Hecatomb
A hecatomb is a large-scale animal sacrifice offered to a god, literally "a hundred oxen" in origin, though Greek usage did not require a literal count of one hundred so much as a sacrifice on that grand a scale, offered by a whole community rather than a single household.
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In Practice
It appears in Homer as the standard response when a god's anger needs appeasing on a scale beyond an ordinary household offering, or when a whole army or city wants to secure a god's favor before or after a major undertaking. The Iliad's opening books give the clearest example of what a hecatomb accomplishes. After Agamemnon's refusal to ransom the priest Chryses's captured daughter brings a plague down on the Achaean camp, the army eventually agrees to return her, and Odysseus sails to Chryse's shore to deliver both the girl and a hecatomb meant to end Apollo's anger. Chryses prays over the sacrifice, the animals are killed and burned in the proper ritual order, and the assembled men spend the whole day singing a paean to appease the god, after which the plague lifts. The scale of the offering matches the scale of the offense: a plague striking an entire army calls for a communal sacrifice, not a private one. A hecatomb's function throughout Homeric epic is transactional in a way ordinary daily offerings are not; it marks a moment where a god's favor or forgiveness is being sought at a scale proportional to what is being asked or what needs undoing. The word also appears attached to specific months and festivals in later Greek religious calendars, such as Hecatombaion, the first month of the Athenian year, named for the sacrifices traditionally offered then, showing that the practice extended well beyond the epic scenes where modern readers most often encounter the word. The same proportional logic shows up outside epic as well, even where a source does not use the specific word. Herodotus records the Lydian king Croesus sending three thousand sacrificial animals of every kind fit for offering to Apollo's sanctuary at Delphi, a single one-time sacrifice on a scale meant to match the weight of the political question he was about to put to the god. Whether or not a given ancient author reaches for the word "hecatomb" specifically, the underlying idea recurs across Greek religious practice: a request or an offense large enough calls for an offering sized to match it.
What exactly is a hecatomb?
A large-scale animal sacrifice offered to a god, literally meaning "a hundred oxen," though the term describes a sacrifice on that grand a scale rather than requiring an exact count of one hundred animals. It is typically offered by a whole community or army rather than a single household.
Homer, Iliad 1.310-320
Why did the Achaeans offer a hecatomb to Apollo in the Iliad?
Agamemnon's refusal to ransom the priest Chryses's daughter brought a plague down on the whole Achaean army. Once Agamemnon agreed to return her, Odysseus sailed to Chryse's shore with both the girl and a hecatomb meant to end Apollo's anger, and the plague lifted once the sacrifice and the accompanying rites were completed.
Homer, Iliad 1.310-320
What did the ritual around a hecatomb actually involve?
Homer describes the animals being killed and burned in the correct ritual order following Chryses's prayer, after which the assembled men spent the whole day singing a paean, a hymn of praise, to appease Apollo before the fleet sailed back to camp.
Homer, Iliad 1.310-320
Was the hecatomb only used to end a god's anger?
No. While the plague-ending hecatomb to Apollo is the most famous example, the practice was used more broadly whenever a community wanted to secure or thank a god at a scale beyond an ordinary household offering, and the term also names Hecatombaion, the first month of the Athenian religious calendar, marking sacrifices offered on a fixed annual schedule rather than only in response to divine anger.
Does the same proportional idea appear outside Homeric epic?
Yes. Herodotus records the Lydian king Croesus sending three thousand animals of every sacrificial kind to Apollo's sanctuary at Delphi, a single massive offering sized to match the weight of the political question he was about to ask the god, the same logic of matching an offering's scale to the stakes involved that governs Homer's hecatombs, even though Herodotus does not use that specific word for it.
Herodotus, Histories 1.50
Where This Appears
Sources
- Homer, Iliad 1.310-320
- Herodotus, Histories 1.50