Human Sacrifice in Greek Culture

Human Sacriﬁce in Greek Culture∗

Gabriele Weiler, University of Cologne

Before dealing with human sacrifices in Greek culture, it is necessary to define the term and the meaning of “human sacrifice.” In a narrow sense, “human sacrifice” means the sacrifice of a human being to a divinity, carried out like an animal sacrifice (the terminology is also the same, i. e. Greek: jein or cfzein). In a broader sense, the term im- plies also the forms of “ritual killing,” either at the grave of a deceased person, before or after a battle, during a drought, famine, epidemic or a similiar catastrophe dangerous to an individual life or that of a commu- nity. Finally it is possible to offer living human beings to a divinity in order to comply with their cult. Therefore, human sacrifices belong to the rituals of offering, which are generally accepted by the religion and culture in question and which are therefore not considered as an illegal killing and consequently are not punished. Quite a number of human sacrifices, in the narrow and in the broader sense, are revealed by the Greek myths and their flexible adaption in the fields of literature—especially of tragedies—as well as in the domains of art, particularly of vase-painting, plastic art or history painting.1 In ad- dition, there are inscriptions, findings and facts of archaeological nature, which however are and will be difficult to interpret.2 Another category are the statements made until Roman times by historiographical and bi- ographical sources as well as those made by periegetic writers. The first lists of human sacrifices were set up by philosophers, subsequent lists

∗ I am grateful to Annette Haensch for writing the English of this article. Thanks also to Johannes Heinrichs with whom I discussed all that is essential in this article. 1 As for the representation in the Etruscan art generally acknowlegded as highly in- fluenced by the Greek one, see for example Dirk Steuernagel, Menschenopfer und Mord am Altar: Griechische Mythen in etruskischen Gräbern (Palilia 3; Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1998). 2 For example Anemospilia, see below n. 52 and 55; Lefkandi: see below n. 64 and 66. 36 GABRIELE WEILER by Christians.3 Especially the late written sources however hardly re- flect the historical reality, but they are rather literal fictions, rhetorical exercises, aitiological models or last, but not least, propaganda. The research has tended to deny human sacrifices in ancient devel- oped cultures. This is especially true for the Greek culture. Either the respective customs are attributed to a very distant, prehistorical past.4 Or the influence of the civilizations of the Near East or the “barbarian” neighbouring tribes are held responsible for the human sacrifices which cannot be negated in the fields of written sources or art.5 We have ev- idence that many tribes living around the Mediterranian Sea in ancient times and other Indo-European peoples practiced the sacrifice or ritual killing of human beings (Etruscans, Romans, Germans, Celts). We find the earliest archaeological testimonies in the region of Crete. They can be dated with great certainty to the first period of the palaces. But the interpretation of these findings are not undisputed. The first traditions we dispose of can be found in the context of the legend of Theseus and the myths about the argonauts and the war of Troy. Thus they evoke contexts referring back to a Minoan-Mycenaean background. For these reasons, one should not reject right from the start an indigenous tradition of this “extreme” practice of sacrifice independent of external influences. Especially Walter Burkert has demonstrated by a further development of the theses made by Sigmund Freud, Karl Meuli and Konrad Lorentz that bloody sacrificial rituals—and these include not only animal sacrifices—have their origin in the migrating (middle-) palaeolithic groups of hunters (”hunting hypotheses” of hominization).6 Today we are ap- parently able to trace back a tradition lasting for many generations up

3 Thus for example the new Platonist Porphyry (source: Theophrastus; Porphyry, Abst. 2, 52 ff.), Tertullian (Apol. 9), Clement of Alexandria (Protr. 3, 42 p. 31 Stählin), Euse- bius (Praep. ev. 4, 16), Cyrillus of Alexandria (C. Iulianum 4, 127 f.). 4 Karl Meuli, “Griechische Opferbräuche,” in: Phyllobolia: FS Peter von der Mühll (Basel: Schwabe, 1946), 185–288, 207 (repr. in Gesammelte Schriften [ed. Th. Gelzer; Basel: Schwa- be, 1975], vol. 2, 907–1021); Konrad Lorenz, Das sogenannte Böse: Zur Naturgeschichte der Aggression (25th ed.; Vienna: Borotha-Schoeler 1970), 72 ff. concerning the rite. 5 See more in detail Pierre Bonnechère, Le sacrifice humain en Grèce ancienne (Kernos Suppl. 3; Athènes: Centre International d’Etude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 1994. 6 Sigmund Freud, Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (Gesammelte Schriften XII; Leipzig: Internat. Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1934, 27–114). Robert Ardrey, The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man (New York: Atheneum, 1976).