Animal Sacrifice and Euergetism in the Hellenistic and Roman Polis1

J. B. Rives Animal Sacrifice and Euergetism in the Hellenistic and Roman Polis1 Abstract This paper makes the case for the importance of animal sacrifice within a wider spectrum of offerings that Greeks and Romans used to win the favour of the gods. It then traces in more detail the part played by animal sacrifice within the broader phenomenon of euergetism as it developed during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and concludes with a more general consideration of the importance of animal sacrifice for Greek cities during the Roman Imperial period. The paper thus traces out a con- tinuum of practice in which a central feature of ancient religion was inextricably tied with expressions of status and demonstrations of economic capability. Keywords: animal sacrifice, euergetism, priesthood, cities, Oenoanda, Perge How important was animal sacrifice in the ancient religious tradition? This question may seem pointless, since the answer is surely self-evident: ‘In recent decades it has been increasingly recognised that sacrifice was the most central religious act for the Greeks’. Thus Jan Bremmer opens his very useful chapter on ‘Greek Normative Animal Sacrifice’ in the Blackwell Com- panion to Greek Religion.2 In referring to ‘recent decades’, Bremmer has in mind the work of Walter Burkert, on the one hand, and of Jean-Pierre Ver- nant and Marcel Detienne, on the other, whose theories he goes on to dis- cuss. Although these scholars differed significantly in their emphases and analyses, they certainly all agreed on the centrality of animal sacrifice to the 1 The research for this paper was done while I was a Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, in 2009–10. I am grateful to the Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for their financial support. I also owe thanks to my fellow contributors for their helpful discussion, to audiences at Newcastle and Brown Universities for their comments, to Marc Domingo Gygax and Fred Naiden for their feedback on earlier drafts, and to the two anonymous referees for their suggestions. All translations are my own except where noted otherwise. 2 Bremmer 2007, 132. RRE 5 (2019), 83–102 DOI 10.1628/rre-2019-0006 ISSN 2199-4463 © 2019 Mohr Siebeck 84 J. B. Rives RRE Greek religious tradition and for many years their ideas shaped the standard accounts of the significance of that practice. However, in the decade since the appearance of the Blackwell Companion, a few scholars have begun to register disagreement with these views, particularly those of Burkert. In his 2013 monograph, Fred Naiden took these developments to a new level by challenging Burkert, Vernant, and Detienne head on and proposing a new framework for thinking about Greek sacrificial practice. ‘New’ is perhaps not quite the right word, since Naiden’s project is avowedly emic: that is, he reex- amines sacrifice in terms of the issues that receive emphasis in the ancient Greek sources. These issues all concern the relationship between worshipper and deity: the worshipper’s overarching goal was to please the deity and thereby win favour, and, conversely, to avoid doing anything that might dis- please the deity and thereby result in rejection. The worshipper must make a suitable offering, request a suitable favour, and be both physically and mor- ally acceptable to the deity. Accordingly, whereas modern scholars ‘assume that sacrifice is a ritual, . the worshipper conceived it as an episode in a relation with a god’. Understood in these terms, it becomes obvious that ‘sacrifice did not depend on an animal as opposed to other offerings, or on an animal’s death. It did not evoke guilt, and it did not depend on a community as opposed to an individual’. All that it really required was ‘a worshipper, a god, and a rule of conduct’.3 To the extent that the interpretations of Burkert, Vernant, and Detienne are not simply wrong, then, they focus on aspects of sacrificial practice that were not of primary concern to the ancient Greeks themselves. If animal sacrifice were simply one way of pleasing the gods, and one whose efficacy depended on a much broader set of considerations, can we continue to characterise it without more ado as the most central act in the Greek religious tradition? Framing the question in such general terms, however, is not particularly helpful, since the response can all too easily devolve into a sort of British pantomime debate: ‘Oh yes we can’ versus ‘Oh no we can’t’. What is needed above all is a more precise formulation of the terms of analysis: we can evaluate the importance of animal sacrifice only with reference to particular contexts. Naiden has rightly reminded us that the interpretations of Burkert, Vernant, and Detienne, which continue to haunt discussions of Greek sacrifice, disregard what contemporary actors appar- ently regarded as most important, that is, winning the favour of the gods, and that if we follow them in doing so we cannot possibly understand the 3 Naiden 2013, 320 and 4; see further his justification for his emic approach at 317–321 and his summary of his argument at 32–35. 