Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

142 Totemism, Sacrament and Sacrifice [ch.
victim for the sacrifice. Two men performed the sacrifice ; the
one, the Boutypos, felled the ox with an axe, another, presumably
the Bouphonos, cut its throat with a knife. Both the murderers
threw down their weapons and fled. The weapons were sub-
sequently brought to trial. The celebrants feasted on the flesh,
and the ox itself was restored to life in mimic pantomime 1 .
The uncouth ritual of the Bouphonia went on as late as the
days of Theophrastos, but, by the time of Aristophanes 2 , it stood
for all that was archaic and well-nigh obsolete. The Unjust Logos
when told about the old educational system at Athens says :
Bless me, that's quite the ancient lot, so Diipolia-like,
Of crickets and Bouphonia full.
What struck Pausanias 3 when he was told about the ritual, was
that when the ox-striker had flung away the axe and himself had
fled, ' as though in ignorance of the man who did the deed ' they
bring the axe to judgment. It is just this one detail and all the
elaborate House-that-Jack-built shifting of the blame from one
celebrant to another till it rested on the lifeless axe which has
diverted the attention of modern commentators from what is, I
now 4 feel, the all-important factor or rather factors. The Bouphonia
was (1) a communal feast, (2) the death of the ox was only
incidental to the feast, and it was followed by a mimic Re-
surrection.
(1) The Bouphonia was a communal feast. Our fullest
account is given by Porphyry 5 who borrows it from Theophrastos.
Porphyry is explicit. The Bouphonia is a communal sacrifice
(koivt) Ova-la). In the aetiological myth it is related that the
ox was first smitten by a stranger, either Sopatros 6 or Dromos,
1 I [have elsewhere, Ancient Athens, pp. 424-6, and Prolegomena, p. Ill,
discussed the Bouphonia in detail. I can here only examine such elements as
are important for my immediate argument. Attention was, I believe, first drawn
to the great significance of the Bouphonia by Professor Bobertson Smith, Religion
of the Semites, pp. 286 ff. The literary sources are collected and discussed by
Dr Frazer, Golden Bough' 2 , n. pp. 294 ff. See also H. v. Gaertringen, Zeus
Thaulios in Hermes, 1911, Miscellen, p. 154.
- Nub. 984
dpxaia ye xal Altto\iu>5v ko.1 reTTiywv ded/teara
Kal KriKeLSov tcai Yiovcpoviwv.
3 i. 24. 4. As Professor Bobertson Smith observes, ad loc, in Pausanias' time
the rite had undergone some simplification, otherwise his account is inadequate.
4 In my previous discussions of the Bouphonia, through ignorance of the magical
character of sacrifice, I fell into the usual error of emphasis.
5 de Abst. ii. 28 ff.
6 So-patros may be the Saviour of the -rrarpa as Sosi-polis is Saviour of the state.