¹ SEG ix 4. For the best text see Meiggs, R. and Lewis, D., A selection of Greek historical inscriptions (Oxford 1988) 5–9Google Scholar no. 5; for additional bibliography see below nn. 4–6.

² Hirzel, R., Der Eid: Ein Beitrag zu seiner Geschichte (Leipzig 1902) 137–44Google Scholar, Latte, K., Heiliges Recht (Tübingen 1920) 61–88Google Scholar and Plescia, J., The oath and perjury in ancient Greece (Tallahassee 1970) 9–13Google Scholar, discuss the very close relationship between Greek forms of interpersonal execration and self-imprecations in oaths, i.e. it was customary at an oath ceremony to wish conditionally upon your own head the same punishment that you unconditionally called down upon the heads of your enemies.

³ Meiggs and Lewis (n. 1 ) no. 5 lines 44–49. The translation is that of Graham, A.J., Colony and mother city in ancient Greece ² (Manchester 1983) 226.Google Scholar I use the traditional terms ‘sympathetic’ and ‘sympathetically’ advisedly throughout this article. Tambiah, S.J., ‘Form and meaning of magical acts: a point of view’ in Horton, R. and Finnegan, R. (edd.) Modes of thought (London 1973) 199–229Google Scholar, dismisses the common view that ‘sympathetic magic’ is based on poor observation of empirical analogies. He distinguishes instead between the operation of ‘empirical analogies’ (used in modern scientific discourse to predict future actions) and ‘persuasive analogies’ (used in rituals in traditional societies to encourage future action). Such rituals do not betray inferior observation skills, but rather they reveal a profound belief in the extraordinary power of language. Cf. Lloyd, G.E.R., Magic, reason and experience (Cambridge 1979) 2–3 and 7.Google Scholar The terms ‘magic’ and ‘magical’ are likewise problematic and are used with similar caution; see my discussion below (pp. 77–78) on the Frazerian dichotomy between ‘religion’ and ‘magic’ and its general inapplicability to rituals used in pre-Christian, polytheistic societies.

⁴ For the relationship of this ceremony to that described in later poetic texts like Theoc. 2.28–29 and V. Ecl. 8.75–80, see, e.g., Nock, A.D., ‘A curse from Cyrene’, ARW xxiv (1926) 172–73Google Scholar, who suggests (contrary to the view that will be argued here) that ‘such a proceeding is altogether different from the symbolic acts which often accompany an oath’. For the older arguments that the oath is a fourth-century fraud, see the bibliographic note in Meiggs and Lewis (n. 1) ad loc.

⁵ For the careful, ground-breaking study of this inscription, its independence from the account of Herodotus (iv 145–59) and the archaic date of the oath, see Graham, A. J., ‘The authenticity of the ὃρκιον τῶν οί κιδτήρων’ JHS lxxx (1960) 95–111.Google Scholar For the current consensus on this interpretation, see: Jeffrey, L., ‘The pact of the first settlers of Cyrene’, Historia x (1961) 139–47Google Scholar; Oliver, J.H., ‘Herodotus 4.153 and SEG IX.3’, GRBS vii (1966) 25–29Google Scholar; Meiggs and Lewis (n. 1) ad loc.; and Murray, O., Early Greece (Stanford 1983) 113–19.Google Scholar

⁶ Dušanić, S., ‘The ΟΡΚΙΝ ΤΩΝ ΟΙΚΙΣΤΗΡΩΝ and fourth-century Cyrene,’ Chiron viii (1978) 55–76.Google Scholar

⁷ Ibid. 62–63.

⁸ The best general discussions of wax effigies used in Egyptian ritual are Raven, M.J., ‘Wax in Egyptian magic and symbolism’, OMRO lxiv (1983) 7–47Google Scholar, and Ritner, R.K., The mechanics of ancient Egyptian magical practice (Chicago 1993) 111–180.Google Scholar For the influence of Egyptian execration ceremonies on the Greeks, see Burkert, W., The orientalizing revolution: Near Eastern influence on Greek culture in the early archaic age, trans. Pinder, M.E. and Burkert, W. (Cambridge, MA 1992) 191 n. 27Google Scholar, Faraone, C.A., Talismans and Trojan horses: Guardian statues in ancient Greek myth and ritual (Oxford 1992) 74–93.Google Scholar

⁹ The translation is by F. Rosenthal, ANET pp. 659–60. For dating, detailed discussion and bibliography, see: Fitzmyer, J.A., The Aramaic inscriptions of Sefire (Biblica et Orientalia xix Rome 1967) 52–58Google Scholar; McCarthy 98–104; Rössler, O., TUAT i 3 pp. 178–89Google Scholar; and Lemaire, A. and Durand, J.-M., Les inscriptions araméennes de Sfiré et l'Assyrie de Shamshi-ilu (Geneva 1984).Google ScholarPicard, C., ‘Le rite magique des eidôla de cire brûlés, attesté sur trois stèles araméennes de Sfiré’, RevArch (1961) 85–88Google Scholar, suggests that the Sefire inscription provides a model for understanding the use of wax effigies in Hellenistic Greek erotic magic, but he does not mention the wax kolossoi in the Theran oath. To my knowledge Burkert (n. 8) 68, was the first to argue that the rituals in the Theran and Sefire oaths were related to one another.

