British Museum <London> [Editor]: Elgin and Phigaleian Marbles (Band 1) (London, 1833)

GRECIAN TEMPLES. 81

a nod, which was attained by pouring water into its
ear, and sometimes barley.

After this, they prayed again; which done, the
priest took a cup of wine, and having tasted it him-
self, caused the company to do the like, and then
poured the remainder between the horns of the
victim*.

After this, frankincense, or other incense, taken
from the censer with three fingers, was strewed upon
the altar, and as some authorities assert, upon the
forehead of the victim t.

Then they poured forth some of the mola salsa,
or flour sprinkled with salt, on the back of the victim,
upon which a little water had been previously scat-
tered. This done, they prayed again, and then offered
the remainder of the mola salsa upon the altar.

Then the priest, or crier, or sometimes the most
honourable person in the company where no priest
Was present, killed the beast by striking him down,
or cutting his throat. Sometimes the person who
killed and prepared the victim, which was accounted
a more ignoble office, was different from him who
offered it upon the altar. If the sacrifice was in
honour of the cselestial gods, the throat was bent up-
ward toward heaven; but if made to the heroes, or
infernal deities, it was killed with its throat toward the
ground. If the beast escaped the stroke, if it leaped
UP after it, or bellowed, or did not fall prone upon
the ground, kicked, or was restless, as though it
expired in pain, did not bleed freely, or was long in
dying, it was thought unacceptable to the gods; all
these being unlucky omens, as their contraries were

* Orid, Metamorph. lib. vii. v. 593.

--------" dum vota sacerdos

Concipit, et fuudit purum inter cornua vinum."

t." Et digitis tria thura tribus sub limine ponit."

Ovid, Fasti; lib. ii.