A Sacrifice to Artemis
Lessons with old Athenodorus began at the fourth hour, which meant that Lucias and I - like all Jews, Alexander refused to recognise any other god than his own - had to be up early to make the sacrifice. Cartimandua, who seemd to wake amazingly early in the morning, woke me up well before dawn and helped me dress.
"I open door," she whispered. "Let Antiochus sleep."
She unbarred the door and let me out quietly, then slipped back inside and I heard the soft sounds of the door being barred behind me.
Lucias was standing impatiently outside his house when I arrived, with a young slave boy to carry the lamb. I was amazed to find him standing, let along looking so well.
"Come on!" he exclaimed. "It must be nearly mid-day."
"Hardly," I laughed. "The sun is still red. It's barely daybreak."
We hurried through the deserted streets of the city. At this hour only the slaves and a few peasants were about and as we started the long climb up to the Acrocorinth even they were left behind. The steep road soon gave way to flight after flight of stone steps that wound about the mountain-side or zig-zagged up the steeper sections.
"Nearly there," Lucias grunted as we came in sight of the gateway through the fortifications that crown the acropolis.
As we approached, an old woman appeared at the head of the stairs and hobbled down towards us, leaning heavily on her stick. She drew to one side to let us pass and regarded us with rheumy eyes.
"You come early to worship the goddess, young sirs." Her voice was rough and cracked with age.
"We have to, mother," Lucias said. "We have lessons to attend."
"Lessons!" the old woman cackled. "I could give you some lessons if you wanted. Men used to fight for my lessons when I was young and I haven't lost any of my skills."
Only your looks, I thought to myself, averting my eyes from her withered
face. I was surprised that Lucias lingered to talk with her: after all, she
was only a slave, one of the thousand or so who served in the temple,
singing in the choir at festivals and offering the goddess's hospitality to
any man who wished to worship her in her Common aspect
"Thank you, mother," Lucias remained polite and calm, "I have come to worship the goddess as Protector of Virgins today. I need a priest, not a priestess, to offer my sacrifice."
"What about your slave, then? Has he no prayers of his own to offer?"
Lucias turned away. "No thank you, mother. He is here to serve me, not to worship."
"What about your fortune, kind sir? I could tell you your fortune. I know spells that even the gods obey149."
"No thank you, mother. We must hurry," Lucias called over his shoulder.
We hurried up the last flight of steps, past the soldiers on duty in the gateway and across the broad summit of the hill to the gleaming white temple. The doors into its courtyard had only just been opened and slaves were swilling the entrance with water when we arrived. We dodged round the men with their mops and brooms and entered the sacred precincts.
The temple, high on its podium, was all but invisible behind the beautiful altar with its friezes and columns. The courtyard was surrounded on all sides by rooms and chambers, most of which were used as sleeping quarters by the slave-girl priestesses. A number of the girls were sitting in the doorways on the sunny side of the court, combing their hair and giggling together.
A priest, his long hair held in place by a circle of ribbon around his forehead, approached us.
"Good morning, young sirs. Is one of you Lucias, son of Varrus?"
"I am, sir." Lucias took a pace forward.
"The goddess welcomes you. This is your sacrifice?"
He turned to the slave and held out his hands. The young boy held out the lamb and the priest took it and inspected it carefully.
"Fine. It's a good beast, fit to offer to the goddess. Are you going hunting?"
"No, sir." Lucias smiled. "I wish to invoke the goddess as Protector of Virgins."
The priest nodded. Artemis had many aspects - huntress, patroness of mothers and of childbirth, protectoress of young girls and virgins. It was important to establish what your needs were before approaching her, for it was no good offering a sacrifice to her as huntress if what you wanted was a safe delivery for your wife.
"Let's go up to the altar," the priest said. "I lit the sacred fire about half an hour ago, so it should be burning well by now."
He turned and led the way across the courtyard and up the marble steps into the open rectangle of the altar podium. Corinthian pillars formed an arcade along three sides of the rectangle and beneath them there was a frieze depicting the battle between Centaurs and Lapiths on the outside and scenes of hunting on the inside. In the centre of the rectangle stood the altar itself, a large stone block on which a fire was burning brightly. As we approached a couple of young priests and temple servants, including one of the slave-priestesses, a remarkably pretty young girl with a flute150 ready to her lips and a bronze bowl under her arm, came over and stood around us.
The priest stood with raised hands and faced the doorway of the temple, invisible behind the screen of pillars, reciting a few verses of sacred poetry to the music of the flute151 while the other priests formed an impromptu chorus and chanted the responses. There was a pause while one of the attendants dashed a handful of cold water against the lamb's flank, causing its skin to twitch violently. The priest beamed at this auspicious sign of the lamb's willingness to accept its own sacrifice, then he turned back to us.