¹⁰ Lemaire and Durand (n. 9) and Parpola, S. and Watanabe, K., State archives of Assyria ii: Neo-Assyrian treaties and loyalty oaths (Helsinki 1988) xxvii–xxviiiGoogle Scholar, argue plausibly that the Aramaic treaty is in fact a copy of an extant Akkadian treaty (see below n. 26) between the same Matti'el (Mati'ilu in Akkadian) and the Assyrian king Assurnerari V, who they equate with the mysterious overlord Barga'yah of the as yet unidentified kingdom called ‘KTK’.

¹¹ Wiseman, D.J., ‘The vassal treaties of Esarhaddon’, Iraq xxii (1958) 1–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; E. Reiner, ANET pp. 534–40; Borger, R., TUAT i 2 pp. 160–76Google Scholar; and most recently Parpola and Watanabe (n. 10) 28–58, who refer to it as ‘Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty’ because it seems that all of the king's subjects, not just the vassal kings, had to take the oath. As Reiner (ibid. p. 539) suggests in her translation of line 72, the ‘they’ in the text probably refers to the gods who are mentioned individually and collectively earlier in the long list of curses.

¹² E.g. Maqlû 1.73–121; 135–43; 2. 75–102; 146–47. Meier, G., Die assyrische Beschwörungssammlung Maqlû, Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft ii (Berlin 1937)Google Scholar, re-edits the text and supplies a translation and a good bibliography up to that date. See also Lambert, W.G., ‘An incantation of the Maqlû type’, AfO xviii (1957–1958) 288–99Google Scholar, esp. 297, where images of wood, fat, wax and dough are burned. For the most recent work on Maqlû see Abusch, T., ‘Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft literature: texts and studies: Part 1: The nature of Maqlû’, JNES xxxiii (1974) 251–62Google Scholar, and idem, Babylonian witchcraft literature: Case studies (Atlanta 1987) 13–41.

¹³ Maqlû 2.146–57, translated by Hillers (n. 60) 21. This particular rite and the Hittite ceremony discussed in note 18 were designed as a counter measure to protect someone from the attacks of other practitioners of magic.

¹⁴ KBo VI 34.40-rev. 5. It is a ‘New Script’ copy (1350–1200 BC) of a Middle Hittite (1450–1350 BC) text. For translation and commentary, see: Friedrich, J., ‘Der hethitische Soldateneid’, ZA xxxv (1924) 161–92Google Scholar; A. Goetze, ANET p. 353; and most recently Oettinger, N., Die militärischen Eide der Hethiter, Studien zu den Bogazköy-Texten xxii (Wiesbaden 1976) 6–17Google Scholar (translation) and 75–76 (discussion of self-imprecations). I should like to thank Dr. R. Beal for his general advice on Hittite materials, and in particular for his assistance with regard to this text and that discussed below in n. 17.

¹⁵ Oettinger, ibid. 29 n. 31, cites a new parallel and argues that Goetze's tentative reading ‘on a pan’ can now be replaced with ‘in die offene Flamme’.

¹⁶ Like the Assyrians, they employed clay, wax, tallow, dough and wooden effigies to restrain or injure their adversaries, both public and private. See Goetze, A. and Sturtevant, E. H., The Hittite ritual of Tunnawi (New Haven 1938) 72–75Google Scholar, and Engelhard, D.H., Hittite magical practices: an analysis (Diss. Brandeis 1970) 172–78Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Goetze and Sturtevant (n. 16) 78, for this translation. The key verb shallanu, ‘to make flat’ is also used in another recipe (KBo VI 34 I 41–42) to describe the effect on wax and tallow effigies placed in a cooking pot, prompting Friedrich (n. 14) 162–63, to suggest ‘she melts them and says “let them melt”’ (the emphasis is mine) as a better translation.

¹⁸ A tiny fragment of Sophocles' lost play Rhizotomoi—κόρον ἀἴστώσας πυρί (fr. 536 Radt)—may reveal a related bit of fifth-century magical lore, as it seems to refer to the destruction of a puppet or a doll (koron) by fire, presumably for some nefarious purpose. There is, however, no agreement as to the context or meaning of the fragment, and other readings have been proposed (e.g. κηρόν, κόραν or κόρην). For discussion see: Kuhnert (n. 20) 56; Pearson, A.C., The fragments of Sophocles ii (Cambridge 1917) 172–77Google Scholar; and Radt ad loc.

