(8) The sacredness attaching to domesticated ani- mais.—It is obvious that the sacred character of the animals which have hitherto been mentioned rests ultimately on their domestication and their useful- nesstoman. This suggests that some of the arts of domestication may have originated on the great Anatolian plateau, where the conditions are exceed- ingly favourable,* and where the existing traces show that a large population and great cities were found where now for many centuries only a very sparse sprinkling of nomads and a certain number of small villages have existed. That a high degree of skill was reached in the domestica- tion of animals is also certain. Valuable breeds of animals were artificially produced by intelligent cross-breeding. Of these the Angora goat still survives; and the secret of its breeding is still care- fully treasured and concealed.+ That the secret of preserving the purity of the wool lies in breeding is pointed out elsewhere,t on the authority of practical experience; and the natural probability of this explanation (which has never been men- tioned elsewhere) is admitted as obvious by some high authorities to whom it has been mentioned. But the breed of the Colossian sheep with its glossy violet fleece, and the glossy black - fleeced sheep of Laodicea, have entirely disappeared ; and the reason is that those artificial breeds were through carelessness allowed to degenerate.§
(9) Domesticated animals as sacrifice. —No doubt need be entertained, though the fact cannot be definitely demonstrated by extant evidence, that the life of all domesticated animals was sacred. Their existence was so important to man that it
* See art. on ‘Geographical Conditions determining History and Religion’ in the Geographical Journal, Sept. 1902, p. 272: see also below, (12). ae ‘
+ We cannot accept the view advocated by some distinguished German writers, that the Angora goat was introduced from Central Asia, and is a naturally distinct species.
t Ramsay, Impressions of Turkey, p. 272 ft.
§ Impressions of Turkey, loc. cit.
must be guaranteed and protected by the strongest religious sanctions. To slay the ox or the sheep or the goat or the swine was an act of impiety. Among the Phrygians it was a capital crime to slay an ox used in ploughing.*
Yet there can be equally little doubt both that the flesh of the animals was wanted as food and that they were needed as offerings in sacrifice. Here two religious laws come into collision with one another. A quaint and evidently very archaic ceremony, which was preserved among the people of Athens (a race characteristically autochthonous and Pelasgian), illustrates the way in which the difficulty was met. The ox for sacrifice was selected by a sort of chance, the one being taken which first came forward out of a herd to eat the corn scattered on the altar near which the animals were driven. The ox thus selected was slain for the sacrifice ; but the ministers who slew it with axe and knife fled, and in their absence the weapons which had killed the sacred animal were tried and condemned, and punished for sacrilege by being thrown into the sea. The flesh of the ox was eaten; its skin was stuffed with straw, and the stuffed animal was harnessed to a plough. +}
The character of the ceremony, as an expiation of the apparent crime of slaying the sacred animal, is clear. The god, in his kindness to man, has shown how the guilt may be avoided or diverted, and the flesh of the animal can be enjoyed by man without suffering the due penalty. The name of the sacrifice, ra Bouddvia, ‘the ceremonies connected with the slaying of the ox,’+ makes the meaning of the whole clear. Probably, in the origin, the killing of an ox (not a common act in agricultural life), perhaps even the killing of any sacred animal, was always accompanied with that elaborate cere- monial, and made a religious act. The ox was induced to commit an act of impiety in eating the sacred barley and wheat on the altar; any guilt involved in slaying him was visited on the murder- ing weapon ; and, finally, the pretence was gone through that the ox was still ready to be used for its ordinary agricultural work.
The attempt has been made to explain the Bouphonia as the slaying in the harvest season of the ox which represents the spirit of vegetation : the ox, as the Divine being who constitutes the life of the crop, is supposed to be slain at the harvest (as Lityerses in Phrygia was slain by the sickles of the reapers). This attempt is supported by an incorrect interpretation of the word Bouphonia, as ‘the slaying of the ox.’ The explanation is forced and unsatisfactory, and may be considered as an example of the extreme to which excellent scholars are sometimes led in trying to adapt a theory, which furnishes the correct explanation of many usages, to other usages which it does not suit.
A’ Phrygian inscription throws some light on this subject. The goat is there mentioned as sacred. A certain person confesses to have sinned because he had eaten the flesh of the goat, though the animal had not been offered as a sacrifice with the proper ceremonial: he atones for the sin, and acknowledges the justice of the penalty with which the god has visited him.§