Note 50.2 — Chapter II · THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD

It has been said that the Homeric poems show no consciousness of the existence of the cruel rite in the Greek world of the period; and it has been argued on this ground that the Achæan society of which they are the voice was innocent of it.50.2 A doubt may arise concerning the slaughter of the Trojan captives at the pyre of Patroklos,50.3 an act of ferocity for which Homer outspokenly blames Achilles. The passage certainly suggests that the poet was aware that such things were occasionally done at contemporary funerals; in Mycenæan tombs at Argos and Mycenæ human remains have been found before the entrance-door that point to an offering of slaves or captives.51.1 But this need not have been an act of worship or strictly of religion. The dead might be imagined as needing slaves; and to kill slaves to accompany the departed, just as to kill horses over the pyre, may only imply ‘tendance’ and no worship of the spirit. But Homer’s silence concerning human sacrifice as a rite of religion is of no value as evidence for our present question, as I have argued elsewhere.51.2 How are we to account for the fairly numerous records of actual human sacrifice, or of the semblance or reminiscence of it, in later Greek worship, records that are found sporadically among most of the leading Greek stocks? The old shift of attributing to Oriental influences everything in Hellenic religion that clashed with our ideal of Hellenism was naïvely unscientific. That the practice should have sprung up spontaneously and suddenly in the later society, when civic life and morality were advancing, is hard to believe. It is more natural to suppose that it was an immemorial and enduring tradition of the race, which was only with difficulty abolished and which lingered here and there till the end of paganism. It has been found among many other Aryan races, and it was especially in vogue among the Thraco-Phrygian stock, of near kin to the Hellenic. These general grounds for believing that it was a feature of the earliest Greek religion are confirmed by some special evidence derivable from the legends and cult-records. It is generally impossible to date the birth of legends; but some can be discerned to belong to an earlier stratum than others; such are the legends concerning the human sacrifice to Zeus Αύκαιος on Mount Lykaion in Arcadia, to which is attached the story of King Lykaon and the banquet that he offers to Zeus on the flesh of his own son;52.1 the Achæan or Minyan story of the sacrifice to Zeus Laphystios—Zeus the Ravening—of the king’s son of the house of Athamas;52.2 Kyknos’ sacrifice of pilgrims and the dedication of their skulls to Apollo on the Hyperborean pilgrims’-way at the Achæan Pagasos;52.3 the sacrifice of a boy and a maiden to Artemis Τρικλαρία by the Ionians on the southern shore of the Gulf of Corinth.52.4 A careful study of the legends of these various rites will convince one that they belong to the earliest period of Greek religion. The last example is specially illuminating: the human sacrifice is here practised by the Ionians in their ancient settlements in the land, afterwards called Achaia; and its cessation is connected with the arrival of the cult of Dionysos and the return of the heroes from Troy.