¹⁹ For the more recent finds from the Ceramicus which date to C. 400 BC, see Faraone, C.A., ‘Binding and burying the sources of evil: the defensive use of “voodoo dolls” in ancient Greece’, CA x (1991) 201 nos. 5 and 6Google Scholar; for the apparent interchangeability of lead and wax in other Greek execration rites see idem ‘The agonistic context of early Greek binding spells’ in Faraone, C.A. and Obbink, D. (edd.) Magika hiera: Ancient Greek magic and religion (Oxford 1991) 7.Google Scholar

²⁰ For the use of burning spells in Theocritus, Vergil, Horace and the Greek magical papyri, see Kuhnert, E., ‘Feuerzauber’, RhM xlix (1894) 37–58Google Scholar; Nock (n. 4), Picard (n. 9), Tavenner, E., ‘The use of fire in Greek and Roman love magic’ in Studies in honor of F. W. Shipley (St. Louis 1942) 17–37Google Scholar and Faraone, C.A., ‘Hermes without the marrow: another look at a puzzling magical spell’, ZPE lxxii (1988) 281–82.Google Scholar

²¹ Merkelbach, , ‘Ein Orakel des Apollon für Artemis von Koloe’, ZPE lxxxviii (1991) 70–72Google Scholar, and Graf, F., ‘An oracle against pestilence for a western Anatolian town’, ZPE xcii (1992) 267–79Google Scholar discuss a second-century AD oracular response that seems to predict that Artemis will cure the plague by melting waxen images with her torches (lines 7–9): πήματα καὶ λοίμοιο βροτοφθόρα φάρμα[κ]α λύσει λαμπάσι πυρσοφόροις…μάγματα κηροῦ τηἴξασα.

²² Phrynichus and Aeschylus call the object of the burning-ritual a δαλός (lit. ‘fire-brand’ or ‘torch’), while Bacchylides calls it a φιτρός (lit. ‘branch’ or ‘torch’). Jebb, R.C., Bacchylides: the poems and fragments (Cambridge 1905) 468–73Google Scholar, discusses in detail the different versions of the myth.

²³ In both Greece and the Near East the ‘strong oath’ or the ‘great oath’ is regularly accompanied by such sympathetically activated curses; see Weinfeld, M., ‘Covenant terminology in the ancient Near East and its influence on the West’, JAOS xciii (1973) 198 n. 108.Google Scholar The scholarly discussion of the torch in Near Eastern oaths is focused on the description of the torch in the covenant oath in Genesis 15 (below, n. 49) and on passing references in the Šurpu documents (like Maqlû, a series of Neo-Assyrian magical rituals) to a curse which befalls someone after ‘holding a torch and taking an oath’ (3.93); for translation and commentary, see Reiner, E., Šurpu, Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft xi (1958)Google Scholarad loc. This appears to have been a conditional self-curse of the type under discussion since it is mentioned in tandem with the more familiar ‘oath sworn by slaughtering a sheep and touching the wound’, Šurpu 3.35); see Weinfeld, M., ‘The covenant of grant in the Old Testament and the ancient Near East’ JAOS xc (1970) 196 for discussion.Google Scholar

²⁴ Many of these parallels were pointed out at the beginning of the century; see: Farnell, L.R., Babylon and Greece (Edinburgh 1911) 243–48Google Scholar; Frazer, J.G., Folklore in the Old Testament i (London 1919) 391–428Google Scholar; and Harrison, J., Prolegomena to the study of Greek religion ³ (Cambridge 1922) 64–67.Google Scholar

²⁵ The translation is by E. Reiner, ANET pp. 532–33; see Borger, R., TUAT i 2 pp. 155–57Google Scholar for a German translation and commentary. Fitzmyer (n.9), Lemaire and Durand (n. 9), and Parpola and Watanabe (n. 10) discuss the close parallels between this text and the Sefire inscription.

²⁶ See, e.g. Thuc. v 47.8, [Dem.] lix 60, Ant. v 12, And. i 97–98. Nilsson, M.P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion i ³ (Munich 1967) 139–40Google Scholar and Burkert 251–52 provide the basic discussions. The expression καθ᾿ ἱερῶν τελείων, which LSJ s.v. ‘κατά’ A ii 4 and Burkert 445–46 n. 21 render as ‘over perfect victims’, seems to indicate that a regular burnt-sacrifice was in progress. This assumption is apparently based on the allegedly universal distinction between sphagia and hiera in the classical period; one must, however, exercise caution as the latter, usually used to refer to an animal victim in a do ut des sacrifice, is nonetheless employed four times by Herodotus and once by Thucydides in descriptions of battlefield sphagia; see Pritchett, W.K., Greek state at war iii (Berkeley 1971) 114.Google Scholar For a similar crossover between the terminology used for burnt and unbumt sacrifice in Near Eastern oaths, see McCarthy 193–96.

²⁷ One Assyrian Šurpu text, for instance, mentions an oath sworn while touching the wound of a slaughtered sheep (n. 23).

