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The Latins called a victim that which in great calamities, where God seemed to be especially enraged, was offered to appease God's wrath, a piaculum; and they sometimes sacrificed human victims, perhaps because they had heard that a human victim would appease God for the entire human race. The Greeks sometimes called them katharmata and sometimes peripsehmata.
In that case the gods, as it were, have the upper hand in the contract and are not obliged to fulfil their share, but the man can set himself right again by the offering of a piaculum, which may take the form either of an additional sacrifice or a repetition of the original rite.
Smith's argument is mainly devoted to illustrating the ancient conception of blood-kinship between gods, men, and beasts. Thus, he concludes, the expiatory power lies in the sharing of animal flesh. Here the theory is confronted by the holocaust and the piaculum, expiatory sacrifices in which there is no communal eating.
In another place he says, "Θύειν χρὴ ἀνυπόδετον, ϗαι πρὸς τα ἱερὰ προστιέναι," We must sacrifice and enter temples with the shoes off. Ibid. c. 85. "Quod etiam nunc apud plerasque Orientis nationes piaculum sit, calceato pede templorum pavimenta calcasse." Beth Habbechirah, cap. vii. Histor. Landm. vol. ii. p. 481. "Non datur nobis potestas adeundi templum nisi nudibus pedibus."
Quod est ante pedes, nemo spectat: caeli scrutantur plagas. III. XII. Irreligious Spirit In the -Telephus- we find him saying -Palam mutire plebeio piaculum est. III. XIII. Luxury The following verses, excellent in matter and form, belong to the adaptation of the -Phoenix- of Euripides: -Sed virum virtute vera vivere animatum addecet, Fortiterque innoxium vocare adversum adversarios.
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