The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

ASIA MINOR. 67
very closely the various phases of its development. In
accordance with a custom prevalent in the entire Orient
at the beginning of history, the Anatolian lords were
fond of pursuing and lassoing wild buffalos, which
they afterwards sacrificed to the gods. Beasts caught
during a hunt were immolated, and frequently also
prisoners of war. Gradually the savagery of this prim
itive rite was modified until finally nothing but a circus
play was left. During the Alexandrian period people
were satisfied with organizing a corrida in the arena,
in the course of which the victim intended for im
molation was seized. This is the proper meaning of
the terms taurobolium and criobolium,* which had long
been enigmas,34 and which denoted the act of catching
a steer or a ram by means of a hurled weapon, prob
ably the thong of a lasso. Without doubt even this
act was finally reduced to a mere sham under the
Roman empire, but the weapon with which the animal
was slain always remained a hunting weapon, a sacred
boar spear. 3 s
The ideas on which the immolation was based were
originally just as barbarous as the sacrifice itself. It
is a matter of general belief among savage peoples that
one acquires the qualities of an enemy slain in battle
or of a beast killed in the chase by drinking or washing
in the blood, or by eating some of the viscera of the
body. The blood especially has often been considered
as the seat of vital energy. By moistening his body
with the blood of the slaughtered steer, the neophyte
believed that he was transfusing the strength of the
formidable beast into his own limbs.
This naive and purely material conception was soon
t, Kpio[36\iov.