²⁸ Stengel, P., Opfergebrache der Griechen (Leipzig 1910) 77–78.Google Scholar

²⁹ For a general discussion of sphagia see Burkert 59–60, who suggests that they are limited to battle and burial rituals; for a survey of the former, see Pritchett (n. 26) 109–115 and Jameson, M.H., ‘Sacrifice before battle’, in Hanson, V.D. (ed.), Hoplites: the classical Greek battle experience (London 1991) 197–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁰ See for example in the Xenophon passage (ὤμοσαν σφάξαντες ταῦρον…βάπτοντες ξίφος) or the oath of the Molossians (discussed below, p. 73), in which the curse is spoken as they cut up the bull into small bits (βοῦν κατακόπτοντες εἰς μικρὰ ὲπαρῶνται). At Aeschines ii 87, a curse is again uttered while the victim is cut up (τέμνοντας τὰ τόμια…ὲξορκίζεσθαι), a scenario which suggests itself for the oath-sacrifice in a lacunose passage in Alcaeus fr. 129. 14–15 LP (ἀπώμνυμεν τόμοντες), for which see my discussion below.

³¹ For the image of the earth wet with gore in other oath-curses, compare the wording of the oath of the Greeks and Trojans Il. iii 300: ὥδε σφ᾿ ἐγκέφαλος χαμάδις ῥέοι ὡς ὅδε οἰνος; discussed in detail in the third section of this paper) and a newly edited Hittite oath (n. 53), where wine is spilled on the ground and the officiating priest says. ‘… in this way may the earth swallow your blood’.

³² Zuntz, G., The political plays of Euripides (Manchester 1955) 71–78Google Scholar, discusses the passage in detail, pointing out many parallels between the language of the treaty and that of historical treaties, although he concedes that actual fifth-century agreements between Athens and Argos were mutual and therefore fundamentally different from the oath of Adrastus, which he aptly describes as a ‘one-sided promise never to war against a benefactor’.

³³ Lines 1208–9: φόβον γὰρ αὺτοῖς, ἤν ποτ᾿ ἔλθωσιν πόλιν, δειχθεῖσα θήσει καὶ κακὸν νόστον πάλιν. Euripides uses κακὸν νόστον and similar phrases (e.g. πικρὸν νόστον) as a euphemism for violence; see, e.g., the threats in Heracl. 1042–43 or Phoen. 949–50. In the Supplices, he underscores the parallel between the spoken self-curse and the threat of the knife by expressing the condition for the knife's reappearance (ἤν ποτ᾿ ἔλθωσιν πόλιν at end of line 1208) in language that very closely echoes the wording of the conditional self-imprecation (ἤν δ᾿ ὅρκον ἐκλιπόντες ἕλθωσιν πόλιν at end of line 1194). Indeed, I would argue that Euripides has hit upon a striking image to illustrate the triggering of a conditional oath-curse: the knife (= the curse) lies harmless unless a violation of the oath (an attack on Athens) causes its reappearance.

³⁴ The text is preserved on the so-called ‘Stele of Acharnae’. Although the historicity of this oath has been roundly denied by nearly all historians (Herodotus does not mention any oath at Plataea; Theopompus fr. 126 denies it), I adduce it here because many of its features have in fact been modeled on other archaic oaths, such as the Amphictyonic oath (Aesch. ii 39–46) or the one sworn at Thermopylae (Hdt. viii 132.2). If it is a forgery, the author of it went out of his way to imitate earlier Greek conventions and it is hard to believe that he invented such a bizarre curse ritual out of whole cloth. See Tod, M.N., A selection of Greek historical inscriptions ii (Oxford 1948) no. 204 lines 46–51Google Scholar, and Siewert, P., Der Eid von Plataia (Munich 1972) 98–102Google Scholar, for discussion and bibliography.

³⁵ Benveniste, E., ‘L'expression du serment dans la Grèce ancienne’, RHR cxxxv (1947–1948) 92–93Google Scholar, and Siewert (n. 34) adducing as a model the legendary death of Tarpeia at Rome, argue than the soldiers conditionally wish to be crushed by their comrades' shields if they break their oaths of loyalty, an interpretation that assumes that the shields were piled atop the victims with their outer surfaces (i.e. the convex sides) down. It would be a much easier operation to cover the victims by laying the shields with their inner, concave surfaces down; in this way, as in the oath of the Seven, the blood would touch the inside of the shield, and the ominous message would be that the oath-breaker would spill blood on the inner surface of his shield. The wording of the inscription (i.e. the plural sphagia) does not exclude the possibility that the participants swore the oath in smaller groups, each piling their shields over a different, single victim. For a similar reference in an oath-curse to blood touching military equipment, see section 90 of the ‘vassal treaty’ of Esarhaddon (n. 11): ‘Just as this chariot is splattered with blood up to its running boards, so may they (sc. the gods) splatter your chariots in the midst of your enemies with your own blood’.

³⁶ Aristophanes uses μηλοσφαγούσας (Lys. 189 and 196), τά τόμια (186) and τόμιον ὲντεμοίμεθα (192) to refer to the same operation.