"Lucias, now is the time to make your own prayers. Nod when you are ready."
Lucias raised his eyes to the temple where the goddess stood in the darkness of the cella. His lips moved and I hastily offered up my own prayer on his behalf.
"Gracious Lady, we come to you as Protector of Virgins. Your hand alone can untangle the knots of Fate in which my friend is so entangled, so look with kindness on Lucias, son of Varrus, and his love for the girl Mysticus. Forgive the smallness of our offering, for it is the best that we can afford."
Lucias' prayer must have been as short as my own for he suddenly nodded his head. Immediately the assistant priest swung his heavy wooden hammer, clubbing the lamb on the front of the skull152 . Silently the little animal collapsed to the ground and lay unconscious. Another assistant stepped forward, lifted the lamb's head and cut its throat. The man with the bowl thrust it under the lamb's neck to catch the blood that spurted out.
The assistant who had cut the animal's throat handed his knife to the priest and the man stooped and cut open the body of the lamb with deft strokes. He plunged his hands inside the carcass, forcing the incision apart so that he could view the internal organs. He briefly fingered the liver and put it in the basin the priestess was carrying, then thrust his hands up inside the ribs to examine the heart.
"Your prayer will be heard," the priest addressed Lucias. " The heart has a good layer of fat153 and the signs on the liver are propitious. Our Gracious Lady has great power but, of course, like all the Immortals, she is capricious. Of course, if you want more sure information, you will have to consult an oracle."
He added the heart to the priestess's basin then raised his blood-stained hands and intoned a blessing over us. Without more ado he turned and walked back down the steps. The other men followed him and the young priest stood up and placed the body of the lamb into the basin the priestess was holding, causing her arms to sag momentarily with the weight.
"Will you wait to partake of the sacrifice, lords?" the priestess asked.
Lucias and I both glanced up at the sun.
"We'd better not," Lucias said. "Arxes and I have lessons with Athenodorus the philosopher at the fourth hour. He gets very angry if we are late."
The girl shrugged. "As you like. I make quite a good stew and while you are waiting for it to cook you could always worship the Goddess of Love."
"With you?"
The girl shrugged again. "With me, or with someone else if you have a favourite. I could call her for you. I'm sure a generous young man like you would not let even that small service go unrewarded."
"Thanks," Lucias smiled at her. "We really must be going, but here." He fumbled in the folds of his toga and handed the girl a small coin. "Please tell Scapha of Miletus that I was here and that I will come again when I have time."
"Thank you, lord. Scapha of Miletus. I won't forget. And what about you, young lord?"
The girl smiled at me, giving me a chance to admire her perfect teeth and pretty face. I shook my head slowly.
"No, thank you. I must go as well." I hesitated and then spoke hurriedly. "I don't have a regular girl up here. What's your name?"
"Charite, from Meropea."
"Where's that?" I asked, for the pleasure of hearing her voice.
"It's a small island near Delos," Charite replied. "My father was a poor farmer who fell into debt and sold me to prevent the bailiff seizing our farm."
"Your misfortune is my good fortune," I told her. "I shall see you again soon, Charite."
"Come soon, young lord. Twelve drachma are an acceptable gift to the goddess."
She smiled at the slave, who was gaping at her open-mouthed, and then walked away, the basin supported on her out-thrust hip, her skirt swishing about her slim ankles.
"Come on!" Lucias sounded amused. "I bring you up here to worship the goddess as Protector of Virgins only to find you desperate to worship her as the Goddess of Love."
"Not desperate!" I defended myself.
"You must be desperate if you're thinking of paying twelve drachma," Lucias pointed out. "My Scapha is at least as good looking as that hussy and she only charges three drachma. Anyway, what's wrong with a slavegirl - or boy, if you're that way inclined?"
"I've got that Cartimamdua, the Gaulish girl my father bought for me. She keeps me amused most of the time, despite her barbaric name." I paused, remembering her crying and her unresponsiveness, and then added glibly, "but variety is the spice of life."
"Ah yes." Lucias furrowed his brow. "I was drunk last night, wasn't I?"
"You were, old friend."
"Sorry. Still, I remember your girl. Yellow hair, right?"
"Right."
"Not bad. So I can't persuade you to become a devotee of Isis154 and live in perfect chastity and abstinence?" Lucias teased.
"Ye gods, no! Doctors tell us that it is harmful to hold ourselves in155. I intend to look after my health. Until I got Cartimandua I just grabbed the nearest slave whenever I felt the urge." I didn't tell him that I took very good care not to let my parents know. Mother, in particular, kept an eagle eye on our female slaves.
"Just teasing," Lucias grinned. "I do the same, though if I'm in someone else's house I ask his permission first. That's only good manners."
