Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- The Cambridge History of Violence
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume i
- General Introduction: Violence in World History
- Introduction to Volume I
- Part I The Origins of Conflict
- Part II Prehistoric and Ancient Warfare
- Part III Intimate and Collective Violence
- Part IV Religion, Ritual and Violence
- 21 Ritual Violence and Headhunting in Iron Age Europe
- 22 Ritual Killing and Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East
- 23 Violent Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds
- 24 Combat Sports in Ancient Greece and Rome
- 25 Religious Violence in Late Antiquity
- Part V Violence, Crime and the State
- Part VI Representations and Constructions of Violence
- Index
- References
23 - Violent Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds
from Part IV - Religion, Ritual and Violence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2020
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- The Cambridge History of Violence
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume i
- General Introduction: Violence in World History
- Introduction to Volume I
- Part I The Origins of Conflict
- Part II Prehistoric and Ancient Warfare
- Part III Intimate and Collective Violence
- Part IV Religion, Ritual and Violence
- 21 Ritual Violence and Headhunting in Iron Age Europe
- 22 Ritual Killing and Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East
- 23 Violent Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds
- 24 Combat Sports in Ancient Greece and Rome
- 25 Religious Violence in Late Antiquity
- Part V Violence, Crime and the State
- Part VI Representations and Constructions of Violence
- Index
- References
Summary
Over the course of more than a millennium, the ancient Greeks and Romans put hundreds of millions of animals to death in acts of sacrifice, yet also developed the first vegetarian literature and made animals subject to legal proceedings. This complex situation affected major trends in ancient philosophy, such as Pythagoreanism, and also ancient cosmological concepts. To some degree, philosophy and religious custom clashed with one another, and philosophers and other writers responded by trying to moderate, ignore or avoid this conflict. Missing from the ancient literature is any concept of animal rights. Scholarship on animal sacrifice, much of it fascinated by the subject of sacrificial violence, has given anthropological and zoological explanations for ancient practices, but has not reached a consensus on why sacrifice was widespread, or on how it fitted into ancient paganism as a whole. Recent writing on the rights and status of animals has only begun to influence scholarship.
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- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Violence , pp. 475 - 492Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
References
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