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. Cf. Saltat. 17. 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


 

the gods like to see all this? 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, Iliad6, 150. 

you will hear plenty of men of letters and scribes
and shaven prophets say—but first of all, as the
saying goes,


 Uninitiate, shut up your doors! An oft-quoted tag from a lost Orphic poem. Those who have not been initiated in the mysteries are required to go into their houses and close the doors, because the emblems of Dionysus are going to pass through the streets. 
—that



 

on the eve of the war, the revolt of the giants, the
gods were panic-stricken and came to Egypt, thinking
that surely there they could hide from their enemies ;
and then one of them in his terror entered into a
goat, another into. a ram, and others into other
beasts or birds; so of course the gods still keep the
forms they took then. All this, naturally, is on
record in the temples, having been committed to
writing more than ten thousand years ago!

 

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? Nisus, king of Megara, had something in common with Samson, for as long as the purple tress remained where it belonged, his city was safe. Ovid (Metam. 8, 1-151) tells how his daughter robbed him of it, and became Scylla. 
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.