The
great festival which was held at Upsala every nine years may have
been the occasion on which the king or his deputy was put to death.
We know that human sacrifices formed part of the rites.
There are some grounds for believing that the reign of many ancient
Greek kings was limited to eight years, or at least that at the end
of every period of eight years a new consecration, a fresh
outpouring of the divine grace, was regarded as necessary in order
to enable them to discharge their civil and religious duties. Thus
it was a rule of the Spartan constitution that every eighth year the
ephors should choose a clear and moonless night and sitting down
observe the sky in silence. If during their vigil they saw a meteor
or shooting star, they inferred that the king had sinned against the
deity, and they suspended him from his functions until the Delphic
or Olympic oracle should reinstate him in them. This custom, which
has all the air of great antiquity, was not suffered to remain a
dead letter even in the last period of the Spartan monarchy; for in
the third century before our era a king, who had rendered himself
obnoxious to the reforming party, was actually deposed on various
trumped-up charges, among which the allegation that the ominous sign
had been seen in the sky took a prominent place.
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