“Xenophon sacrificed on account of an expedition :”1 divination and the sphagia before ancient Greek battles
p. 235-251
Texte intégral
1Warfare is a process, perhaps the main means, by which human beings have historically sought to settle their political, historical and cultural differences. In archaic and classical Greece, battle and animal sacrifice were intrinsically bound together. There was no violent conflict between cities without the violence of animal sacrifice. Each armed conflict, involving the slaughter of hoplites and the shedding of human blood, was p receded by a slaughter of animals and the spilling of their blood. It could be argued that animal sacrifice preceded a wide range of human endeavours in ancient Greece, and that warfare was not particularly different in this respect from the other activities for which the ancient Greeks employed sacrifice. However, leaving aside routine sacrificial contexts such as festivals, warfare did in fact provide one of the main if not the premiere occasion for the employment of animal sacrifice in a structured and consistent ritualised manner in Greek religion.
2The general importance of divination, mantike, in life in general is stressed by Xenophon in the Memorabilia.2 Further, in the Oikonomikos he notes that, “men involved in warfare attempt to win over the gods before undertaking military activity, and with sacrifices and omens seek to know what is necessary for them to do and what they should not do.”3 Similar ideas are expressed in his Cavalry Commander.4 While it could be said that Xenophon’s particular attention to divination might lead him to e xaggerate the importance of manteia in warfare, other evidence supports the crucial connection between the two ; Onasander much later agrees with Xenophon.5 Euripides, in a fragment of the Erechtheus where the context is clearly a sacrificial one, gives the general principle : “Prudent commanders who stir up war need to act with the gods on their side, and not against their will.”6 Against this of course must be set Plato Laches : the strategos is to command the mantis and not the other way around.7
3The nexus between divinatory sacrifice and war in general is therefore clear. A massive undertaking, risking the very existence of the city-state, war required the countenance and goodwill of the gods. Oracular centres were consulted ; oracles gained currency.8 Once military action was declared, sacrificial procedures would begin. In the Athenian case, this decision was made in meetings of the boule and ekklesia which always commenced with purificatory ceremonies and sacrifices.9 When the Athenians voted in 370 BC to go to the aid of the Spartans they chose Iphikrates as strategos, and when his sacrifices in Athens had proved favourable (“ta hiera egeneto”), he set out on campaign.10 Before war, prebattle vows of sacrifices were common. At Marathon in 490 BC the Athenians vowed a sacrifice of one goat to Artemis Agrotera for every Persian slain. They could not find enough goats–Herodotos notes that there were 6 400 Persians slain–so they vowed to sacrifice 500 goats every year to the goddess.11 Xenophon reports that they were still making the sacrifice in his time.12 The crucial significance of Artemis Agrotera is apparent : it was to this goddess that the Athenians primarily entrusted their state when they alone amongst the Greeks (except for a force of Plataeans) met the Persians.
4At Athens it was the duty of the polemarchos–the war archon–each year at Athens to offer sacrifices to Artemis Agrotera and to Enyalios, and to arrange the funeral games in honour of those who had fallen in war.13 The ephebes–the young hoplites in training–at the beginning of their military training made a sacrifice to Artemis Agrotera.14 When the ephebes went to war they swore an oath to regard the lands where agriculture was practised as the natural dominion of Athens, swearing to Aglauros in her sanctuary because she gave her life so that Athens could win the war against Eumolpos.15 The sixteenth of Mounychion was dedicated to Artemis by the Athenians as on that day she shone with full moon upon the Greeks as they were conquering at Salamis,16 the Athenians giving Artemis credit for the victory. Not surprisingly, the ephebes had a prominent role in the sacrifices to Artemis made on this day.
5When the Athenian armada set out from Athens for Sicily in 415 BC, Thucydides makes a specific point of mentioning the saying of prayers which were “customary prior to setting out to sea”, and the libations and hymn for the expedition.17 In addition, an inscription sets aside money for kallieresin, for sacrifices with the view to good omens in connection with the expedition.18 Alexander preparing to sail for Asia sacrificed a bull to Poseidon and the Nereids in the midst of the Hellespont strait, pouring into the sea a drink offering from a golden bowl.19 Sparta went one stage further than others, with the diabateria, sacrifices made when the army was about to cross the border of Sparta into foreign territory : these seem to be sacrifices unique to the Spartans.20
6The king, as the war-leader, before setting out with the army sacrificed to Zeus Agetor (Leader) and “to the gods who are associated with him.”21 A specific incident of this is Agesilaos in 387 BC who proceeded at once to perform his sacrifices as soon as he had permission for war against the Thebans, and then performed the usual diabateria –which were favourable–at the border.22 If the king’s sacrifice in Sparta before setting out on a military expedition was propitious, the Pyrphoros (Fire bearer) took fire from the altar and led the army to the border. Here the king once again offered sacrifice, to Zeus and Athena. If the sacrifice proved favourable, he crossed into non-Spartan soil. Significantly, the fire from the diabateria sacrifices was carried in front of the army. This fire was not just a symbol of the good omens of the diabateria but marked the continuity of these omens derived from the sacrifices made at the altar from which the flame was taken. Xenophon specifically notes that the fire was never quenched. “Animals for sacrifice of every variety” followed the fire. The need to take flocks of sacrificial animals becomes apparent when one sees just how many sacrifices the Spartan army had to make on its way to war.23
7The Spartan army prayed to the gods to whom they have sacrificed with good omens.24 Other Greek armies too are to be imagined as making regular sacrifices and engaging in hieroskopia as they marched. In Xenophon’s Anabasis, for example, the various sacrifices made with a view to omens and war tend to co-incide with particular individual events : crossing rivers, whether the 10 000 should settle down and found a colony, for expeditions, for a journey, or departing, choosing a leader, and the like, for all of which there are various examples.25 Herodotos, Thucydides and Xenophon give examples when the verdict of the entrails of the diabateria sacrifices caused the Spartans serious military handicap, which however they accepted. This often caused physical harm and even death for the allies they left in the lurch, as in the case of the pro-Spartans at Argos in 416 after the Spartans aborted a campaign against this state.26