³⁷ The term tomia has been variously interpreted as ‘entrails’, ‘testicles’ or simply ‘sliced victims’. The lexica (e.g. Stephanus, LSJ) and Frazer (n. 24) 393, translate the term cautiously as ‘cut-up pieces’ or ‘entrails’. Stengel (n. 28) 80–85 argues that the tomia are the testicles of the animals (i.e. = entoma); his arguments are accepted by Nilsson (n. 26) 149 and Burkert 251, who suggest that an oath sworn in this manner wished castration (and perhaps loss of living children) upon the perjurer. This powerful idea fits in well with the traditional emphasis in Greek curses on the destruction of both the swearer and his offspring. Stengel's thesis, however, depends rather tenuously on the confusion in the scholiasts and lexicographers between the terms tomia and entoma and on a single, difficult passage from Demosthenes (v 39). Although I agree that some sympathetic curse is involved in the employment of tomia, I can see no compelling reason why one must insist on castration as a focus, especially since this specific form of mutilation is never really spelled out in the Greek sources, and is completely unattested in the better documented Near Eastern curses that are discussed here. In any event, it suffices for the discussion that follows that tomia be the severed parts—any parts—of a dead or dying animal.

³⁸ This triad of victims, called trittys or trittoia by the Greeks, is used elsewhere in oaths imbedded in international agreements (e.g. Xen. Anab. ii 2.4 or Plut. Pyrrh. 6; see Stengel [n. 29] 82). The rite is perhaps best known as the Roman suovetaurilia, which is regularly used in purification ceremonies; for the most recent discussion see Scholz, U.W., ‘Suovitaurilia und Solitaurilia’ Philologus cxvii (1973) 6–11Google Scholar, and Versnel, H.S., ‘Sacrificium lustrale: the death of Mettius Fufetius (Livy 1.28)’, Med. Ned. hist. Inst. xxxvii (1975) 101–02.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ath. Pol. 7.1 and 55.5, Pollux viii 86 and Plut. Solon 25.

⁴⁰ Paus, iii 20.9. A similar story is told about an area named ‘Boar's Grave’ at Stenyclerus in Messenia (iv 15.8), where Herakles and the sons of Neleus allegedly swore an oath upon the tomia of a boar. In both instances, Pausanias stresses the fact that the carcasses of the animals were buried on the spot.

⁴¹ For recent translations and commentaries on this poem, see Campbell, D.A., Greek lyric i: Sappho and Alcaeus (Cambridge, MA 1982) 296–99Google Scholar (quoted here), and Meyerhoff, D., Traditioneller Stoff und individuelle Gestaltung: Untersuchungen zu Alkaios und Sappho, (Berlin 1984) 211–22.Google Scholar

⁴² The word horkia originally meant the animal victims used in oaths, see Priest (n. 63). Using the Homeric idiom κατὰ δ᾿ ὅρκια πιστὰ πάτησαν (e.g. Il. iv 157) as a guide, modern commentators usually interpret Alcaeus' phrase in a weak, figurative way to mean simply ‘to trample (i.e. to disregard) the oaths’. Reliance on this parallel, however, weakens the force of the adverb βραἴδίως (‘lightly’ or ‘without serious intent’) which does not appear in the Homeric formula and would have much more point in Alcaeus' poem if it were calling to mind an oath ceremony (like those described above) during which Pittacus actually stepped upon the sacrificial victims without any serious intent to keep his oath. Compare the similarly emphatic use of the adverb ῥᾷον in the description of the perjurer Conon (Dem. liv 39: ῥᾷον ὀμνύναι κἀπιορκεῖν).

⁴³ The sanctuary is the dramatic setting for the poem, and it is usually assumed that these divinities are invoked because it was before them that the oath ritual had been performed; see, e.g. Bowra, C.M., Greek lyric poetry (Oxford 1961) 143.Google Scholar The adjective antiaos employed here as Zeus' epithet literally means ‘opposed to’ or ‘hostile’ (LSJ s.v. i), but when used as a divine epiklesis it is usually translated as ‘of the suppliants’ because it is equated with Zeus' title ‘Hikesios’ in a marginal note on the papyrus that preserves this poem and in Hesychius s.v. antaia. (see eg. LSJ s.v. ii or Campbell, D.A., Greek lyric poetry [London 1967] 294).Google Scholar Recent work on a section of the so-called ‘Cyrenean Cathartic Law’ (SEG ix 72. 111–21) has shown, however, that the Greek word hikesios itself could mean both daemonic attacker or suppliant, a peculiar semantic range that can be paralleled in two words of similar meaning, palamnaios and alastōr; see Faraone (n. 8) 91 nn. 60 and 61 for full bibliography.

⁴⁴ Laws 753d. There are to be three successive rounds of balloting: in the first 300 of the best citizens are selected; this number is reduced in the second round to 100 and to 37 in the third and final round. The ceremony is made more solemn and terrifying at each successive stage and it is significant that the walk through the tomia occurs before the last ballot. Although there is no explicit mention of an oath, I follow Eitrem (n. 45) 38 in my assumption that an oath by the voters is implicit in the description.

