Note 134 — Chapter II · THE ANTHESTERIA. The Ritual of Ghosts and Sprites.

I do not deny that the word can be translated if we are content to vary our rendering in each various case. In the passages already discussed ‘devote’ is perhaps a fair equivalent, because the contrast emphasized is with a sacrifice shared. Sometimes the word may be rendered simply ‘sacrifice to the dead,’ sometimes ‘purificatory sacrifice,’ sometimes ‘expiatory sacrifice.’ No one word covers the whole field. It is this lost union of many diverse elements that has to be recovered and is nameless.