8When the armies knew that a battle would occur but well before they made contact with the enemy, there are numerous references in the sources to both sides making a sacrifice, examining the entrails, and deciding whether to commit to the attack. One example out of many comes from 394 BC when the Thebans fighting alongside the Athenians pronounced the sacrifices favourable, “ta hiera kala,” and prepared for battle.27 Xenophon, in a passage which forms the title of this paper, indicates how seriously the pre-battle sacrifices were taken, and how in fact they could decisively affect the military situation. Incidentally, Xenophon makes his first appearance in the Anabasis in a divinatory context, and significantly appears in a context which is well-omened. Cyrus tells Xenophon before the battle against the forces of Artaxerxes with which the Anabasis commences that, “ta hiera kala kai ta sphagia kala” :28 the sacrifices and the sphagia are kala, propitious.29 Much later, the Ten Thousand found themselves without provisions at Kalpe harbour on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Xenophon sacrificed “ ‘ep’ exodoi (with a view to an expedition)”, and the omens of the entrails were unfavourable. The men suspected him of wanting to found a colony, so he invited them to attend the sacrifices on the next day. He sacrificed three times in a row on that day but the omens were still not favourable for an expedition. The soldiers became very angry because they had no food, and held a meeting on the same day and again Xenophon sacrificed three times, making it six times in one day, which is not usually noted.
9He refused to lead the men out without favourable omens from the sacrifices. On the next day, Xenophon wanted to sacrifice but there were no sacrificial victims left, so he (extraordinarily) sacrificed a bullock that was yoked to a wagon. Xenophon specifically asked Kleonor to pay special attention to see if there was anything propitious about the sacrifice, but there were no favourable omens. So far one might suspect Xenophon of divinatory obstinacy. Perhaps the men themselves might not have taken the omens so seriously. Yet one is reminded of the hoplites and thetes with Nikias at the time of the lunar eclipse at Syracuse.30 The religious beliefs and the discipline of the men under Xenophon were strong enough to compel obedience and acceptance of the omens.
10But Neon decided to seek provisions, setting out with a force of 2 000 men. These were attacked by the cavalry of Pharnabazos and 500 Greeks were killed. The rest fled to the hills ; one escaped back to the camp. Xenophon, needing to go the rescue, took another wagon bullock, slaughtered it as the sphagia, and set out.31 He rescued the survivors and returned to camp. Now in totally dire straits, the next day the 10 000 went to a strong point : and a ship arrived from Herakleia with food, wine and the all important sacrificial victims. Xenophon arose early the next day and sacrificed, and the omens were good. The army set out. The enemy was sighted ; the mantis Arexion offered sacrifice ; the sphagia were kala. The Greeks proceeded to battle, and were successful. One wonders how Xenophon would have written up this account if Neon had in fact been successful in bringing back food and wine, but this is a question which is impossible to answer. Here then there is the full gamut of the divinatory experience via sacrificial victims : there was a succession of bad omens, with Xenophon’s unwillingness to move vindicated. The verdict of the gods through the divinatory medium of the entrails was in Xenophon’s judgement justified : provisions were on the way : the hoplites just had to be patient. Even Xenophon was nothing if not persistent, with six sacrifices in one day, and only stopping because he had run out of victims.
11Sphagia are attested in tragedy, mocked in comedy, and presented at specific battles by the historians.32 They are a feature of the post-Homeric archaic and classical periods. In the Homeric world there are no prebattle sacrifices and no sphagia are mentioned.33 While its best known use is for immediately before battle, sphagia were also employed for oaths, and propitiatory purposes. Used at points of crossing, they marked the transition into liminal places : from known territory into the unknown, at the crossings of rivers and of seas.34
12In art there are only a few representations of sphagia sacrifice. In the three known cases of sphagia in process (fig. 1-3), the sacrificer grasps the neck of a ram, while sitting astride it ; in two cases (fig. 2, 3) he has stabbed it, in the other he is about to (fig. 1).35 All are clearly hoplites, as is indicated by their dress. What is interesting of course, as Detienne and Vernant have shown, is that for nearly all representations of ordinary thusia sacrifice the moment of death is not emphasised, for various reasons.36 But in these representations of the sphagia it is in fact precisely the moment immediately prior to sacrifice and the sacrifice itself that are shown. This is clearly a crucial aspect (and, as will be argued below, the crucial aspect) of the process and hence is emphasised.
Figure 1 : Chalkis Arch. Museum 7.
F.T. van Straten, Hiera Kala.
Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece, Leiden, 1995, fig. 109, R225.

13Sphagia were victims killed with a thrust through the neck, slaughtered by piercing the neck with a sword (fig. 2, 3, and clearly the intent in 1), with the intent to slit it (fig. 4). There was no divination from the entrails. The niceties of sacrifice did not accompany sphagia on the battlefield : there was no time to dress the victim in the usual way with wreaths or ribbons and there are certainly no kanephoroi or winged Nike figures twirling tainiai. There was no altar, the beast was not skinned, it was neither divided into its constituent parts nor shared amongst the on lookers. No pieces were offered to the gods or consumed by humans. The offering was slaughtered but not burnt. It was not a sacrificial meal and therefore the usual constituent components of a sacrifice are missing : altar, fire, and attendants are absent. In descriptions of the sphagia in battle, the emphasis is only on the mantis who performs the operation.37 Iconography indicates this : Figures 1-3 show a sole participant : the mantis as hoplite.38 The evidence indicates that the manteis brought forward the sphagia and slaughtered it, even sometimes as the armies are actually falling to blows : Figures 3-4 convey the immediate diachronic juxtaposition of sphagia and battle. This sphagia were the total antithesis of the alimentary thusia. The willingness of the victim is not important, and there is no perceived sense of any guilt over the slaughter of the beast.
