Note 286.5 — Chapter XIII · Babylonian, Anatolian, and Aegean Ritual.

We might find other coincidences in detail between Hellenic and Assyrian ritual, such as the purificatory employment of salt, onions, and the sacrificial skin of the animal-victim.286.5 One of the most interesting phenomena presented by the cathartic law of old Babylonia is a rule that possessed an obvious moral value; we find, namely, on one of the cylinders of Gudea, that during the period when Gudea was purifying the city the master must not strike the slave, and no action at law must be brought against any one; for seven days perfect equality reigned, no bad word was uttered, the widow and the orphan went free from wrong.287.1 The conception underlying this rule is intelligible: all quarrelling and oppression, being often accompanied with bloodshed and death, disturbs the general purity which is desired to prevail; and I have indicated elsewhere a similar law regulating the conduct of the Eleusinian mysteries and the Dionysiac festival at Athens, both ceremonies of cathartic value,287.2 and I have pointed out a similar ordinance observed recently by a North-American Indian tribe, and formerly by the Peruvians; to these instances may be added the statement by Livy,287.3 that in the Roman “lectisternia,” when a table with offerings was laid before the gods, no quarrelling was allowed and prisoners were released, and the historian gives to the institution of the lectisternia a piacular significance.