The view here taken of the Greek scapegoat, if it is correct,
obviates an objection which might otherwise be brought against the
main argument of this book. To the theory that the priest of Aricia
was slain as a representative of the spirit of the grove, it might
have been objected that such a custom has no analogy in classical
antiquity. But reasons have now been given for believing that the
human being periodically and occasionally slain by the Asiatic
Greeks was regularly treated as an embodiment of a divinity of
vegetation. Probably the persons whom the Athenians kept to be
sacrificed were similarly treated as divine. That they were social
outcasts did not matter. On the primitive view a man is not chosen
to be the mouth-piece or embodiment of a god on account of his high
moral qualities or social rank. The divine afflatus descends equally
on the good and the bad, the lofty and the lowly. If then the
civilised Greeks of Asia and Athens habitually sacrificed men whom
they regarded as incarnate gods, there can be no inherent
improbability in the supposition that at the dawn of history a
similar custom was observed by the semibarbarous Latins in the
Arician Grove.
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