Note 77.3 — Chapter IV · Anthropomorphism and Theriomorphism in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean.

I cannot consider all the cases which are given with sufficient fullness in the work that I have cited by De Visser.77.3 But the instance cited above—the Samian worship of the sheep [πρόβατον]—shows us how little we have to build our theories on. It is quite possible that such a story arose from some ritual in which the sheep was offered reverentially, treated as a theanthropic animal, half-human, half-divine, like the bull-calf of Tenedos in the cult of Dionysos,78.1 an interesting form of sacrifice to which I shall have occasion to refer again. Clear records of actual sacrifice to animals in Greece are exceedingly rare. We have the quaint example of the so-called “Sacrifice” to the flies before the feast of Apollo on the promontory of Leukas; this I have discussed elsewhere,78.2 pointing out that it seems only a ritual trick to persuade the flies to leave the worshippers alone, and certainly does not suggest the “worship” of flies.78.2 There is also a dim ritual-legend attaching to the temple of Apollo the wolf-god in Sikyon, which appears to point to some sacrifice to wolves in or near the temple at some early period.78.3 The third case is more important: the “sacrifice to the pig,” which Athenaeus, quoting from Agathokles of Kyzikos, attests was an important service at Praisos in Crete, performed as a προτελὴς θυσία, that is, as a preliminary act in the liturgies of the higher religion.78.4 The ritual-legend explained the act as prompted by the service that a sow had rendered to the infant Zeus; but it remains mysterious, and we would like to have had more clear information as to the actual rite. Finally, we have the most important type of zoolatric ritual in Greece, the worship of certain sacred snakes: various records attest this in the cult of Trophonios at Lebadeia and in the temple of Athena Polias at Athens; in the cult of Zeus-Meilichios in the Piraeus, in the sacred grove of Apollo in Epeiros, probably in the shrines of Asklepios at Epidauros and Kos, and elsewhere.