⁴⁵ Plutarch mentions in passing that the Boeotians perform a katharmos (‘purificatory rite’), which involves passing through the severed parts of a dog (Mor. 290d), and Apollodorus (iii 13.7) reports that Peleus, after conquering Iolcus, kills queen Astydamia, chops up her body and marches his army through the pieces. The oldest example of this type of ritual is an elaborate Hittite military ceremony for purifying a defeated army with a bisected man, goat, puppy and piglet (KUB xvii 28 iv 45–56). See Eitrem, S., ‘A purificatory rite and some allied rites du passage’, SO xxv (1947) 36–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Masson, O., ‘À propos d'un ritual hittite pour la lustration d'une armée: Le rite de purification par le passage entre les deux parties d'une victime’, RHR cxxxvii (1950) 5–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kümmel, H.M., Ersatzrituale für den hethitischen König (Wiesbaden 1967) 151–52Google Scholar for discussion of the cross-cultural parallels. A somewhat similar ritual was apparently performed by the Persian army (Hdt. vii 39.3) and twice by a Macedonian army after mutiny threatened its solidarity; see: Hellmann, F., ‘Zur Lustration des makedonischen Heeres’ ARW xxix (1931) 202–203Google Scholar; and Pritchett (n. 26) 196–202.

⁴⁶ Fundamental are the studies of Frazer (n. 24), Bickerman, E.J., ‘Couper une alliance’, Archives d'histoire du droit oriental v (1950–1951) 133–56Google Scholar, reprinted and updated in his Studies in Jewish and Christian history i (Leiden 1976) 1–32, and McCarthy passim.

⁴⁷ The translations used here and immediately below are from The Jewish Publication Society, Tanakh: a new translation of the Holy Scriptures (New York 1985).Google Scholar For discussion see Bright, J., Jeremiah (Anchor Bible xxi, Garden City NY 1964) 220–22Google Scholar and Tadmor, H., ‘Treaty and oath in the ancient Near East: an historian's approach’, in Tucker, G.M. and Knight, D.A. (edd.) Humanizing America's iconic book: Society of Biblical Literature centennial addresses 1980 (Chico CA 1982) 136.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Alc. fr. 350 LP; see n. 76 below and Quinn, J.D., ‘Alcaeus 48 (B16) and the fall of Ascalon (604 BC)’, BASOR clxiv (1961) 19–20.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ This passage is usually discussed in tandem with Genesis 15:15–19, where Abraham bisects a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram and a turtledove, and lays the halves opposite one another. When it gets dark, a fire pot and torch (emblems of divinity) pass between the pieces (verses 17–18), indicating Yahweh's agreement to the covenant. See Loewenstamm, S.E., ‘Zur Traditionsgeschichte des Bundes zwischen den Stücken’, VT xviii (1968) 500–506Google Scholar—translated and updated in his Comparative studies in biblical and ancient oriental literatures (Neukirchen-Viuyn 1980) 273–80—and Westermann, C., Genesis 12–36: a commentary, trans. Scullion, J.J. (Minneapolis 1985) 225–28Google Scholar, for detailed discussion and bibliography. Ha, J., Genesis 15 (Berlin 1989) 71–78Google Scholar, has recently argued that the Genesis passage is a late addition which is actually dependent on Jeremiah.

⁵⁰ Gaisford, T., Paroemiographi graeci (Oxford 1836) 126Google Scholar and Schneidewin, F. and Leutsch, E., Corpus paroemiographorum graecorum (Göttingen 1839) 225.Google Scholar

⁵¹ E.g. Archilochus fr. 4. The word is also used in a temple inscription from Thasos to describe cups used in religious ceremony, see LSJ s.v. For κώθων as a cognate to Semitic qtn. ‘vessel’, see Brown, J.P., ‘The Mediterranean vocabulary of the vine’, VT xix (1969) 157Google Scholar, and Rendsburg, G.A., ‘Black Athena: an etymological approach’ in The challenge of ‘Black Athena’, Arethusa Special Issue (1989) 77.Google Scholar Could this particular word have been borrowed in the context of an oath-ritual used in military treaties or loyalty oaths?

⁵² E.g. the Sefire Inscription (‘As this calf is cut up … so may x be cut up’) or the treaty between Ashumerari V and Mati'ilu (‘just as the head of this spring lamb is torn off … so may the head of x be torn off’).

⁵³ KUB xliii 38. See Oettinger (n. 14) 21 lines 17–20 (translation) and 74–75 (commentary). The text is written in the ‘New Script’ and probably dates somewhere from 1350–1200 BC. The peculiar re-identification of the wine (‘This is not wine, it is your blood’) recalls the oath of Mati'ilu ‘This is not the head of a lamb, it is the head of Mati'ilu’.

⁵⁴ There is some confusion over the purpose of the animals, because earlier on in the poem, the lambs are summoned (one each) for Zeus, the sun and the earth (iii 103–104), a locution which is usually taken to mean that they were a form of regular sacrifice to the gods. In the actual description of the oath, however, these same gods (joined by some unidentified chthonic deities) appear only as witnesses (martyrioi) to the oath, a practice which is typical of the Near Eastern oaths and those described by Dictys (i 15; ii 49 and v 10). For the use of three sheep as sphagia in a treaty oath, compare the ceremony prescribed by Athena in Euripides' Supplices 1196–97 (discussed above).

