Understanding Greek Religion by Larson Jennifer

Author:Larson, Jennifer [Jennifer Larson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2016-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

Essay 4.1: Sacrificing to Zeus Polieus on Kos

Greek alimentary sacrifice usually followed a familiar pattern: procession to the altar; purification and prayer; slaughter of the animal and burning of select parts for the god; division of meat and consumption by the participants. Within this normative model, however, myriad procedural variations were possible, including groupings of multiple sacrifices.74 A second category of Greek sacrifice was non-alimentary or “renunciatory”: ritual killing that did not result in consumption of the animal. Again the procedures varied widely, but might include a holocaust (burning the flayed carcass of the entire animal) or special manipulations of its blood; sometimes the animal’s body functioned primarily as a tool for divination or purification. A third category consisted of hybrid cases: alimentary sacrifice with partial meat consumption, or a sequence in which a non-alimentary phase with one animal was followed by a consumption phase with a second animal.75

To what degree such details were influenced by the identity of the god receiving the sacrifice has long been the subject of debate, but it is clear that the traditional scholarly assignment of alimentary procedures to celestial “Olympian” gods and renunciatory procedures to earthly “chthonian” gods (together with these labels themselves) is too rigid to be useful. Correlations, but not rigid requirements, existed between individual deities and the species, age, sex and color of animals presented to them. For example, piglets were given to Demeter and, surprisingly often, to Zeus; female animals were more likely to be preferentially assigned to goddesses, and uncastrated male animals to gods.76 Other determining factors have been suggested, including the nature of the occasion rather than the identity of the god. Nock wrote that solemn actions, such as ceremonies to ward off evil, to purify or to “exercise direct and efficacious influence,” required special renunciatory procedures exemplified by holocaust sacrifice.77 Following van Baal, Ekroth has suggested that sacrificial rites be divided into “low intensity” (normative procedures representing the ideal relationship between humans and gods) and “high intensity” (unusual procedures, such as large animal holocaust, which were employed in crisis situations), with a spectrum of hybrid rituals in between.78 Pragmatic considerations could be expected to produce a bias toward alimentary sacrifice or hybrid procedures that permitted humans to consume some of the meat, and toward the use of less expensive, more widely available animals for renunciatory sacrifice (e.g. a piglet versus an ox).79

In order to explore these questions further, let us turn to a ritual calendar of the mid-fourth century from the island of Kos.80 Inscribed on four stone slabs set up in the sanctuary of the Twelve Gods, the calendar is incomplete. Among the preserved parts are directions for the conduct of a major civic and religious event, the annual festival of Zeus Polieus (“Zeus of the City”) during the month of Batromios.81 This calendar provides an unusual wealth of ritual detail, probably because the political unification of Kos in 366 required multiple changes to existing procedures; the disruption to oral tradition in such cases often stimulated the creation of a written record.

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