It is probably no mere coincidence
that Dionysus himself is said to have been torn in pieces at Thebes,
the very place where according to legend the same fate befell king
Pentheus at the hands of the frenzied votaries of the vine-god.
However, a tradition of human sacrifice may sometimes have been a
mere misinterpretation of a sacrificial ritual in which an animal
victim was treated as a human being. For example, at Tenedos the
new-born calf sacrificed to Dionysus was shod in buskins, and the
mother cow was tended like a woman in child-bed. At Rome a shegoat
was sacrificed to Vedijovis as if it were a human victim. Yet on the
other hand it is equally possible, and perhaps more probable, that
these curious rites were themselves mitigations of an older and
ruder custom of sacrificing human beings, and that the later
pretence of treating the sacrificial victims as if they were human
beings was merely part of a pious and merciful fraud, which palmed
off on the deity less precious victims than living men and women.
This interpretation is supported by many undoubted cases in which
animals have been substituted for human victims.
Pages:
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107