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It is possible, however, that the stranger is one of the immortals who has come down from heaven to visit us; but in this case the gods are departing from their usual practice, for hitherto they have made themselves perfectly clear to us when we have been offering them hecatombs.
Hecatombs of animals would not suffice, or ten thousand rivers of oil; but, if they would, the treasures are not thine: "for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.
Was it to grant masters an indulgence to beat servants with impunity, and an assurance, that if they beat them to death, the offense shall not be capital? This is substantially what commentators tell us. What Deity do such men worship? Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human hecatombs, and snuffing carnage for incense?
They then offered unblemished hecatombs to the immortals, and the wind carried the sweet savour of sacrifice to heaven but the blessed gods partook not thereof, for they bitterly hated Ilius with Priam and Priam's people. Thus high in hope they sat through the livelong night by the highways of war, and many a watchfire did they kindle.
The Aztecs, animated by the most ferocious spirit, carried on a war of extermination, signalizing their triumphs by the sacrifice of hecatombs of captives; while the Incas, although they pursued the game of conquest with equal pertinacity, preferred a milder policy, substituting negotiation and intrigue for violence, and dealt with their antagonists so that their future resources should not be crippled, and that they should come as friends, not as foes, into the bosom of the empire.
The Assyrian tendency to monotheism provoked a kind of fanaticism of which no trace is to be found in Chaldæa. The Ninevite conquerors set themselves to extend the worship of their great national god; they sacrificed by hecatombs the presumptuous enemies who blasphemed the name of Assur.
"All who have not since perished must remember as though it were yesterday or the day before, how the ships of the Achaeans were detained in Aulis when we were on our way hither to make war on Priam and the Trojans. We were ranged round about a fountain offering hecatombs to the gods upon their holy altars, and there was a fine plane-tree from beneath which there welled a stream of pure water.
After every gathering hecatombs of slain male victims mournfully cumber the ground; and one all-conquering fair one, now herself conquered by matrimony and motherhood, wrung from those her charms had blighted the title of "the destroying angel." George Martell was an honest sort of a clod.
Hecatombs of turkeys hung in the poulterers' windows, among sprigs of holly, and shops were bright with children's toys. The briskness of the day had flushed the colour into the faces of the passengers in the street, and the festive air of the imminent holiday was abroad.
Of course she had accepted Lord Ongar, but she had not put out her hand to take all these good things without resolving that she would do her duty to her future lord. The duty would be doubtless disagreeable, but she would do it with all the more diligence on that account. September passed by, hecatombs of partridges were slaughtered, and the day of the wedding drew nigh.
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