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Cook, Arthur B.
Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky — Cambridge, 1914

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14695#0135

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Human sacrifice to Zeus Lykaios

drought Zeus Lykaios was placated with the sacrifice of a boy.
Theophrastos indeed is reported to have said that this took place
'at the Lykaia'1—an expression which, strictly taken, denotes
the regular festival celebrated probably at the beginning of May2.
But the context of that very passage implies that human sacrifice,
at least as exemplified by the cults of the Arcadian Zeus and the
Carthaginian Kronos, was not a rite recurring at stated intervals
but the last resort of a starving populace, practised only when
crops failed and famine was imminent3. Even then the responsible
clan devolved its blood-guiltiness upon a single man, who expiated
his crime by disappearing from the neighbourhood. He hung his
clothes upon a certain oak, swam across an adjoining pool, and
was lost to sight in the wilderness beyond. What happened to
him there nobody knew. It was whispered that he became a
were-wolf.

The same combination of drought, oak-tree, and water occurs
again in Pausanias' account of rain-magic on Mount Lykaion. It
appears that, when the ground was parched and the trees blasted
by the heat, the priest of Zeus Lykaios took the branch of an
oak-tree, stirred with it the water of the spring Hagno, and so
caused the long-desired shower to fall4. It can hardly be doubted
that the oak-tree and the pool of the one case are the oak-tree and
the spring of the other. If so, we have every right to say that

1 Supra p. 70 ri. 7.

2 P. Welzel De love el Pane dis Arcadicis Vratislaviae 1879 p. 23 n. 5 on the strength
of Xen. t. 2. 10 hicwff (at Peltai) ep.eivev r\p.epas Tpels- ev ah Eevias 0 'Ap/cds rd Avkcuci.
'e'Bvo'e /cat dyuiva edrjKe- ra 5e d0\a rjaav o~T\eyyi5es xpvcrat' edeivpeL be tov dyQva /cat Kvpos.
See also Immerwahr Kult. Myth. Arkad. p. 20 f.

3 Theophrast. ap. Porph. de abst. 2. 27 air' dpxys p-ev yap ai tlov Kapirwv iyivovTo tols
Oeols dvaiai' XP°"V be TVS bffiorriTos 7]p,u>v e^ape\r]crdvTOJv, eirei Kai tQv KapirQv eo~wdvLO~av
/cat cud rrjv TTjS vop.ip.ov Tpo(prjs evbeLav els to aapKocpayetv dWrjXwv wpprjcav, rare perd
ttoXXQv Xltlov iKerevovres to baLp.bvLov cr<pCov avrGiv dir^p^avTo tols deols irp&Tov, ov p.bvov 6'rt
KaXkiaTOP evrjv avTols /cat tovto tols Oeots KadoaLovvTes, dXXd Kai irepa tQv KaXXiaTwv
irpoo~eirCkap,fidvovTes tov yevovs1 d<p' ov /Ue'xpt tov vvv ovk £v 'Apuadia p.bvov tols Au/cat'ots
ouS' ev KapxySbvL Tcp Kpovip KOLvy irdvTes dvBpcoirodvTovolv, dXXd /caret irepiobov, tt}s tou
vop.ip.ov xaPLV P-vr)p<'r)S, ep.cpvXLOv alp.a paivovaL irpbs tovs (3top.ovs, Kaiirep ttjs Trap' avToTs
baias e^eLpyovo"r]S tQv iepdv tols irepLppavTrjpioLS </cat> Krjpvyp.aTL, el tls atp.aTos dvdpcoweiov
p.eTaLTLos. The excerpt in Euseb. praep. ev. 4. 16. 10 agrees with this verbatim, but is

shorter, including only d(f>' ov p.e"xPL tov vvv......7rpds tovs /3cop,ovs. The words rots

AvKaioLS are, I think, either a loose expression for ' in the rites of Zeus Lykaios^ or—less
probably—a blunder for tl$ AvKa'np Att, due to haste and inattention on the part of
Porphyrios, who did not realise that r£ Au/cat'y Att is needed to balance rc5 Kpbvip and
that both together are contrasted as extraordinary sacrifices with the ordinary ritual
described in the words /caret irepioSov k.t.X. On the other hand M. Mayer in Roscher
Lex. Myth. ii. 1503^ holds that the words /caret irepiobov are corrupt and have expelled
the name of some locality.

4 Infra ch. ii § 9 (a) iii.
 
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