Figure 2 : Sphagia. Manner of Eucharides Painter ; rf kylix ; 500-475 BC.
Cleveland 26.242 (ARV2 1570.12).

Figure 3 : Geneva Painter ; rf calyx krater ; 430 BC ; Getty Museum, Malibu 86.AE.213
(S. Peirce, “Death, revelry and thusia”, ClAnt, 12, 1993, fig. 17).

14Burkert and Henrichs conjure up an image of a battle-field littered with the carcasses of sphagia.39 But clearly each army sacrificed, ordinarily, but one animal as an immediate pre-battle sphagia and then entered the fray. Lucian refers to a sacrifice in which a beast has its throat cut, and is then buried ; there are other similar examples.40 This might well have been the case with battle-ground sphagia. However, given the split moment timing, with armies moving very quickly, in some cases instantaneously from the sphagia to fighting, as at Plataea, it may have in fact been left where it fell as an offering (as in fig. 4).
15In Euripides Electra, the old man sees on the altar the sphagia victim employed to propitiate the spirit of Agamemnon, and describes it as a black lamb, that is, it still had its fleece intact. It simply straddled the grave, left where it had fallen.41 The Triptolemos Painter stamnos is relevant here (fig. 4) : the throat of the ram has been cut, and two warriors, labelled Patroklos and Hektor, prepare to battle. The ram is between them : the sphagia lies where it was slaughtered.
Figure 4 : Sphagia. Triptolemos Painter ; rf stamnos ; 470 BC.
Basel Antikenmuseum BS 477 (ARV2 361.7 ; BICS, 32, 1985, pl. 4).

16At what precise moment did the sphagia occur ? The best testimony is Xenophon for the Spartans. When the enemy was close enough to be seen a goat was slaughtered.42 In the Hellenika he notes an instance when the Spartans with the enemy a stade away–200 metres–sacrificed a goat to Artemis Agrotera ; Xenophon says, “as was their custom.”43 Plutarch echoes these details. The king sacrificed the she-goat when the enemy was at hand. But on one occasion in the Anabasis, the mantis Arexion off ered the sphagia fifteen stades–three kilometres–away from the enemy, which is an important detail not commented upon by scholars. But the enemy was cavalry, which could have affected the decision to carry out the sphagia at that distance.44
17At Plataea the sphagia were performed even as the Persians attacked, then wounded and killed the Greeks.45 The hoplites with Agesilaos in 389 BC, attacked by the Acarnanians, were being wounded by the enemy even as the sphagia were performed.46 If battle erupted unexpectedly it might be the case that the sphagia were off ered simultaneously with the onslaught of battle, as Thucydides indicates in the case of the Athenians and the Syracusans. The light armed troops of each side began skirmishing ; the manteis brought forward the sphagia, and the hoplites themselves began the actual battle.47 At Plataea, the sphagia occurs simultaneously with the Tegeans moving to engage the Persians, and a split moment before the Spartans do so.48 In fact it seems that generally the Spartans offered up the sphagia when the enemy was sighted, while the other Greeks tended to do this when they are about to come to blows, actually on the battlefield.
18The kala sphagia at Plataea enable the Greeks to engage the Persians : when they were not kala the Greeks could not fight. Sphagia are several times in the sources described as kala, using the same adjective as for well-omened divinatory ta hiera. For example, at Marathon in 490 B.C., the sphagia were kala for the Greeks ; they advanced at a run against the Persians and defeated them.49 At Plataea, on the actual day of the battle, the sphagia were not propitious at first, but were when repeated. Plataea indicates that the sphagia were not just a mere formality. This is important when considering their ultimate purpose.50 It is also clear from Herodotos’ account of Plataea that the sphagia could be repeated, and Xenophon corroborates this detail, for he says that as the Ten Thousand on one occasion moved to battle, that with the first victim the sphagia were kala.51 A capacity for repetition, and a failure to move forward to battle because of the nature of the sphagia, suggests that it is a divinatory sacrifice offered with a specific purpose in mind.52
19Nothing is said in the battle descriptions of sphagia about how they were interpreted ; they could be kala, but how did the slaughtered beast articulate this ? It had to be something that could be quickly interpreted, and it had nothing to do with hieroskopia, or the tongues of flame of the altar fire, or the burning of the tail in the fire, for which Euripides Phoinissai,53 Aeschylus Prometheus Bound,54 Sophokles Antigone,55 and other passages, as well as iconography,56 provide ample evidence.
