Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

SACRA.

o

24

SACRIFICIUM.

by the pontiffs and the augurs, or hy the
hitter alone. Those priests who formed col-
leges had originally, as we have already
observed, the right of eooptatio ; hut in the
course of time they were deprived of this
light, or at least the eooptatio was reduced
to a mere form, by several leges, called leges
de sacerdotiis, such as the Lex Domitia, Cor-
nelia, and Julia ; their nature is described in
the article Pontiff.x, and what is there said
in regard to the appointment of pontiffs ap-
plies equally to all the other colleges. All
priests had some external distinction, as the
apex, tutulus, or galerus, the toga praetexta,
as well as honorary seats in the theatres,
circuses, and amphitheatres. Most of the
priestly colleges possessed landed property,
and some priests had also a regular annual
salary (stipendium), which was paid to them
from the public treasury. This is expressly
stated in regard to the vestal virgins, the
augurs, and the curiones, and may therefore
he supposed to have been the case with other
priests also. The pontifex maximus, the rex
sacrorum, and the vestal virgins had moreover
a domus publica as their place of residence.

SACRA. This word, in its widest sense,
expresses what we call divine worship. In
ancient times, the state, as well as all its
subdivisions, had their own peculiar forms
of worship, whence at Rome we find sacra
of the whole Roman people, of the curies,
gentes, families, and even of private indi-
viduals. All these sacra, however, were
divided into two great classes, the public
and private sacra (sacra publica et privata),
that is, they were performed either on behalf
of the whole nation, and at the expense of
the state, or on behalf of individuals, families,
or gentes, which had also to defray their
expenses. This division is ascribed to Numa.
All sacra, publica as well as privata, were
superintended and regulated by the pontiffs.

SACK AMENTUM, the military oath, which
was administered in the following manner :—
Kach tribunus militum assembled his legion,
and picked out one of the men, to whom
he put the oath, that he would obey the
commands of his generals, and execute them
punctually. The other men then came for-
ward, one after another, and repeated the same
oath, saying that they would do like the first.

SACRARIUM was any place in which sacred
things were deposited and kept, whether this
place was a part of a temple or of a private house.

SACRIFICIUM (iepeloi/), a sacrifice. Sacri-
fices or offerings formed the chief part of the
worship of the ancients. They were partly
signs of gratitude, partly a means of propi-
tiating the gods, and partly also intended to
induce the deity to bestow some favour upon

the sacrif.cer, or upon those on whose behalf
the sacrifice was offered. Sacrifices in a
wider sense would also embrace the Do-
naeia ; in a narrower sense sacrificia were
things offered to the gods, which merely
afforded momentary gratification, and which
were burnt upon their altars, or were be-
lieved to be consumed by the gods. All sa-
crifices may be divided into bloody sacrifices
and unbloody sacrifices.—Bloody sacrifices.
In the early times of Greece we find mention
of human sacrifices, but with a few excep-
tions these had ceased in the historical ages.
Owing to the influence of civilisation, in
many cases animals were substituted for hu-
man beings ; in others, a few drops of human
blood were thought sufficient to propitiate
the gods. The custom of sacrificing human
life to the gods arose from the belief that the
nobler the sacrifice and the dearer to its
possessor, the more pleasing it would be to
the gods. Hence the frequent instances in
Grecian story of persons sacrificing their own
children, or of persons devoting themselves
to the gods of the lower world. That the
Romans also believed human sacrifices to be
pleasing to the gods, might be inferred from
the story of Curtius and from the self-sacri-
fice of the Decii. The symbolic sacrifice of
human figures made of rushes at the Lemu-
ralia [Lemuealia] also shows that in the
earl}* history of Italy human sacrifices were
not uncommon. For another proof of this
practice, see Vee Sacrf/m. A second kind of
bloody sacrifices were those of animals of
various kinds, according to the nature and
character of the divinity. The sacrifices of
animals were the most common among the
Greeks and Romans. The victim was called
Upelov, and in Latin hostia or victima. In
the early times it appears to have been the
general custom to burn the whole victim
(oXoKOMTelv) upon the altars of the gods, and
the same was in some cases also observed in
later times. But as early as the time of
Homer it was the almost general practice to
burn only the legs (nrjpot, p-w'a, MPa) en-
closed in fat, and certain parts of the intes-
tines, while the remaining parts of the victim
were consumed by men at a festive meal.
The ' gods delighted chiefly in the smoke
arising from the burning victims, and the
greater the number of victims, the more
pleasing was the sacrifice. Hence it was not
uncommon to offer a sacrifice of one hundred
bulls (e/ca.Top.jSr]) at once, though it must not
be supposed that a hecatomb always signifies
a sacrifice of a hundred bulls, for the name
was used in a general way to designate any
great sacrifice. Such great sacrifices were
not less pleasing to men than to the gods,