Chap. XXIII.—Of the Gods and Sacred Rites of the Barbarians.

We have spoken respecting the gods: now we will speak of the rites and practices of their sacred institutions. A human victim used to be immolated to the Cyprian Jupiter, as Teucer had appointed. Thus also the Tauri used to offer strangers to Diana; the Latian Jupiter also was propitiated with human blood. Also before Saturnus, men of sixty years of age, according to the oracle1453    Ex responso. The common reading is “ex persona.”   of Apollo, were thrown from a bridge into the Tiber. And the Carthaginians not only offered infants to the same Saturnus; but being conquered by the Sicilians, to make an expiation, they immolated two hundred sons of nobles. And not more mild than these are those offerings which are even now made to the Great Mother and to Bellona, in which the priests make an offering, not with the blood of others, but with their own blood; when, mutilating themselves, they cease to be men, and yet do not pass over to the women; or, cutting their shoulders, they sprinkle the loathsome altars with their own blood. But these things are cruel.  

Let us come to those which are mild. The sacred rites of Isis show nothing else than the manner in which she lost and found her little son, who is called Osiris. For first her priests and attendants, having shaved all their limbs, and beating their breasts, howl, lament, and search, imitating the manner in which his mother was affected; afterwards the boy is found by Cynocephalus. Thus the mournful rites are ended with gladness. The mystery of Ceres also resembles these, in which torches are lighted, and Proserpine is sought for through the night; and when she has been found, the whole rite is finished with congratulations and the throwing about of torches. The people of Lampsacus, offer an ass to Priapus as an appropriate victim.1454    Ea enim visa est aptior victima, quæ ipsi, cui mactatur, magnitudine virilis obsceni posset æquari.   Lindus is a town of Rhodes, where sacred rites in honour of Hercules are celebrated with revilings. For when Hercules had taken away his oxen from a ploughman, and had slain them, he avenged his injury by taunts; and afterwards having been himself appointed priest, it was ordained that he himself, and other priests after him, should celebrate sacrifices with the same revilings. But the mystery of the Cretan Jupiter represents the manner in which he was withdrawn from his father, or brought up. The goat is beside him, by the teats of which Amalthea nourished the boy. The sacred rites of the mother of the gods also show the same thing. For because the Corybantes then drowned the cry of the boy by the tinkling of their helmets and the striking of their shields, a representation of this circumstance is now repeated in the sacred rites; but cymbals are beaten instead of helmets, and drums instead of shields, that Saturnus may not hear the cries of the boy.  

CAPUT XXIII. (Div. Inst. lib. I, c. 21.) De diis et sacris barbarorum.

Diximus de diis; nunc de ritibus sacrorum culturisque dicemus. Jovi Cyprio, sicut Teucrus instituerat, humana hostia mactari solebat. Sic et Tauri Dianae hospites immolabant; Latiaris quoque Jupiter humano sanguine propitiatus est. Etiam ante Saturnum sexagenarii homines ex persona Apollinis de ponte in Tiberim dejiciebantur, et eidem Saturno Carthaginienses non modo infantes prosecrabant, sed et victi a Siculis, ut piaculum solverent, ducentos nobilium filios immolaverunt. Nec illa his humaniora sunt, quae fiunt etiam nunc Matri magnae, atque Bellonae, in 1030B quibus antistites non alieno sanguine, sed suo litant, cum amputatis genitalibus a viris migrant, nec ad foeminas transeunt, aut sectis humeris detestabiles aras proprio cruore respergunt. Sed haec crudelia.

Veniamus ad mitia. Isidis sacra nihil aliud ostendunt, nisi quemadmodum filium parvum, qui dicitur Osiris, perdiderit et invenerit. Nam primo sacerdotes ac ministri, derasis omnibus membris, tunsisque pectoribus, plangunt, dolent, quaerunt, affectum matris imitantes; postmodum puer per Cynocephalum invenitur. Sic luctuosa sacra laetitia terminantur. His etiam Cereris simile mysterium est, in quo, facibus accensis, per noctem Proserpina inquiritur, et ea inventa, ritus omnis gratulatione ac taedarum 1030C jactatione finitur. Lampsaceni asellum Priapo mactant. Ea enim visa est aptior victima, quae ipsi, cui mactatur, magnitudine virilis obscoeni posset aequari.

Lindos est oppidum Rhodi, ubi Herculis sacra maledictis celebrantur. Hercules enim cum boves 1031A aratori abstulisset, atque immolasset, ille injuriam suam conviciis ultus 1031A est, eoque ipso Sacerdote postmodum constituto, sancitum est, ut iisdem maledictis, et ipse, et alii postea sacerdotes sacra celebrarent. Cretici autem Jovis mysterium est quomodo infans aut subtractus sit patri, aut educatus. Capella praesto est, cujus uberibus puerum Amalthea nutrivit. Idem etiam matris deum sacra demonstrant. Nam quia tum Corybantes galearum tinnitibus et scutorum pulsibus vagitum pueri texerant, nunc imago rei refertur in sacris: sed pro galeis cymbala, pro scutis tympana feruntur, ne puerum vagientem Saturnus exaudiat.