On Sacrifices (11-15)

Then too they erect temples, in order that the gods may not be houseless and hearthless, of course; and they fashion images in their likeness, sending for a Praxiteles or a Polycleitus or a Phidias, who have caught sight of them somewhere and represent Zeus as a bearded man, Apollo as a perennial boy, Hermes with his first moustache, Poseidon with sea-blue hair and Athena with green eyes! In spite of all, those who enter the temple think that what they behold is not now ivory from India nor gold mined in Thrace, but the very son of Cronus and Rhea, transported to earth by Phidias and bidden to be overlord of deserted Pisa, thinking himself lucky if he gets a sacrifice once in four long years as an incident to the Olympic games.

When they have established altars and formulae and lustral rites, they present their sacrifices, the farmer an ox from the plough, the shepherd a lamb, the goatherd a goat, someone else incense or a cake; the poor man, however, propitiates the god by Just kissing his own hand.[*] But those who offer victims (to come back to them) deck the animal with garlands, after finding out far in advance whether it is perfect or not, in order that they may not kill something that is ef no use to them; then they bring it to the altar and slaughter it under the god’s eyes, while it bellows plaintively—making, we must suppose, auspicious sounds, and fluting low music to accompany the sacrifice! Who would not suppose that

And although the notice says that no one is to be allowed within the holy-water who has not clean hands, the priest himself stands there all bloody, just like the Cyclops of old, cutting up the victim, removing the entrails, plucking out the heart, pouring the blood about the altar, and doing everything possible in the way of piety. To crown it all, he lights a fire and puts upon it the goat, skin and all, and the sheep, wool and all; and the smoke, divine and holy, mounts upward and gradually dissipates into Heaven itself.

The Scythians, indeed, reject all the sacrificial animals and think them too mean; they actually offer men to Artemis and by so doing gratify the goddess!

These practices are all very well, no doubt, and also those of the Assyrians and those of the Phrygians and Lydians; but if you go to Egypt, then, ah! then you will see much that is venerable and truly in keeping with Heaven—Zeus with the head of a ram, good Hermes with the head of a dog, Pan completely metamorphosed into a goat, some other god into an ibis, another into a crocodile, another into a monkey!

Wouldst thou enquire the cause of these doings in order to know it,

Uninitiate, shut up your doors![*]

Sacrifices are the same there as with us, except that they mourn over the victim, standing about it and beating their breasts after it has been slain. In some cases they even bury it after simply cutting its throat.

And if Apis, the greatest of their gods, dies, who is there who thinks so much of his hair that he does not shave it off and baldly show his mourning on his head, even if he has the purple tress of Nisus?[*] But Apis is a god out of the herd, chosen to succeed the former Apis on the ground that he is far more handsome and majestic than the run of cattle!

Actions and beliefs like these on the part of the public seem to me to require, not someone to censure them, but a Heracleitus or a Democritus, the one to laugh at their ignorance, the other to bewail their folly.