126 HISTORY OF GREECE. in; lined still unappeased, and an undying curse rested upon th<! family. 1 That such human sacrifices continued to a greater or less extent, even down to a period later than Herodotus, among the family who worshipped Athamas as their heroic ancestor, appears certain : mention is also made of similar customs in parts of Arcadia, and of Thessaly, in honor of Peleus and Cheiron.' 3 But we may reasonably presume, that in the period of greater humanity which Herodotus witnessed, actual sacrifice had become very rare. The curse and the legend still remained, but were summated sacrifice, little is known, except from a passage of Aristophanes and the Scholia upon it (Nubes, 258). (jaxep p.e rbv 'A$dpav&' Athamas was introduced in this drama with a garland on his head, on the point of being sacrificed as an expiation for the death of his son Phryxus, when Herakles interposes and rescues him. 1 Herodot. vii. 197. Plato, Minos, p. 315. 2 Plato, Minos, c. 5. Kal ol rov 'Ai?a//avTOf cnyovoi, oiaf &vaia dvovGLv, 'E/lAj/vef (>v rec As a testimony to the fact still existing or believed to exist, this dialogue is quite sufficient, though not the work of Plato. M6v//of <5' iaropel, kv ry rtiv &avp,aaiuv cvvayuyy, ev H&Tiy rfc Qerra- Maf 'A%ai?v uv&puTrov TiriTiel not Xeipuvi KaTadveo'&ai.. (Clemens Alexand. Admon. ad Gent. p. 27, Sylb.) Respecting the sacrifices at the temple of Zeus Lykasus in Arcadia, see Plato, Republ. viii. p. 565. Pausanias (viii. p. 38, 5) seems to have shrunk, when he was upon the spot, even from inquir- ing what they were a striking proof of the fearful idea which he had con- ceived of them. Plutarch (De Defectu Oracul. c. 14) speaks of rue xu/.ai iroiovfievac av&puno^vaiaf. The Schol. ad Lycophron. 229, gives a story of children being sacrificed to Melikertc's at Tenedos ; and Apollodorus (ad Porphyr. de Abstinent^, ii. 55, see Apollod. Fragm. 20, ed. Didot) said that the Lacedaemonians had sacrificed a man to Ares KG? Aa/cedat^ovi'o^f Qrjalv 6 'A7ro/W,6(5<jf>or r<p "Apei -&veiv uv&puKov. About Salamis in Cyprus, dee Lactantius, De Falsft Religione, i. c. 21. "Apud Cypri Salaminem, hamanam hostiam Jovi Teucrus immolavit, idque sacrificium posteris tradi- dit : quod est nuper Hadriano imperante sublatum." Respecting human sacrifices in historical Greece, consult a good section in K. F. Hermann's Gottesdienstliche AlterthUmer der Griechen (sect. 27) Such sacrifices had been a portion of primitive Grecian religion, but had gradually become obsolete everywhere except in one or two solitary cases which were spoken of with horror. Even in these cases, too, the reality of the fact, in later times, is not beyond suspicion.