"Of course," I agreed. A thought struck me. "Funny thing, you know. Alexander doesn't just go with a slave like we do. He has to have a ritual of cleansing first."
"He does have that Perpetua that his father bought for him," Lucias reminded me.
"Sure," I nodded, "but she's got some sort of legal status as a concubine - at least, legal in terms of their law."
"Jews are crazy!" Lucias tapped his head meaningfully. "I mean, who would want to risk the anger of the Immortal gods by refusing to acknowledge any of them? It's blasphemous156 to reject all true religion and follow just one god."
"Yes, and who would want to be mutilated in his manhood and accept circumcision?"
We sniggered at the thought. Alexander missed out on all the good things in life because of his mutilation. Not only did he refuse to join us in the gymnasium, where we stripped naked to wrestle and race, he wouldn't even come to the baths! Lucias and I went there nearly every day, usually with our fathers. Not only was a visit to the baths good for health, there were plenty of pretty girls to ogle and it was also good for business, for sooner or later you met everyone in the city there.
As soon as we came to the bottom of the stairs Lucias dismissed the young slave with orders to return straight home, while he and I made our way alone through the backstreets of the city to the hired rooms where Athenodorus held his lectures. I had arranged for my pedagogue to meet me there and I guessed that Lucias had done the same with his.
148 In Xenophon's Symposium Socrates declares: "Whether there is one Aphrodite or two, Celestial and Common, I don't know. Zeus has many titles, although he is regarded as the same deity. But I do know that there are different altars and shrines for each of them and that the rites are more casual for the Common and of a devouter kind for the Celestial goddess. One might guess that the former inspires physical love while the latter inspires love of the mind, of friendship and of noble deeds." (p. 259)
Pausanias, in his Guide to Greece IX.xvi, explains the difference between the different manifestations of the goddess. "Harmonia gave Aphrodite her titles: 'Heavenly' for pure love free of the lust of the body, 'Popular' for copulation and thirdly, 'Turner Away of Evil', to turn away the human race from wicked desires and unholy actions." Return
149 In The Golden Ass Apuleius talks about a "witch, who was able to exert a certain pressure on the gods" (p. 225) and another who used "magic arts by which she exacts obedience from ghosts, puts pressure on the stars, blackmails the gods and keeps all the five elements well under her thumb." (p. 84) Return
150 Religious ceremonies followed certain common patterns. Suetonius, in The Twelve Caesars, remarks that the emperor Tiberius, "on his first entrance into the Senate after the death of Augustus showed equal respect for the gods and for his adoptive father's memory by reviving the example set long ago by King Minos of Crete when informed of his son Androgeus' murder: he used wine and incense in his sacrifice, but dispensed with the customary flutists." (p. 149) We can compare this with the musical instruments used in the temple services of Israel. Return
151 In his play Drunkenness Menander has a character say, "Well, our fortunes and our offerings are very much on a par. Here am I, bringing to the gods a satisfactory little sheep that I bought quite cheaply, while flute-girls, scent, guitar players, Mendian wine, eels, Thasian wine, cheese and honey - they come to quite a lot! Returns are in proportion: a small amount of credit if the gods approve our sacrifice and you can deduct against that the money spent on these luxuries. That doubles the cost of a sacrifice." (p. 239) Flute-girls were commonly prostitutes. Return
152 This was the normal method of sacrificing. Suetonius, in his The Twelve Caesars records that Caligula, who was more than half-mad, "once, while presiding appropriately robed at the sacrificial altar, swung his mallet as if at the victim but instead felled the assistant priest." (p.170) Return
153 In his Natural History XI.lxxi Pliny tells us: "In victims whose organs are propitious there is a certain fatness on the top of the heart, but the heart was not always considered as one of the significant organs." Return
154 At the conclusion of The Golden Ass the hero is initiated into the mysteries of Isus. He remarks, "I was anxious to obey but religious awe held me back, because after making careful enquiries I found that to take orders was to bind oneself to a very difficult life, especially as regards chastity, and that an initiate has to be continuously on his guard against accidental defilement." (p. 282) Return
155 In Plato's Symposium the doctor Eryximachus declares, "It is not only all right, but even essential, to gratify the good, healthy parts of a body - that's just another way of describing the process of healing, after all." (p.21) Return
156 Apuleius, in The Golden Ass, describes a woman who "professed perfect scorn for the Immortals and rejected all true religion in favour of a fantastic and blasphemous cult of an 'Only God'. In his honour she practised various absurd ceremonies which gave her the excuse of getting drunk quite early in the day and playing the whore at all hours." (p. 214) It is possible that this is a reference to Christianity - Apuleius lived about two centuries after Christ - as the Communion wine was supposed to encourage drunkenness and Christians were popularly believed to hold orgies as part of their services. Return