20Euripides in the Phoinissai describes the mantis Amphiaraos as bringing forward the victims for the sphagia, to provide streams for the “bloodloving”57 earth. In Euripides Hekuba the propitiatory sphagia sacrifice of Polyxena is described in advance of her death as involving, “a dark river of blood flowing from her gold-adorned throat.” At the sacrifice itself, the dead Achilles is invited to drink her blood–melan, dark, and akraiphnes, which here seems to have a meaning of “undiluted,” “full-bodied.” As she is stabbed it is reported that her blood “gushed out,” as in figure 5.58
21In Polyxena’s sphagia (as shown in fig. 5) the blood flowed quickly. The sword is hardly in and the blood is pouring forth in a steady stream, and there are copious quantities of it. This is surely a kala sphagia. Usually overlooked, Euripides Herakleidai is also relevant. When the manteis, r ealising that peace was not to come about via single combat, “proceeded with the sacrifice (esphazon) with no delay, and immediately let loose the auspicious (ourion) streams of blood from the sheeps’ necks. Others mounted their chariots, while the foot soldiers stood side by side under the protection of their shields.”59 It was the manner of the spurting of the blood from the victim which formed the basis of manteia. In a normal thusia, blood was usually caught from a victim with a vessel, the sphageion, which could then be used as a libation. Vases depicting altars routinely show them stained with streams of blood. This was obviously an important detail ; it should be construed as part of the sacrificial ritual : a blood-stained altar was in itself propitious. What was akala ? Probably a dribbling of blood, a misdirected stream of blood caused by a struggling victim, a botched execution is another possibility ; the beast is held firmly between the legs by the hoplite mantis to ensure that the victim did not struggle (fig. 1-2). However, the blood of the sphagia was not meant as an offering to the earth or any heroes or daimones of the earth ; rather the earth absorbed the blood, as in the Phoinissai. When Menoikeus goes to his willing death as a sphagia to ensure Thebes’ victory against an invading army, it is said that, “this boy must in the chamber where the earthborn snake, the guardian of Dirce’s waters, was born, give the earth a bloody libation.”60 But he is an offering to Ares, not Ge the earth.
22The best known incident involving sphagia relates to Plataea. It is in fact the only occasion when two armies faced each other and actually put off battle, for over ten days, because of religious reasons. Both sides employed Greek manteis. In most cases, the omens from the sacrifice and the sphagia were in fact pronounced favourable when the enemies had actually met.61 While the Spartans might call off a campaign because the diabateria sacrifices were ill-omened this was not when they actually had the enemy “in their sights.” At Plataea, for ten days, the Greek mantis of each side interpreted the omens from the sacrifices as good-omened for defence but not for attack. This would have been hieroskopia rather than sphagia, as Herodotos’ terminology here indicates–“egineto ta hira.” Mardonios tired of this and on the eleventh day decided to attack, and as he is made to say in Herodotos, he was not prepared to force the omens by continuing to offer sacrifices in the hope that the omens would come good. His own sphagia were to no effect and he decided to disregard them ; when Mardonios attacked, the Greeks employed the sphagia, initially to no effect.62 Spartans and Tegeans were being killed and wounded but did not advance to battle against the verdict of the sphagia. Pausanias prayed to Hera who had a nearby temple. The Tegeans, even as he spoke, sprung to battle. In the same moment, the sphagia were pronounced favourable, and the Spartans went into battle. The Spartans showed perhaps not more nerve than the Tegeans but a greater propensity to trust to the omens. The prayer to Hera at Plataea shows that the sphagia, offered to Artemis, did not preclude of course supplications to other deities as part of the process.63
Figure 5 : Tyrrhenian Group ; bf amphora ; 575-50 BC ; BM 97.7-27.2 (ABV 97.27 ; F.T. van Straten, op. cit., fig. 118, V422).

23There is no need to rationalise this story. The ability of soldiers to stand still while all around them their comrades are being killed or wounded is a phenomenon for which the last several centuries provide ample evidence. Moreover, while Plataea is the famous example, Agesilaos was performing the sphagia (“esphagiazeto”) while his men were being attacked. This is so akin to the situation at Plataea that scholars should not be so unwilling to see Plataea as unusual or in need of some rationalising explanation. But Agesilaos completed the sphagia promptly and when he gave the word the hoplites attacked.64 Eteokles specifically refers to the sphagia when engaging the enemy.65
24The sphagia had to be kala for battle for an army to commence fighting. This then is one of their purposes : to provide divine validation in order for the slaughter to commence. Is there any other purpose ? Henrichs posits a psychological effect for the sphagia which he argues took place in the liminal period between the armies lined up ready for battle and the actual onset of slaughter. The sphagia he states, “anticipated the bloodshed of the battle and marked its ritual beginning,” and helped the soldiers “cope with extraordinary strain.”66 There is, however, no evidence for the p sychological thesis. Rather, if the texts concerning ta hiera kala and sphagia are read carefully, the type of psychological advantage of sphagia is clearly not resident within the sphagia itself as a single sacrificial component of the distinct stages leading from peace to warfare and bloodshed, which is what is being claimed. Rather, when considering Greek warfare and psychological attempts of commanders and perhaps manteis to inspire their soldiers, divination is important, if not crucial.
