν ὕδωρ. oὐ γ⋯ρ ε⋯ναι ψυχηζ кατ⋯ φύσιν ⋯χoέσηζ τò πρòζ τ⋯ν кατ⋯σπεισιν ⋯παθ⋯ζ кα⋯ ⋯кίνητoν. A different view of this passage: Detienne, M., ‘Culinary practices and the spirit of sacrifice’, in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J.-P. (eds), The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among the Greeks (tr. Wissing, P.; Chicago 1989) 1–21, esp. 9.Google Scholar

82 Paus. 4.32.3. A different view: Georgoudi (n.11) 16.

83 Schol. Il. 20.404, noticed by Burkert (n.1) 107 n.43: βoσ⋯ντων μ⋯ν τɷν, πρoσδέχεσθαι τò θεῖoν τ⋯ν θυσίαν σιγώντων δ⋯, λυπεῖσθαι кα⋯ μηνια`ιν νoμίζεσθαι So also Str. 8.384 with schol.

84 Men. Dysc. 393–8.

85 Dio 41.61, cited by Ziehen (n.3).

86 Most recently summarized by Gauthier, P., ‘La dokimasia des victimes. Une note sur une inscription d'Entella’, AnnPisa 3.14.3 (1984) 845–8 with refs at 846 n.3, to whom I am indebted for some of the sources in this section.Google Scholar

87 Hdt. 2.38.

88 Lys. 83–4; schol. ad 84 confirms that this was common practice.

89 Fr. 101 ed. Rose.

90 As at LSCG 65.70–2, 92.30–1, and 98.14–5; so also forms of krinô as at Lupu, E., Greek Sacred Law (Leiden 2005) 99–100 and 355–6Google Scholar with refs.

91 SEG 736.11–14, кαλλίστoζ.

92 Schol. Dem. 21.171, where the inspection is performed by the hieropoioi.

93 LSCG 65.70, noticed by Lupu (n.90).

94 LSCG 65.67–70.

95 LSCG 65.71.

96 For other sources to this effect, see Wenger, L., s.v. signum RE Suppl. 2.2364–5.Google Scholar

97 Other views of sacrificial guilt: Smith, J.Z., To Take Place. Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago 1987Google Scholar), partly disagreeing with Burkert, and a neglected work of Propp, V., Die historischen Wurzeln des Zaubermärchens (German trans. Pfeiffer, M., Munich 1987).Google Scholar Propp anticipated Vidal-Naquet, P., Le chasseur noir. Formes de pensée et formes de société dans le monde grec (Paris 1981)Google Scholar in holding that hunting-related ritual was initiatory.