⁵⁵ Edwards, M.W., Homer: poet of the Iliad (Baltimore 1987) 71–77Google Scholar provides the best succinct account of the function and flexibility of Homeric type-scenes.

⁵⁶ Kuhnert (n. 20) 56–57 discusses this passage in connection with the cutting of the hairs in Il. iii 292–301.

⁵⁷ Kirk, G.S., The Iliad: a commentary i (Cambridge 1985) 307–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁸ Prof. M. H. Jameson points out another early use of katatithenai to indicate the careful disposition of an animal carcass in Hesiod's description of Prometheus' notorious arrangement of the portions of the sacrifice at Mecone (Th. 538–40). D'Onofrio, A.M., ‘Korai e kouroi funerari attici’, AION sez. Arch. e Stor. Ant. iv (1982) 158–63Google Scholar, discusses a similarly hieratic use of this verb in Homer, Herodotus and early Greek epigrams.

⁵⁹ E.g. Kirk (n. 57) 308.

⁶⁰ The fear of not being properly buried is expressed most chillingly in Achilles' brutal boast over the dead Lycaon, (Il. xxi 122–27)Google Scholar, which juxtaposes images of the family funeral that will never be and the fishes licking Lycaon's blood and eating his fat. Less graphic is the curse of Teucer quoted above (‘… may he perish far from home and find no grave …’). Hillers, D.R., Treaty curses and the Old Testament prophets (Biblica et Orientalia xvi, Rome 1964) 68–69Google Scholar, gives several examples from Near Eastern oaths, including this stipulation from the ‘vassal treaty’ of Esarhaddon: ‘May he give your flesh to the jackal’ (lines 426–27) or ‘May dogs and pigs eat your flesh’ (451–52). The peculiar Homeric locution βόσιν ἰχθύσιν is, in fact, close to the apparent wording of the oath taken by Zedekiah and the people of Jerusalem (quoted above pp. 19–21): And their corpses shall be food for the birds of heaven and the beasts of the land'. Weinfeld, ‘Covenant of grant” (n. 23) 198 n. 132, suggests that the vultures which eventually eat the split carcases in the account of the covenant oath (Gen. 15:9; see n. 49) are also part of the curse.

⁶¹ The rituals in Iliad iii and xix differ in one way from the Molossian oath: the Homeric ceremonies involve killing the victim(s) with a single blow (i.e. they were sphagia), whereas the Molossians cut up the victim into small pieces reminiscent of the tomia discussed above in the previous section. An early seventeenth-century BC treaty between two North Syrian potentates provides the earliest parallel to the simpler Homeric oath ceremony: ‘Abban placed himself under oath to Yarimlim and had cut the neck of a sheep (saying): (Let me so die) if I take back that which I gave you’. The translation is that of Wiseman, D., ‘Abban and Alalakh’, JCS xii (1958) 129Google Scholar lines 39–42. The text was found in modern Açana in Turkey and concerns the fate of the ancient city of Alalakh which stood on the same spot. See McCarthy 86–92 and Tadmor (n. 47) for its significance in the history of western Semitic oaths. The Romans apparently used a similar method; see, e.g. the following self-curse from a very early Roman-Alban treaty (Livy i 24.8): ‘… si prior defexit publico consilio dolo malo, tum ille Diespiter populum Romanum sic ferito ut ego hunc porcum hic hodie feriam; tantoque magis ferito quanto magis potes pollesque’. The pig is struck dead at the end of the oath with a single blow (porcum saxo silice percussit). For discussion see Latte, K., Römische Religionsgeschichte (Munich 1960) 122 n.4.Google Scholar

⁶² Tsevat, M., ‘The Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian vassal oaths and the prophet Ezekiel’, JBL lxviii (1959) 199–204Google Scholar, Hillers (n. 60) 77–78, and especially Fensham, F. C., ‘Maledictions and benedictions in ancient Near Eastern vassal-treaties and the Old Testament’, ZAW lxxiv (1962) 1–19Google Scholar, who points out that the prophetic books repeatedly use curse language drawn from the conditional self-curses found in Near Eastern treaties.

⁶³ Bickerman (n. 47) and Priest, F., ‘Horkia in the Iliad and consideration of recent theory’, JNES xxiii (1964) 48–56.Google Scholar J. Weinfeld, ‘Covenant terminology’ (n. 23) 196–97, argues that the originators of the expression were the Phoenicians.

⁶⁴ The Amorites at Mari and the Hurrians appear to have sworn oaths using the carcasses of dogs, goats and donkeys, see W. F. Albright, ANET p. 482b; Held, M., ‘Philological notes on the Mari covenant rituals’, BASOR cc (1970) 32–40Google Scholar; McCarthy 91 n. 15; and Tadmor (n. 47) 134 n. 39, who adds an additional example from an Old Babylonian text from Tell al Rimah. The correspondence of a king of Mari (1730–1700 BC) uses the term ‘to kill a donkey-foal’ to mean ‘to conclude a covenant’, see Munn-Rankin, J., ‘Diplomacy in western Asia in the early second millennium BC’, Iraq xviii (1956) 68–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 90–91. The early seventeenth-century oath between Abban and Yarimlim (quoted above in n. 61) also refers to cutting the neck of a sheep during the oath ceremony.