25Cyrus says to Xenophon at the beginning of the battle against Artaxerxes’ forces : “ta hiera kala kai ta sphagia kala,” and there was also the good omen of the watchword, “Zeus Saviour and Nike.”67 In a subsequent battle, Xenophon exhorts the 10 000, “Men, our sacrificial victims were favourable, the bird omens auspicious, the sphagia most kala, let us go against the enemy.”68 Oionoskopia,69 hieroskopia and sphagia all combine here to encourage the warriors. Thucydides relates that Pagondas, one of the Boiotarchs, encouraged the Boiotians to attack the Athenians by pointing to the favourable sacrifices.70 Themistokles’ sphagia of three Persians before Salamis, while ahistorical, had as its context two good omens : one from the sacrificial fire and one from a sneeze.71
26The psychological effect for the hoplites was one of propitious omens as a unified divinatory experience. To calm the hoplites there was the battle paian, the music of the flautists, the words of their commander, the hiera kala ; as a last encouragement they had the kala sphagia, one last sacrifice. When the sphagia for engaging the enemy were pronounced kala at one stage in the Anabasis, the hoplites raised the paian and the women camp followers joined in.72 The Spartans also had the ritualistic procedures of arranging their hair and polishing weapons. They learned marching songs, the embateria, and also sang the songs of Tyrtaeus which encouraged them to bravery.73 But the lines about exhorting the hoplites to stand firm and to “bite their lips” admit that battle is an encounter with the forces of fear and of terror.74
27Jameson came to the conclusion that the sphagia, as an act of killing, were preparatory to the killing which was about to take place in the battle itself : the sphagia was the killing of the victim, by a mantis hoplite ; the hoplites, too, were about to kill. The sphagia according to Jameson were but the initial act of violent killing, the opening act of the battle. The sphagia were an expression that the hoplites, having killed the sacrifice, would go on to kill the enemy soldiers. His encapsulation of this is that, the sacrificers said, quote, “ ‘O gods ! We destroy this life. We wish to kill and not be killed. Support us’ … ‘We kill. May we kill’.”75
28But as Jameson himself notes the only named addressee of a sphagia is Artemis Agrotera, amongst the Spartans.76 Otherwise, the sphagia become sacrifices without deity, and this lack of addressee for the sphagia is what prompted Jameson to argue that it was the act itself that mattered, rather than any deity to which they may or may not have been addressed. But Xenophon specifically states that Artemis Agrotera was invoked by the Spartans in the sphagia as a general rule : it is not an isolated, specific occurrence of this deity’s presence.77
29Moreover, as noted above, at Athens Artemis was sacrificed to annually by the polemarchos, the Athenians made the vow specifically to her before Marathon, and the ephebes sacrificed to her at the beginning of their military training. She is specifically credited with victory not just at Salamis but also in some other historical incidents outside of Athens. One interestingly involved the enemy using up all their arrows to no effect,78 and another the use of goats–Artemis’ animal par excellence–in a ruse.79 It was a bad omen for the Spartans in 371 BC before the Battle of Leuktra when wolves devoured the she-goats which were used by the Spartans to lead the sheep in their sacrificial flocks.80 These goats would have served as the sphagia before Leuktra. As Vernant points out, the goat is particularly suited to Artemis, as the goat occupies the margins of animal d omesticity :81 it is a creature of the hills, transhumant, semi-tamed, existing not on the good farmland but in the liminal areas ; it can be aggressive, using its horns, and is “wild.” It suits Artemis’ own pre-occupation with hills and mountains. She is after all Artemis Agrotera, which can be taken two ways : as connected with the hunt but also with the countryside, the “wild place” as opposed to the polis. However, Vernant fails to note the rams on the actual ic onographical representations of sphagia (fig. 1-4) and one must consider why in these artistic representations rams replace goats. A suggestion could be that rams are potent symbols of power ; their interlocked horns are metonymous with aggression, violence and dominance.
30Artemis has been recognised as a deity of war. In fact, she is the warrior goddess supreme, leaving Enyalios–Ares, Athena, and Zeus far behind. In Euripides Phoinissai, Artemis is revealed as a killer. When Antigone is viewing the forces of the invading army against Thebes and sees Parthenopaios, she prays that, “May Artemis who hunts in the mountains slaughter him, together with his mother, overcoming them by shooting her arrows, for he has come to sack my city !” A little later Antigone prays to Artemis not to allow her to become a servant woman for the women of Mycenae.82 It surely is not co-incidental that both Agesilaos and Alexander the Great sacrificed to Artemis at Ephesos and reviewed their troops there.83 The struggles between the Spartans and Messenians at the border sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis are suggestive of her role in border conflict and the struggle for dominance of liminal frontier territory.84
31In what sense though is Artemis’ killing capacity reflected in warfare ? When a sphagia victim had its throat cut, the blood spurted. Of course this is what happened in Greek warfare : contests of spears and swords resulted in gushing wounds. Euripides, in writing of the death of Polyneikes by a sword stroke, refers to “gushing blood.”85 He describes the death of the soldiers on both sides : “Blood streamed ten thousand-fold from the corpses felled by spears.”86 Note too figure 6, the Exekias vase showing Penthesileia as Achilles’ spear pierces her throat : the blood spurts forth from her neck.87
32Artemis in her hunt makes the beasts of the mountains spill their blood on the earth.88 From a structuralist gender analysis, it is Artemis who makes the blood of women flow in menstruation and child-birth–as well as death in child birth.89 Similarly, the purpose of the sphagia before battle is to ensure that the blood of the enemy will, like the sphagia, be spilt, and that the ultimate killer, the slayer of beasts, Artemis, will also slay the enemy. If the enemy hoplite did not die immediately of the wound itself, he would die from the consequent loss of blood. The flowing blood of the sphagia was for a specific deity. It was not for the earth or Pan or Phobos or local chthonic deities ; the sphagia was not propitiatory.90 The mantis made the blood of the beast flow for Artemis–the mantis himself as a hoplite–and prefigured the blood which would flow from the spears and swords of the hoplites in the battle.
Figure 6 : Exekias ; bf amphora ; 530 BC ; BM B210
(ABV 144.7 ; LIMC I Achilleus 723 ; VII Penthesileia 17).

33Artemis was routinely depicted in literature and iconography as a slayer, a slaughterer, a killer. And she killed in the mountains, in the liminal territory outside the urban and rural sinews of the polis. And she was a killer in that ultimate of liminal areas, the battlefield, where the civilised order of the polis, finding its last expression in the ordered phalanx, dissolved in a melee of spear and sword, leading to sweat, blood, screams, disembowelment, various other hideous wounds–and death. Battles often occur in border areas, liminal areas. But also liminal perhaps as the place where the potential for a transition between life and death is most severely in the balance.
