The sacrificial rituals of Greek hero cults in the Archaic to the early ...

Literary evidence 207
v rÿ has been compared with sacrifices specified as vje§, which have
been understood as rituals at which the worshippers dined. Since it has been
assumed that dining did not take place at sacrifices to heroes, the addition
of v rÿ to the verb thyein has caused some problems among modern
scholars. The combinationjúein v rÿ has been viewed as an impossibility
and has consequently been explained as a mistake or a careless usage of
the terminology by the ancient sources. 362 The expression júein v je§
used for a sacrifice to a hero, on the other hand, has been considered as a
conscious choice, indicating that the recipient di�fered from regular heroes,
most frequently by not having died a proper death or by not having any
grave. 363
The problem of interpreting v rÿ as referring to particular sacrificial
rituals concerns not only the fact that some ancient sources have to be
dismissed as sprachlich nicht korrekt, since they use this addition with
thyein. 364 A review of the expression v rÿ shows that it is used with
thyein, timan, entemnein and enagizein alike, terms with highly varied
meanings (see Table 31).
To add v rÿ to enagizein in order to mark the presence of rituals
particular to hero-cults seems unwarranted, since in the Classical and Hellenistic
periods this term was, anyway, used only for sacrifices to heroes
and the dead and never for the cult of the gods. 365 Entemnein is also
connected in particular with hero-sacrifices and would therefore need no
further elucidation. 366 Moreover, which kind of ritual should be considered
as being the most typical for heroes and correspond to v rÿ? The review
of the epigraphical and literary sources indicates that sacrifices to heroes
were mostly of the alimentary kind, while destruction sacrifices and blood
rituals were uncommon. A hero could of course receive destruction sacrifices
(enagizein) or blood rituals (entemnein), since these were among the rituals
performed to heroes, but a hero could also, and did frequently, receive thysia
sacrifices followed by dining. It is therefore not possible to argue that v rÿ
is automatically to be taken as indicating enagizein or entemnein sacrifices.
On the whole, the interpretation of v rÿ as referring to ritual practices for
heroes di�fering from the cult of the gods rests upon the assumption that the
sacrifices to heroes were ritually distinct from those to the gods.
362 Pfister 1909–12, 479–480; Rohde 1925, 140, n. 15.
363 Pfister 1909–12, 479–489.
364 Thus, Pfister 1909–12, 480.
365 For enagizein, see above, pp. 82–89.
366 Thuc. 5.11; LSS 64, line 9; cf. Rudhardt 1958, 285–286. Entemnein used for sacrifices to
heroes in later sources: Plut. Vit. Sol. 9.1; Plut. Vit. Pel. 22.2; Lucian Scytha 1; Philostr. Her. 53.13.