5 (2019) Animal Sacrifice and Euergetism 85 significance of sacrifice in the Greek world. It does not follow, however, that this ancient Greek conceptual framework is the only one within which we can legitimately evaluate its significance. Indeed, it is an essential part of our job as students of past societies to trace patterns of significance of which contemporary actors may have been largely unconscious (see also Moser and Digeser, this volume). In the present case, there is in fact evidence that contemporary actors were aware of other dimensions of sacrificial practice, even if they did not regard them as primary. In this paper, I make a case for the importance of animal sacrifice within one particular frame of reference. I begin with the premise that, theologi- cally speaking, animal sacrifice was not intrinsically unique but was instead part of a wider spectrum of offerings that people used to win the favour of the gods. That is to say, in terms of its efficacy in maintaining a positive relationship between worshipper and deity, animal sacrifice did not differ inher- ently from, say, offerings of flowers or cakes. It is only when we superimpose this vertical dimension of the practice onto its horizontal dimension, that is, the way that animal sacrifice both reflected and shaped human relationships, that we can identify the characteristics that made it distinctive.4 I begin by identifying three distinguishing characteristics and argue that they rendered animal sacrifice, in contrast to other types of offerings, particularly well- suited to structuring socio-political hierarchies within the Greek polis (see Biella, this volume). I then trace in more detail the part played by animal sacrifice within the broader phenomenon of euergetism as it developed during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and conclude with a more general consideration of the importance of animal sacrifice for Greek cities during the Roman Imperial period. The ancient Greeks had an astonishingly rich repertory of practices that were meant to win the favour of the gods. A reasonably complete enumera- tion would include, along with animal and vegetal offerings, the dedication of durable objects (statues, altars, and shrines, as well as a virtually limitless range of votive offerings) and also various types of verbal and non-verbal performances (prayers, processions, songs, dances, athletic competitions, and theatrical performances). Within this spectrum, animal and vegetal offerings form a fairly discrete category, conceptually marked off from other types of offerings, although in actual practice often combined with them. Yet the range of practices within this category was itself extremely varied, differ- ing in the type of material (animal or vegetal, edible or inedible, solid or liq- 4 On the need for awareness of both the vertical/theological and horizontal/sociological dimensions of animal sacrifice, see succinctly Hitch, Naiden and Rutherford 2017, 3; in more detail, Petropoulou 2008, 28–31. 86 J. B. Rives RRE uid), in the treatment of the material (destroyed wholly or in part, destroyed by burning or pouring onto the ground or being left to decay, consumed in part by human participants), and in the underlying purpose (propitiatory, expiatory, purificatory, divinatory, etc., often more than one at the same time; indeed, it would probably be a mistake to class some of the rituals that involved the slaughter of an animal as ‘offerings’ at all).5 Within this wide range, I am focusing on the practice (or rather the complex of practices) that in modern scholarship is usually designated ‘normative’ or alimentary animal sacrifice and that in the classical Greek world was frequently denoted by the verb thuein and the noun thusia.6 This type of sacrificial practice, I argue, was distinct from other types of offerings in three specific ways. The first concerns its economic aspect. Almost any kind of offering required some economic expenditure but the amounts involved ranged widely (compare Biella and Salzman, this volume). At the low end of the spectrum were vegetal offerings such as flowers, garlands, libations, and little cakes. Offerings of this sort were within the means of a large percent- age of the population. At the high end of the spectrum were temples and monumental altars, statues and costly works of art, elaborate performances and spectacles; only the wealthiest could have afforded offerings such as these and, in many cases, they were funded by communities rather than individuals. Such offerings consequently served as demonstrations of the dedicator’s wealth as much as his or her piety.

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