Précipitations sacrificielles en Grèce ancienne

Abstract

The Greek rite of throwing down a victim has been given up in recent studies: is it offering or sacrifice? By concentrating on the very movement of throwing we notice in Greek some specific words, similitudes with the rite of libation, with the willing dive, with the victim as a scapegoat, and an often extreme character. The addressees may be the same as natural elements (waters, winds, Poseidon), or belong to the infernal world, and yet no god can be excluded. Objects, a piece of cake, a part of one’s own body (hair…), or an animal, and even human beings can be thrown down in the same way. Comparison with slaughtering above sea or rivers, often associated with the throwing down of the corpse, brings into relief special features. The proximity between throwing down and giving or rejecting seems to increase the necessary prodigality, while it leaves to chance the care of revealing a divine intervention, depending on whether or not the abyss rejects the offering.