[101] Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, pp. 650, 1032 sqq.
[102] Du Boys, Histoire du droit criminel des peuples modernes, ii. 402. Idem, Histoire du droit criminel de l’Espagne, pp. 357, 359. Cf. ibid. p. 635 sq.
In a society which is divided into different classes, persons belonging to a higher class are naturally apt to sympathise more with their equals than with their inferiors. An injury inflicted on one of the former tends to arouse in them a higher degree of sympathetic resentment than a similar injury inflicted on one of the latter. So, also, their resentment towards the criminal will, ceteris paribus, be more intense if he is a person of low rank than if he is one of themselves. Where the superior class, as was originally the case everywhere, are the leaders of such a society, their feelings will find expression in its customs and laws, and thus moral distinctions will arise which are readily recognised by the common people also, owing to the admiration with which they look up to those above them. But in a progressive society this state of things will not last. The different classes gradually draw nearer to each other. The once all-powerful class loses much of its exclusiveness, as well as of its importance and influence. Sympathy expands. In consequence, distinctions which were formerly sanctioned by custom and law come to be regarded as unjust prerogatives, worthy only of abolition. And it is at last admitted that each member of the society is born with an equal claim to the most sacred of all human rights, the right to live.
CHAPTER XIX
HUMAN SACRIFICE
IT still remains for us to consider some particular cases in which destruction of human life is sanctioned by custom or law.
Men are killed with a view to gratifying the desires of superhuman beings. We meet with human sacrifice in the past history of every so-called Aryan race.[1] It occurred, at least occasionally, in ancient India, and several of the modern Hindu sects practised it even in the last century.[2] There are numerous indications that it was known among the early Greeks.[3] At certain times it prevailed in the Hellenic cult of Zeus;[4] indeed, in the second century after Christ men seem still to have been sacrificed to Zeus Lycæus in Arcadia.[5] To the historic age likewise belongs the sacrifice of the three Persian prisoners of war whom Themistocles was compelled to slay before the battle of Salamis.[6] In Rome, also, human sacrifices, though exceptional, were not unknown in historic times.[7] Pliny records that in the year 97 B.C. a decree forbidding such sacrifices was passed by the Roman Senate,[8] and afterwards the Emperor Hadrian found it necessary to renew this prohibition.[9] Porphyry asks, “Who does not know that to this day, in the great city of Rome, at the festival of Jupiter Latiaris, they cut the throat of a man?”[10] And Tertullian states that in North Africa, even to the proconsulship of Tiberius, infants were publicly sacrificed to Saturn.[11] Human sacrifices were offered by Celts,[12] Teutons,[13] and Slavs;[14] by the ancient Semites[15] and Egyptians;[16] by the Japanese in early days;[17] and, in the New World, by the Mayas[18] and, to a frightful extent, by the Aztecs. “Scarcely any author,” says Prescott in his ‘History of the Conquest of Mexico,’ “pretends to estimate the yearly sacrifices throughout the empire at less than twenty thousand, and some carry the number as high as fifty thousand.”[19] The same practice is imputed by Spanish writers to the Incas of Peru, and probably not without good reason.[20] Before their rule, at all events, it was of frequent occurrence among the Peruvian Indians.[21] It also prevailed, or still prevails, among the Caribs[22] and some North American tribes;[23] in various South Sea islands, especially Tahiti and Fiji;[24] among certain tribes in the Malay Archipelago;[25] among several of the aboriginal tribes of India;[26] and very commonly in Africa.[27]
[1] See Hehn, Wanderings of Plants and Animals from their First Home, p. 414 sqq.
[2] Weber, Indische Streifen, i. 54 sqq. Wilson, ‘Human Sacrifices in the Ancient Religion of India,’ in Works, ii. 247 sqq. Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 363 sqq. Barth, Religions of India, p. 57 sqq. Monier Williams, Brāhmanism and Hindūism, p. 24. Hopkins, Religions of India, pp. 198, 363. Rájendralála Mitra, Indo-Aryans, ii. 69 sqq. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, ii. 167 sqq. Chevers, Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India, p. 396 sqq.
[3] See Geusius, Victimæ Humanæ, passim; von Lasaulx, Sühnofper der Griechen und Römer, passim; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 41 sq.; Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer, p. 114 sqq.