34One last point to pursue is the relationship between sphagia, human sacrifice and war. In Greek myth, the crisis compelling human sacrifice is war. The enemy is literally at the city-gates but victory cannot be assured unless someone gives their life for the city. Euripides explores this theme in no less than five plays all written during the Peloponnesian War : generally, the sacrifice is willing, is usually female but can be male, but is always a virgin, whether male or female. They are killed in sphagia style, with a cut through the neck. Sometimes the human sphagia is made to Artemis, but not always.91 Burkert’s ideas about the sexualisation, virgin sacrifice and war are in need of a detailed critique ;92 preference is given here to addressing very briefly Vernant’s ideas as these relate to sphagia. Because virgin sacrifices are so common in myth and are of a sphagia type, Vernant connects them with battle sphagia, arguing that each time a sphagia is sacrificed on the field of battle, it is in fact the virgin in profile, recalling the virgin sacrifice.93 Despite Agesilaos’ dream of sacrificing his own daughter and Pelopidas’ dream before Leuktra about sacrificing a virgin,94 classical Greek hoplites, manteis or commanders would not have made this connection. The virgin to be sacrificed is akin to a goat in that the virgin is liminal in some sense : a young person before the approach of sexuality and often of royal status. But behind each goat sacrificed before battle there does not lurk a virgin. Wilkins idea that the virgin sacrifice is mirrored in the hoplites who will sacrifice themselves is also incorrect : the hoplites do not sacrifice themselves for the state ; in fact they fight in such a way as to avoid being “sacrificed” on the spears of their enemy.95
35Artemis Agrotera was always the object of the sphagia. Artemis’ role as a hunter in liminal places, in the margins of the polis, and hence on the battle-field antithesis of the polis, as well as her role as a blood-letter, explain her place on the battle-field. It is this goddess, Artemis Agrotera, who is the paramount deity of battle, worshipped alike by Athenians, Spartans, and other Greeks. Other deities may be invoked, such as Hera at Plataea, but Artemis is clearly the deity underpinning warfare, and it is to this goddess that the sphagia are offered. The sphagia are indeed the very last of a series of sacrifices. For the Spartans, the series began with sacrifices at home, sacrifices as they crossed the border, perhaps sacrifices at Delphi and Olympia, then dawn sacrifices and perhaps evening ones. Then the sphagia on the battle field. There is quite a sequence of divinatory rites here : the will of the gods is both explored, prompted, anticipated–and perhaps in this sense–forestalled.
Notes de bas de page
1 Xenophon, Anabasis, 6.5.2.
2 Xenophon, Memorabilia, 1.1.9 (‘What is not clear to mortals they should attempt to learn from the gods through mantike’), cf. 1.4-8 ; cf. W. Burkert, “Signs, commands, and knowledge : ancient divination between enigma and epiphany”, S.I. Johnston and P. Struck (ed.), Mantike. Studies in Ancient Divination, Leiden, 2005, p. 42.
3 Xenophon, Oikonomika, 5.19.
4 Xenophon, Hipparchos, 1.1 ; 1.2 ; 6.6 ; 7.1.
5 Onasander, 10, 25-27.
6 Euripides, Erechtheus, F352.
7 Platon, Laches, 198e-199a, cf. 195e ; cf. Aeneas the Tactician 10.4, but note Nikias : Thucydides, 7.50.4.
8 E.g. : CEG 5 (C.M. Bowra, “The Epigram on the Fallen at Coroneia”, CQ, 32, 1938, p. 80-86 ; W. Burkert, op. cit., p. 42-43) ; Herodotos, 1.140.1-143.2 ; Thucydides, 2.8.2.
9 P.J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule, Oxford, 1972, p. 131-132.
10 Xenophon, Hellenika, 6.5.49 ; Aeschines, 3.131, 152.
11 Herodotos, 6.117.
12 Xenophon, Anabasis, 3.2.12 ; Aelian, Varia Historia, 2.25 ; cf. Aristophanes, Knights 660-3 ; Plutarch, Moralia, 862b-e.
13 [Aristote] Athenaion Politeia, 58.1 ; P.J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Athenaion Politeia, Oxford, revised edition, 1993, p. 650 ; S. Eitrem, “Mantis and Sphagia”, SO, 18, 1938, p. 19.
14 IG II2 1006.6-9, 1008.7, 1011.7, 1028.8, 1029.6, 1030.5 ; Hesperia, 34, 1965, p. 256 ; 36, 1967, p. 66 ; C. Pélékidis, Histoire de l’Éphébie attique des origines à 31 avant Jésus-Christ, Paris, 1962 passim, esp. 104-105, 183-185 ; W. Burkert, Homo Necans. The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, translated by P. Bing, Berkeley, 1983, p. 65 ; J. Mikalson, Religion in Hellenistic Athens, Berkeley, 1998, p. 243-246, cf. p. 59, 248, 253. Note Artemis at Euripides, Hippol. 228-229.
15 Ephebic oath : M.N. Tod, Greek Historical Inscriptions, Oxford, second edition, 1946, no. 204.17 (SEG 16.140) ; Philochoros FGrH 328 F105 ; Plutarch, Alkibiades, 15.7 ; Demosthenes, 19.303 ; Aeschines, 2.167 ; Lykourgos, Against Leokrates, 76-79 ; Pollux, 8.105-6 ; Stob., 43.48 ; R. Merkelbach, “Aglauros (Die Religion der Epheben)”, ZPE, 9, 1972, p. 280 ; C. Pélékidis, op. cit., p. 75-78, 111-114 ; P.J. Rhodes, op. cit. (1993), p. 494 and 506 ; J. Larson, Greek Heroine Cults, Wisconsin, 1995, p. 40 and 102 ; D. Lyons, Gender and Immortality. Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult, Princeton, 1997, p. 49-50 ; cf. G.S. Dontas, “ The True Aglaurion”, Hesperia, 52, 1983, p. 55.
