Over on Paleojudaica, Jim Davila points to a recent debate over the existence of child sacrifice among the Carthaginians (in ancient North Africa), with one recent native Tunisian archeologist trying to dispel the notion that the ancestors of the Tunisians sacrificed children. It is true that almost all ancient ethnographical references to human sacrifice are made by Greek or Roman (or other) authors in order to show how terrible and uncivilized the “barbarian” peoples were. In almost all cases these are standard mud-slinging stereotypes of the “other” along the lines of the accusations against Christians and the stories used in novels which I mentioned a couple of days ago. However, the case of the Phoenicians (and Carthaginians) is different. A substantial study of Carthaginian sacrifice (which I happen to have out of the library), discusses this in relation to the Mediterranean context and concludes among other things that:

a noteworthy absence of eyewitness accounts is characteristic of the ancient sources of human sacrifices and other ‘unnatural’ killings. Also characteristic is the tendency to attribute ongoing sacrifices to other people, but to assume that in one’s own group such acts took place only in the past, if at all. It is not possible to prove that most attested human sacrifices ever happened; in fact, they probably did not. Yet, at least for the Phoenicians [and hence Carthaginians], there is independent archaeological evidence that the accusations were not wholly false.
Shelby Brown, Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context (JSOT/ASOR Monograph Series, vol. 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), p.149.

The interpretation of this archaeological evidence is precisely what the archeologists in the recent media report are debating.

UPDATE: More discussion of child sacrifice among the Phoenicians on N. S. Gill’s about.com ancient history site.

Further to my previous post on descriptions of the “other” in antiquity, there are a number of ancient authors who devote considerable attention to describing the customs of foreign peoples, with Herodotus (The Histories) being the most well-known. When describing peoples at or beyond the edges of the known world such ethnographers sometimes engaged in the sort of scurrilous accusations we have just noted in relation to the Christians. This coming weekend I am presenting an introductory paper for the “Travel and Religion in Antiquity Seminar” of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies which explores, among other things, ancient ethnography and travel tales, and I found another tradition of ethnography quite interesting.

The first century geographer, Strabo, expresses his disdain for those ethnographers who describe peoples of distant lands as extremely unclean with an equally condemnable way of life (e.g. cannibalism), a position reflecting an ethnocentric view of concentric circles of lessening civilization. Strabo claims that his approach is more in line with Ephorus of Kyme (fourth century BCE), who, in a way, inverted this approach to foreign peoples. Ephorus’ idealizing approach described those far from the current cultural centre in positive terms as examples to follow:

Now the other writers, he says, tell only about [the Scythians’] savagery, because they know that the terrible and the marvellous are startling, but one should tell the opposite facts too and make them patterns of conduct, and he himself, therefore, will tell only about those who follow “most just” habits, for there are some of the Scythian Nomads who feed only on mare’s milk and excel all men in justice (Strabo, Geography 7.3.9 [trans. LCL]).

Despite Strabo’s observations, however, he himself sometimes engages in the approach to other peoples and lands which he criticizes, “going beyond all bounds to the realm of myth,” as Strabo calls it (15.1.57). James S. Romm (The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought) provides an excellent survey of how Greeks and Romans viewed those real or imagined peoples at and beyond the edges of the known world.

Quite well-known are the accusations of cannibalism (Thyestan feasts) and incest (Oedipean unions) made by some Greeks, Romans, and others against Christians in the second century (as reflected in the letter written by Christians at Lyons in Gaul [France] to those in Asia Minor [Turkey] in 177 CE). Yet such allegations were part of a common set of stereotypes for describing the “other” (that is, foreign or “barbarian” peoples and groups) that were also used by ancient writers of history and fiction concerning “foreign” religious associations or criminal “lowlife” guilds.

Some Christian authors in later years would draw on the same stockpile of accusations in their fight with other Christians that they considered “heretics” (e.g. Epiphanius on the Phibionites). The same “rituals of atrocity” would be leveled against supposed heretics and “witches” in the middle ages, and most recently recurred in stories about the supposed ritual murders performed among Satanist groups in the 1980s. I am now in the midst of writing a paper that explores such accusations of wildly transgressive rituals and banquets in antiquity (for the Society of Biblical Literature Greco-Roman meals seminar).

Among the more interesting and deliberately shocking accounts in ancient Greek novels is the episode from Lollianos’ (or Lollianus’) A Phoenician Story (Phoenikika - second century CE), which describes a criminal guild of initiates engaging in ritual murder:

Meanwhile another man, who was naked, walked by, wearing a crimson loincloth, and throwing the body of the pais (child or servant) on its back, he cut it up, and tore out its heart and placed it upon the fire. Then, he took up [the cooked heart] and sliced it up to the middle. And on the surface [of the slices] he sprinkled [barley groats] and wet it with oil; and when he had sufficiently prepared them, [he gave them to the] initiates, and those who held (a slice?) [he ordered] to swear in the blood of the heart that they would neither give up nor betray [--------], not [even if they are led off to prison], nor yet if they be tortured
PColon 3328, B 1 Recto, lines 9-16. Translation from Susan A. Stephens and John J. Winkler, Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 338-341.

What might be missed by a modern reader is just how normal this episode would be if not for the fact that the sacrificial victim is human. Greeks and Romans regularly engaged in sacrifices of animals in order to honour their gods, and the procedure described here would not be considered out of the ordinary. The sacrifice was accompanied by a communal meal sharing in portions of the sacrificed animal (including the innards, which were somewhat of a delicacy). Greeks and Romans alike would be utterly shocked and outraged, however, at the idea of a human victim. (The quotation in this post’s title comes from Plutarch’s Life of Cicero 10.4 and speaks of Cicero’s political opponent Cataline and his supposed co-conspirators in the 60s BCE.)

Perhaps this is less bland than my introductory post.

UPDATE: Now you can read a draft of my article that deals with novels and accusations of human sacrifice and cannibalism in the Greco-Roman period here. For further posts on banqueting in the Roman world in this blog, see other entries in the banqueting sub-category.

This blog on the religions of the Roman empire and the social history of Christianity serves two main purposes. On the one hand, it will provide an opportunity for me to share interesting (to me and hopefully to you) things I encounter in my research (I am an assistant professor in the Religion department at Concordia University in Montreal). My own interests focus on archeological and epigraphic (inscriptions) evidence for small groups or associations in the Roman empire and on comparing groups of various kinds (Jewish, Christian, and “pagan”) from a social historical perspective. More recently I have also focused attention on the intersection of travel and religion in antiquity (e.g. pilgrimage, ethnography, immigrant groups). On the other hand, this blog will offer a venue for interactions with students on topics addressed in my courses, which include courses not only on ancient religions but also on the history of Christianity generally.
There are already excellent blogs by academics (us university types) in related areas, including Mark Goodacre’s New Testament Gateway blog, Stephen Carlson’s Hypotyposeis, Jim Davila’s Paleojudaica, Torrey Seland’s Philo of Alexandria blog, David Meadows’ Rogueclassicism, and others. I will consciously avoid covering the ground that is so well covered in those blogs and will concentrate most on issues specific to my own research or on issues raised by my students (both undergrads and graduate students). I plan to make posts about 2 or 3 times a week, but this may change if blog-addiction sets in. I’ll have to come up with something more interesting than this bland introduction soon. Come again.