Note 119.1 — Chapter IV · THE THIRD PERIOD, 500-338 B.C.

Human sacrifice.—This question involves the consideration of the practice of human sacrifice, which had been certainly prevalent in prehistoric and early historic Greece, as in other Mediterranean communities. We have evidence that in the fifth and fourth centuries the practice was of rare occurrence in the Greek societies and was repugnant to the religious morality of all but the most backward. The feeling about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia manifested in the Agamemnon of Æschylus, the story about the Bœotian generals and the sacrifice of a maiden before the battle of Leuktra are sufficient proof.119.1 The Platonic dialogue of the Minos contrasts the Greeks with the barbarians in this matter,119.2 yet implies that the Arcadians in the cult of Zeus Lykaios and the men of Halos in that of Zeus Laphystios119.3 continued the cruel offerings that disgraced their Hellenism. Euripides attests that the human sacrifice once customary in the rites of Artemis, near Brauron, had been, before his day, transformed to a mere fiction,119.4 and at some time earlier than this the Athenians must have ceased to immolate human scapegoats, called φαρμακοί, in their Thargelia.119.5 The Rhodians eased their consciences and at the same time maintained their immemorial rite by choosing a malefactor who had been condemned to death as a human victim to Kronos.119.6 According to Porphyry the practice survived here and there under the Roman Empire until the time of Hadrian.120.1 And Plutarch120.2 declares that the yearly custom of exposing the two Locrian maidens to the chance of a cruel death on the shore of Ilium, in expiation of the sin of Aias the Less against Athena Ilias, had been abandoned not very long before his time.