As time went on, the cruel custom was so far mitigated
that a ram was accepted as a vicarious sacrifice in room of the
royal victim, provided always that the prince abstained from setting
foot in the town-hall where the sacrifices were offered to
Laphystian Zeus by one of his kinsmen. But if he were rash enough to
enter the place of doom, to thrust himself wilfully, as it were, on
the notice of the god who had good-naturedly winked at the
substitution of a ram, the ancient obligation which had been
suffered to lie in abeyance recovered all its force, and there was
no help for it but he must die. The tradition which associated the
sacrifice of the king or his children with a great dearth points
clearly to the belief, so common among primitive folk, that the king
is responsible for the weather and the crops, and that he may justly
pay with his life for the inclemency of the one or the failure of
the other. Athamas and his line, in short, appear to have united
divine or magical with royal functions; and this view is strongly
supported by the claims to divinity which Salmoneus, the brother of
Athamas, is said to have set up.
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