Potter, John; Anthon, Charles [Editor]: Archaeologia Graeca or the antiquities of Greece (New York, 1825)

0* THC HELIftlOU OF GREECt,

by they commended, in the mystical sense of this rile, both themselves
and all their actions and enterprises to the divine protection (1). Thus
Eustathius (2) ; but Casaubon (3) tells us they sometimes offered the en-
trails, herein contradicting Eustathius who informs that these were divid-
ed among the persons present at the sacrifice ; and Homer in the descrip»
tions of his sacrifices usually tells us that they feasted upon them, Ttrkoiy-
esratfavTo. By the word tf^Xay^va, though it properly signify the bow-
els, are to be understood, saith my author (4) the spleen, liver, and heart,
and that it is sometimes taken for the heart, will appear by the significa-
tion of its compounds : for by ctVirAa^voj etrq^. is meant a pusillanimous
man; as on the contrary, (v~7tKay/yeg, denotes a man of courage, saith
the scholiast (5) upon Sophocles, Yet in some places the entrails were
burned upon the altar. Thus iEneas does in Virgil (b) :

Turn stygio regi nociurnas inchoat arns,
Et solida imponit taurorum visceraJiammis

Then to the Stygian monarch he begins
The nightly sacrifice ; the solid flesh

Of bulls upon the flaming altar lays. thapp.

And another person in Ovid's Metamorphosis ;

Viscera jam tauriflammis addenda dedisset.

But Dionysius the Halicarnassian, comparing the Grecian and Roman rites
of sacrifice, affirms, that only the «Ta^ai of the entrails, as hath beea
observed concerning the other members, were sacrificed. * Having
washed their hands (saith he) and purified'the victims with clear water,
and bestrewed their heads with the fruits of Ceres, they pray to the
gods, and then command the officers to kill the victims : some of these
do thereupon knock down the victim, others cut its throat when fallen
to the ground, others flay off its hide, divide the body into its several
members ; and cut off the first fruits (wVe^g), from every entrail, and
other members, which being sprinkled with barley meal, are presented
upon canisters to the persons who offer the sacrifice, by whom they are
laid upon the altar to be burnt, and whilst they are consuming in the fire,
wine is poured upon them. All which is performed according to the
Grecian-tites of sacrifice, as will easily apppear from the poems of Ho-
mer (7).' He then proceeds to confirm this description of the sacrifices
by several testimonies out of Homer, which being to the same purpose
with others already cited out of that poet, shall be omitted.

Whilst the sacrifice was burning, the priest, and the person who gave
the victim, jointly made their prayers to the god, with their hands upon
the altar, which was the usual posture in praying, as will be shewn here-
after. Sometimes they played upon musical instruments in the time of
sacrifice, thinking hereby to charm the god into a propitious humour, as
appears by a story related in Plutarch (8), of lsmenias, who playing up-
on a pipe at a sacrifice, when no lucky omens appeared, the man by
whom he was hired, snatched the pipe, and played very ridiculously
himself; and, when all the company found fault with him, he said, ' to

(1) Tzetzcs in Hesiodi Oper. et Dier. lib. (6) JEneid. lib. vi. ver. 252.

535. (2) U. 4. (7) Dionysius. Halicarnass. Antiquit, Roman?

(3) In Theophrasi. pag. 478, 479, edit. Lips.

'4) In Iliad, &. <5) In Ajace. (8) Syroncsiac lib. ii. q. |

2?