De Defectu Oraculorum

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. V. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).

Regarding the rites of the Mysteries, in which it is possible to gain the clearest reflections and adumbrations of the truth about the demigods, let my lips be piously sealed, as Herodotus[*](Herodotus, ii. 171; cf. Moralia, 607 c and 636 d.) says; but as for festivals and sacrifices, which may be compared with ill-omened and gloomy days, in which occur the eating of raw flesh, rending of victims, fasting, and beating of breasts, and again in many places scurrilous language at the shrines, and

  1. Frenzy and shouting of throngs in excitement
  2. With tumultuous tossing of heads in the air,[*](Pindar, Frag. 208 (ed. Christ). Cf.Moralia, 623 b and 706 e.)
I should say that these acts are not performed for any god, but are soothing and appeasing rites for the averting of evil spirits. Nor is it credible that the gods demanded or welcomed the human sacrifices of ancient days, nor would kings and generals have endured giving over their children and submitting them to the preparatory rites and cutting their throats to no purpose save that they felt they were propitiating and offering satisfaction to the wrath and sullen temper of some harsh and implacable avenging deities, or to the insane and imperious passions of
some who had not the power or desire to seek satisfaction in a natural and normal way. But as Heracles laid siege to Oechalia for the sake of a maiden,[*](Iolê; cf. e.g. Sophocles, Trachiniae, 475-478.) so powerful and impetuous divinities, in demanding a human soul which is incarnate within a mortal body, bring pestilences and failures of crops upon States and stir up wars and civil discords, until they succeed in obtaining what they desire. To some, however, comes the opposite; for example, when I was spending a considerable time in Crete, I noted an extraordinary festival being celebrated there in which they exhibit the image of a man without a head, and relate that this used to be Molus,[*](A son of Deucalion.) father of Meriones, and that he violated a young woman; and when he was discovered, he was without a head.