Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Pagan World

Sacrifice Among the Greeks and Romans

Although many people see human sacrifice as something that was done by savage, illiterate barbarians, it’s important to recognize that there’s a history of it within classical cultures. While human sacrifice is not something that was done on a regular basis in ancient Greece and Rome, it does appear in the myths and legends of the gods. However, by the time Homer began writing, it appears that the Greeks and Romans were only sacrificing animals, and not human beings. In fact, human sacrifice was banned by senatorial decree around 97 b.c.e.

Artemis and the Deer

Human sacrifice, in the Greek pantheon, is associated with the goddess Artemis. As Agamemnon readied his ships to sail to Troy, he went out hunting and killed a rare stag in a grove sacred to Artemis. As if this wasn’t disrespectful enough, he then bragged about being a better hunter than the goddess herself. Artemis wasn’t one to take this sort of thing lightly, so she calmed the winds, which meant that Agamemnon’s ships weren’t going anywhere at all.

A seer suggested to Agamemnon that the best way to appease Artemis would be to sacrifice the thing that was most valuable to him – so naturally, Agamemnon decided he’d better offer up his daughter Iphigenia for sacrifice. As Iphigenia lay upon the altar, ready to be killed, at the last minute Artemis herself appeared, snatched the girl away, and substituted a deer for sacrifice instead.

Roman Triumphs

In Rome, captured enemies were sometimes killed at the end of a victory triumph, but the Romans do not appear to have considered this sacrifice, perhaps because it was part of a military processional. The best known of these is the death of Vercingetorix, an Arveni chieftain who had worked to unite the Gauls against Caesar. Vercingetorix was eventually captured, and displayed through all of Rome during Caesar’s triumphal parade. There are varied accounts of his death, but he is believed to have been strangled in the Tullianum at the end of the triumph.

The Elderly and Criminals

Both Cicero and Pliny hint that before Rome became “civilized,” human sacrifice was practiced. In particular, it appears that there may have been a tradition of sacrificing very old men in some areas. In addition, because there was a somewhat blurred line between religious law and civil law, in the early years of Rome, someone who committed a criminal act was seen as sacer, which means “given to the gods.” A convicted criminal could be executed because they had broken the oaths that marked a civilized society.

Although ritualized human sacrifice seems to be fairly rare in ancient Greece and Rome, it does appear, and was documented by historians of the time. By the Classical period, it was used as a line of demarcation between “civilized” groups – such as the Greeks or Romans, and “barbarians,” which was essentially everyone else.

Mesoamerican Sacrifice and Ritual

Among the various Mesoamerican groups, the Aztecs and Mayans are perhaps the best-known. Both of these societies saw man’s role in the world as part of a never-ending cycle of destruction and rebirth. Their pantheon of gods was vast and complex, and their deities often demanded bloody, full-scale sacrifice. Keep in mind that while much of what we know about Mesoamerican cultures is based on the writings of the Spanish conquistadores, we also have a primary source in the Popul Vuh, which is a hieroglyphic account of the Quiché Maya.

The Mayan and Aztec peoples believed that they lived in a world that had already been destroyed and recreated several times over. The best way to prevent the next phase of destruction was to keep the gods happy – and they could be appeased with offerings of blood. This was all explained by their mythology, much of which contained some pretty violent and bloody stories. In the Aztec creation myth, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca tore the monster Tlaltecuhtli in half, splitting her into the earth and sky. At night her howls could be heard as she searched for the fresh hearts of men to feed upon, and as long as her hunger was satisfied, the land would continue to be fertile and bountiful.

According to the Popul Vuh, some of the gods would accept gold as a sacrifice, or even slaughtered animals, but human flesh was the most powerful. By the time the Aztec culture was at its peak, tribal warfare was often fought not to just expand territory, but to find new sacrificial offerings. It appears that by around 600-700 c.e. the Aztecs were sacrificing people on a massive scale. At the city of Tenochtitlan, skull racks became a popular accessory in sacrificial halls, to display the heads of dispatched victims.

In Mesoamerica, ritualized killings were a highlight of the various festivals that marked the different points in the agricultural year. It is believed that the rededication of Tenochtitlan’s Great Temple was celebrated with the sacrifice of upwards of 20,000 victims. Some estimates place the number as high as 80,000.

Bernal Diaz de Castillo was a Spanish conquistador who traveled with Hernán Cortés, and wrote about what he had seen on his journeys. He described a visit to the Great Temple after the sacrifice of three Indians, and said, “all of the walls of that shrine were so splashed and caked with blood that they and the floor were black.”

Read More

For additional, more in-depth reading on human sacrifice in the ancient world, check out some of the following:

• Dennis Hughes: Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 1991)
• Miranda Green: Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art (Routledge, 1989)
• Nigel Davies: Human Sacrifice in History and Today (HarperCollins, 1981)
• Lisa Spangenberg: Did the Celts or Druids Perform Human Sacrifice?

Chichen Itza image by Ted Van Pelt via Flickr / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

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