On sacred repasts where fish was eaten see Mnaseas, fragment 32 (Fragm. histor. graec., III, 115); cf. Dittenberger, Sylloge, 584: Ἐὰν δέ τις τῶν ἰχθύων ἀποθάνῃ, καρπούσθω αὐθημερὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ, and Diog. Laert., VIII, 34. There were also sacred repasts in the Occident in the various Syrian cults: Cenatorium et triclinium in the temples of Jupiter Dolichenus (CIL, III, 4789; VI, 30931; XI, 696, cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, II, p. 501); promulsidaria et mantelium offered to the Venus Caelestis (CIL, X, 1590); construction of a temple to Malachbel with a culina (CIL, III, 7954). Mention is made of a δειπνοκρίτης, δείπνοις κρείνας πολλὰ μετ' εὐφροσύνης, in the temple of the Janiculum (Gauckler, C.R. Acad. Inscr., 1907, p. 142; Bolletino communale, 1907, pp. 15 ff.). Cf. Lagrange, Religions sémitiques, II, p. 609, and Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Gad."
[38]. W. Robertson Smith, pp. 292 ff.
[39]. An inscription discovered at Kefr-Hauar (Fossey, Bull. corr. hell., 1897, p. 60) is very characteristic in this respect. A "slave" of the Syrian goddess in that inscription offers his homage to his "mistress" (κυρία).
[40]. Notably at Aphaca where they were not suppressed until the time of Constantine (Eusebius, Vit. Const., III, 55; cf. Sozom., II, 5).
[41]. Much has been written about the sacred prostitutions in paganism, and it is well known that Voltaire ridiculed the scholars who were credulous enough to believe in the tales of Herodotus. But this practice has been proven by
irrefutable testimony. Strabo, for instance, whose great-uncle was arch-priest of Comana, mentions it in connection with that city, (XII, 3, 36, p. 559 C), and he manifests no surprise. The history of religion teaches many stranger facts; this one, however, is disconcerting. The attempt has been made to see in it a relic of the primitive promiscuity or polyandry, or a persistence of "sexual hospitality," ("No custom is more widely spread than the providing for a guest a female companion, who is usually a wife or daughter of the host," says Wake, Serpent Worship, 1888, p. 158); or the substitution of union with a man for union with the god (Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., p. 915). But these hypotheses do not explain the peculiarities of the religious custom as it is described by more reliable authors. They insist upon the fact that the girls were dedicated to the temple service while virgins, and that after having had strangers for lovers, they married in their own country. Thus Strabo (XI, 14, § 16, p. 532 C.) narrates in connection with the temple of Anaitïs in Acilisena, that θυγατέρας οἱ ἐπιφανέστατοι τοῦ ἔθνους ἀνιεροῦσι παρθένους, αἴς νόμος ἐστὶ καταπορνευθείσαις πολὺν χρόνον παρὰ τῇ θεῷ μετὰ ταῦτα δίδοσθαι πρὸς γάμον, οὐκ ἀπαξιοῦντος τῇ τοιαύτῃ συνοικεῖν οὐδενός. Herodotus (I, 93), who relates about the same thing of the Lydian women, adds that they acquired a dowry in that manner; an inscription at Tralles (Bull. corr. hell., VII, 1885, p. 276) actually mentions a descendant of a sacred prostitute (ἐκ προγόνων παλλακίδων) who had temporarily filled the same office (παλλακεύσασα κατὰ χρησμὸν Διί). Even at Thebes in Egypt there existed a similar custom with striking local peculiarities in the time of Strabo (XVII, 1, § 46), and traces of it seem to have been found in Greece among the Locrians (Vurtheim, De Aiacis origine, Leyden, 1907). Every Algerian traveler knows how the girls of the Ouled-Naïl earn their dowry in the ksours and the cities, before they go back to their tribes to marry, and Doutté (Notes sur l'Islam maghrébien, les Marabouts, Extr. Rev. hist. des relig., XL-XLI, Paris, 1900), has connected these usages with the old Semitic prostitution, but his thesis has been attacked and the historical circumstances of the arrival of the Ouled-Naïl in Algeria in the eleventh century render it very doubtful (Note by Basset).—It seems certain (I do not know whether this explanation has ever been offered)
that this strange practice is a modified utilitarian form of an ancient exogamy. Besides it had certain favorable results, since it protected the girl against the brutality of her kindred until she was of marriageable age, and this fact must have insured its persistence; but the idea that inspired it at first was different. "La première union sexuelle impliquant une effusion de sang, a été interdite, lorsque ce sang était celui d'une fille du clan versé par le fait d'un homme du clan" (Salomon Reinach, Mythes, cultes, I, 1905, p. 79. Cf. Lang, The Secret of the Totem, London, 1905.) Thence rose the obligation on virgins to yield to a stranger first. Only then were they permitted to marry a man of their own race. Furthermore, various means were resorted to in order to save the husband from the defilement which might result from that act (see for inst., Reinach, Mythes, cultes, I, p. 118).—The opinion expressed in this note was attacked, almost immediately after its publication, by Frazer (Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 1907, pp. 50 ff.) who preferred to see in the sacred prostitutions a relic of primitive communism. But at least one of the arguments which he uses against our views is incorrect. Not the women, but the men, received presents in Acilisena (Strabo, loc. cit.) and the communistic theory does not seem to account for the details of the custom prevailing in the temple of Thebes. There the horror of blood clearly appears. On the discovery of a skull (having served at a rite of consecration) in the temple of the Janiculum, see the article cited above, "Dea Syria," in Dict. des antiquités.
[42]. Porphyry, De Abstin., II, 56; Tertull., Apol., 9. Cf. Lagrange, op. cit., p. 445.
[43]. Even in the regions where the cities developed, the Baal and the Baalat always remained the divinities πολιοῦχοι, the protectors of the city which they were supposed to have founded.
[44]. Le Bas-Waddington, 2196.—Suidas, s. v. Φυλάρχης (II, 2, col. 1568, Bernhardy). Cf. Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, I, p. 405, 409.