⁶⁵ McCarthy 91–92 and Tadmor (n. 47).

⁶⁶ McCarthy 305.

⁶⁷ See Burkert 251 and 445 n. 8 (parallels in Hittite, Ugaritic, and Aramaic oaths) and n. 12 (in an oath from Dreros). Mendenhall, G.E., ‘Covenant forms in Israelite tradition’, Biblical Archaeologist xvii (1954) 50–76Google Scholar, points out that second-millennium Hittite treaties often contain the same divine witnesses as those cited by the Israelite prophets.

⁶⁸ Polybius apparently preserves a close Greek translation of the Phoenician oath sworn by Hannibal in 213 BC; see Bickerman, E.J., ‘An oath of Hannibal’, TAPA lxxv (1944) 87–102Google Scholar and Barre, M.L., The god-list in the treaty between Hannibal and Philip V of Macedon: a study in light of the ancient Near Eastern treaty tradition (Baltimore 1983)Google Scholar, who discusses the witnesses to the oath on pp. 87–93.

⁶⁹ There is a vast literature on the rise and fall in the popularity of this approach and on its general inadequacy; see, for example, the discussions of: Petterson, O., ‘Magic-Religion: some marginal notes to an old problem’, Ethnos xxii (1957) 109–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goody, J., ‘Religion and ritual: the definition problem’, British Journal of Sociology xii (1961) 142–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Winkelmann, M., ‘Magic: a theoretical reassessment’, Current Anthropology xxiii (1982) 37–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Phillips, C. R. III, ‘The sociology of religious knowledge in the Roman Empire to AD 284’, ANRW ii 16.3 (1986) 2711–32.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ ‘Zeus, … let their brains be spilled upon the ground as this wine is spilled’. At Il. iii 278 and vii 76, the gods invoked during the oath ceremony are called martyroi; see above n. 54 and Plescia (n. 2) 2–3 for discussion and more examples.

⁷¹ Faraone, ‘The agonistic context’ (n. 19) 4–10 and 17–20. In the defixiones, the formulae which lack any divine participation (e.g. ‘I bind so-and-so’ or ‘let so-and-so be bound') are used side by side in an indiscriminate manner with formulae that encourage the gods to help directly (e.g. ‘You Hermes Katochos bind so-and-so’) or those which implicate the gods as witnesses or judges of the curse, but not direct participants (e.g. ‘I bind so-and-so before Hekate Chthonios’).

⁷² See Hirzel (n. 2) for the Greek formula and McCarthy 67 for the Hittite.

⁷³ This is precisely the situation which prompts the oath reported by Xenophon (quoted above), which was sworn by the remnants of the defeated army of Cyrus. See also n. 45 above for discussion of the use of bisected animals in Hittite, Persian and Macedonian military rituals. Nearly all the ancient reports of this ‘purification’ ritual emphasize the divisiveness or low morale of the army prior to the ceremony and suggests that its primary purpose was to restore the solidarity of a defeated or mutinous army before setting out on another expedition; see Versnel (n. 38) 100–108.

⁷⁴ This ceremony and an identical one performed by the members of the Delian League in 478–77 BC (Ath Pol. 23.5 and Plut. Arist. 25.1) are usually interpreted as a special Ionian rite that (following Herodotus' analysis) is expressive of the perpetuity of these agreements; see generally Burkert 251 and (for the Delian League oath alone) Meiggs, R., The Athenian empire (Oxford 1972) 47Google Scholar, and Hammond, N. G. L., Studies in Greek history (Oxford 1973) 330.Google ScholarJacobson, H., ‘The oath of the Delian League’, Philologus cxix (1975) 256–58Google Scholar, has shown, however, that in both instances the sinking iron, like the casting of a stone in Roman oath-curses (Polybius iii 25.6; Plut. Sulla x 6.7) and the sinking of a scroll tied to a stone in a biblical execration ceremony (Jer. 51: 63–64), was more likely the ritual part of a conditional self-curse designed to ensure solidarity.

⁷⁵ Carians and Ionians served as mercenaries to the kings of the Saite dynasty in Egypt (seventh and sixth century BC) and Alcaeus' brother Antimenidas seems to have served in Nebuchadrezzar's army in the early sixth century. See Helm, P., ‘Greeks’ in the Neo-Assyrian Levant and ‘Assyrians’ in early Greek writers (Diss. Univ. of Penn. 1980) 135–60Google Scholar, and Murray (n. 5) 218–23.

⁷⁶ The quasi-historical oaths are preceded by a question mark. For the inclusion here of the Phocaean and Delian League oaths, see Jacobson (n. 74).

⁷⁷ German, H.S., ‘Some types of errors of transmission in the LXX’, VT 3 (1953) 397–400.Google Scholar