16 Plutarch, Moralia, 349f ; Philochoros, FGrH 328 F86 ; J.-P. Vernant, “Artémis et le sacrifice préliminaire au combat”, REG, 101, 1988, p. 227.
17 Thucydides, 6.32.
18 IG I3 93.23 ; R. Parker, “Sacrifice and battle”, H. van Wees (ed.), War and Violence in Ancient Greece, London, 2000, p. 300.
19 Arrian, Anabasis, 1.2.6.
20 Xenophon, Lakedaimonion Politeia, 12-13.
21 Xenophon, Lakedaimonion Politeia, 13.2.
22 Xenophon, Hellenika, 5.1.33.
23 Xenophon writing in approval of all these Spartan religious formalities concludes that alone of all the Greeks the Spartans are the “masters in war”, Lakedaimonion Politeia, 13.5.
24 Xenophon, Lakedaimonion Politeia, 12.7.
25 Xenophon, Anabasis, 2.2.3, 3.5.18, 4.3.9, 4.3.17, 4.6.23, 5.4.22, 5.5.2, 6.1.31, 6.4.12, 7.2.17, 7.8.20.
26 Thucydides, 5.116 ; cf. e.g. Herodotos, 6.76.2 ; Xenophon, Hellenika, 3.4.15.
27 Xenophon, op. cit., 4.2.18.
28 Xenophon, op. cit., 1.7.18.
29 The word for sacrifices in general including those offered for omens prior to commencement of battle is always and consistently thuomai and related terms ; the verb sphagiazomai is only used of sacrifices offered without hieroskopia immediately prior to battle : W.K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, Part I, Berkeley, 1971, p. 109-113 ; see also N. Richer, “La recherche des appuis surnaturels topiques par les Spartiates en guerre”, J. Renard (ed.), Le Péloponnèse. Archéologie et Histoire, Rennes, 1999, p. 135 and 142.
30 Thucydides, 7.50.4.
31 Xenophon, Anabasis, 6.4.12-6.5.8 (note the contrast in the vocabulary between the previous sacrifices, thuomai, and the word for this specific sacrifice, sphagiasamenos).
32 See the references in W.K. Pritchett, op. cit., 114. R. Parker, op. cit., p. 301-302 is correct in arguing that sphagia drop out of view in the Hellenistic era, perhaps because they were no longer made.
33 R. Parker, op. cit., p. 300.
34 J.E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, third edition, Cambridge, 1922, p. 64-67.
35 Figure 1 : Chalkis Arch. Museum 7 (F.T. van Straten, Hiera Kala. Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece, Leiden, 1995, fig. 109, R225). Figure 2 : manner of Eucharides Painter ; rf kylix ; 500-475 BC ; Cleveland 26.242 (ARV2 1570.12 ; M.H. Jameson, “Sacrifice before battle”, V.D. Hanson (ed.), Hoplites : the Classical Greek Battle Experience, London, 1991, p. 218, fig. 1 ; F.T. van Straten, op. cit., fig. 112, V144). Figure 3 : Geneva Painter ; rf calyx krater ; 430 BC ; Getty Museum, Malibu 86.AE.213 (S. Peirce, “Death, revelry and thusia”, ClAnt, 12, 1993, fig. 17).
36 J.-L. Durand, “Greek animals : toward a topology of edible bodies”, M. Detienne and J.P. Vernant (ed.), trans. P. Wissing, The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks, Chicago, 1989, p. 90-92.
37 E.g. : Herodotos, 9.35-8 (Teisamenos at Plataea) ; Euripides, Phoinissai, 172-4 ; Euripides, Herakles, 340 ; Thucydides, 6.69.2 ; Xenophon, Anabasis, 6.5.8, 7.8.10, 22 ; cf. Xenophon, op. cit., 5.6.29 (Xenophon’s mantic expertise) ; note SEG 16.193.
38 Figure 4 : Triptolemos Painter ; rf stamnos ; 470 BC ; Basel Antikenmuseum BS 477 (ARV2 361.7 ; BICS, 32, 1985, pl. 4). The figures are named on the vase as Phoinix and Priam (respectively restraining) Patroklos and Hektor (ARV2 361.7). The argument of A. Griffiths, “A Ram called Patroklos”, BICS, 32, 1985, p. 49-50 (cf. A. Griffiths, “Patroklos the Ram (Again)”, BICS, 36, 1989, p. 139), that it is the ram that is called Patroklos is not sound.
39 W. Burkert, Homo Necans, p. 66 ; A. Henrichs, op. cit., p. 215-216 ; cf. M.H. Jameson, op. cit., p. 227, n 53.
40 Peri Thusion 15 ; see J. Harrison, op. cit., p. 67.
41 Euripides, Electra, 514.
42 Xenophon, Lakedaimonion Politeia, 13.8.
43 Xenophon, Hellenika, 4.2.20 ; cf. Plutarch, Lykourgos, 22.2.
44 Xenophon, Anabasis, 6.5.8.
45 Herodotos, 9.61.3.
46 Xenophon, Hellenika, 4.6.10.
47 Thucydides, 6.69 (S. Eitrem, op. cit., p. 15 ; W.K. Pritchett, op. cit., p. 110 ; M.H. Jameson, op. cit., p. 204 ; R. Parker, op. cit., p. 300).
48 Herodotos, 9.61.3.
49 Herodotos, 6.112.1.
50 Herodotos, 6.112.1 (Marathon for Athenians) ; Xenophon, Anabasis, 1.8.14-7 (Cyrus to Xenophon), 4.3.18-19.
51 Xenophon, op. cit., 6.5.8.
52 The same expression, ‘with the first victim’ is used elsewhere, for sacrifices with a view to battle, e.g. Xenophon, op. cit., 4.3.9.
53 Euripides, Phoinissai, 1255-1258 ; M.H. Jameson, op. cit., p. 208.
54 Lines 484-499.
55 Sophocles, Antigone 1005-1022 ; M.H. Jameson, “Sophocles, Antigone, 1005-1022 : an illustration”, M. Cropp, E. Fantham and S.E. Scully (eds), Greek Tragedy and its Legacy, Calgary, 1986, p. 59-65.
56 E.g. Kleophrades Painter ; rf amphora ; 500-475 BC ; Würzburg 507 (ARV2 181.1 ; F.T. van Straten, op. cit., fig. 165, V262).
57 Euripides, op. cit., 172-174 ; P. Stengel, “Prophezeiung aus den sphagia”, Hermes, 31, 1896, p. 478479 ; W.K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, Part III, Berkeley, 1979, p. 85 ; cf. M.H. Jameson, op. cit., p. 205, n. 34.
58 Euripides, Hekube, 149, 536-537 dark (melan) and akraiphnes, which here seems to have a meaning of ‘undiluted’, ‘full-bodied’. Figure 5 : Tyrrhenian Group ; bf amphora ; 575-50 BC ; BM 97.7-27.2 (ABV 97.27 ; F.T. van Straten, op. cit., fig. 118, V422). The depiction of the altar and flames is in contrast to the usual depiction of a sphagia, cf. S. Peirce, op. cit., p. 253-254.
59 Euripides, Herakleidai, 819-822.
60 Euripides, Phoinissai, 931-933, cf. 913.
61 Cf. W.K. Pritchett, op. cit., p. 113, n. 28.
62 Herodotos, 9.61.2-3.
63 See discussion of N. Richer, op. cit., p. 142-144.
64 Xenophon, Hellenika, 4.6.10. Cf. Plutarch, Phokion, 13.
65 Aeschyl., Seven Against Thebes, 230-231.
66 A. Henrichs, op. cit., p. 215-216 ; accepted by J.-P. Vernant, op. cit., 232 ; M.H. Jameson, op. cit., p. 220.
67 Xenophon, Anabasis, 1.7.18.
68 Xenophon, op. cit., 6.5.21.
69 For divination from birds (ornithomanteia or oionoskopia), see D. Collins, “Reading the Birds : Oionomanteia in Early Epic”, Colby Quarterly, 38, 2002, p. 17-41 ; M.P.J. Dillon, “Oionomanteia in Greek Divination”, M.P.J. Dillon (ed.), Religion in the Ancient World : New Themes and Approaches, Amsterdam, 1996, p. 99–121 ; A. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la Divination dans l’Antiquité, Paris, 1879, vol. 1, p. 127-143.
70 Thucydides, 4.92.7 ; cf. Xenophon, Hellenika, 2.4.14, 17.
71 Plutarch, Themistocles, 13.2-5, see esp. A. Henrichs, op. cit., p. 208-224.
72 Xenophon, Anabasis, 4.3.17 ; cf. Thucydides, 6.69.2.
73 Xenophon, Lakedaimonion Politeia, 11.3, 13.8 ; N. Richer, op. cit., p. 137.
74 Embateria : Philoch. FGrH 328 F216 ; Tyrtaeus 10.32, 11.22 ; learned by heart : Philoch. ibid.
75 M.H. Jameson, op. cit., 221 ; cf. R. Parker, op. cit., p. 307.
76 M.H. Jameson, op. cit., p. 209 ; cf. J. Casabona, Recherches sur le vocabulaire des sacrifices en grec, Aix–en–Provence, 1966, p. 185 ; W.K. Pritchett, op. cit., p. 110.
77 Xenophon, Hellenika, 4.2.20.
78 Pausanias, 1.40.2-3.
79 Pausanias, 7.26.1-3.
80 Pausanias, 9.13.4.
81 J.-P. Vernant, op. cit., p. 251.
82 Euripides, Phoinissai, 150-153, 190-192.
83 Xenophon, Anabasis, 3.4.18 (Agesilaos) ; Arrian, Anabasis, 1.18.2 (Alexander).
84 Pausanias, 4.4.2-3.
85 Euripides, op. cit., 1415.
86 Euripides, op. cit., 1471-1472.
87 Figure 6 : Exekias ; bf amphora ; 530 BC ; BM B210 (ABV 144.7 ; LIMC I Achilleus 723 ; VII Penthesileia 17).
88 Homeric Hymn to Artemis I, II.4-10 ; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 10-11, 18 ; Homer, Iliad, 5.51–52 ; cf. Callimachos, Hymn to Artemis 2-3, 19 ; note the scene of Artemis’ arrows piercing a beast from which blood spurts : LIMC II Artemis 109a (Oenochoe : 625 BC ; Boston 1971.297).
89 H. King, “Bound to bleed : Artemis and Greek Women”, A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt (ed.), Images of Women in Antiquity, London, 1983, p. 109-127.
90 J.-P. Vernant, op. cit., p. 227-228 ; M.H. Jameson, op. cit., p. 199-200, 209-12 ; see Xenophon, Hellenika, 2.4.14 ; Diodorus, 14.32.2 ; Pausanias, 10.23.5.
91 Euripides, Phoinissai, Erechtheus, Herakleidai, Iphigeneia in Aulis, Hekuba, and perhaps Phrixus B ; cf. Phylarchos FGrH 81 F80. In Aeschylus Agamemnon, the victim is unwilling, and the sacrifice is to Artemis in the context of setting out for war.
92 W.B urkert, op. cit., p. 65-67, n. 13.
93 J.-P. Vernant, op. cit., p. 238.
94 Plutarch, Pelopidas, 20-1 ; Plutarch, Moralia, 774.
95 J. Wilkins, op. cit., p. 179.
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