ty through
his red baptism.

Although the origin of this sacrifice that took place in the mysteries of
Cybele at Rome is as yet shrouded in obscurity, recent discoveries enable
us to trace back {67} very closely the various phases of its development.
In accordance with a custom prevalent in the entire Orient at the beginning
of history, the Anatolian lords were fond of pursuing and lassoing wild
buffalos, which they afterwards sacrificed to the gods. Beasts caught
during a hunt were immolated, and frequently also prisoners of war.
Gradually the savagery of this primitive rite was modified until finally
nothing but a circus play was left. During the Alexandrian period people
were satisfied with organizing a _corrida_ in the arena, in the course of
which the victim intended for immolation was seized. This is the proper
meaning of the terms taurobolium and criobolium ([Greek: taurobolion,
kriobolion.]), which had long been enigmas,[34] and which denoted the act
of catching a steer or a ram by means of a hurled weapon, probably the
thong of a lasso. Without doubt even this act was finally reduced to a mere
sham under the Roman empire, but the weapon with which the animal was slain
always remained a hunting weapon, a sacred boar spear.[35]

The ideas on which the immolation was based were originally just as
barbarous as the sacrifice itself. It is a matter of general belief among
savage peoples that one acquires the qualities of an enemy slain in battle
or of a beast killed in the chase by drinking or washing in the blood, or
by eating some of the viscera of the body. The blood especially has often
been considered as the seat of vital energy. By moistening his body with
the blood of the slaughtered steer, the neophyte believed that he was
transfusing the strength of the formidable beast into his own limbs.

This naive and purely material conception was soon {68} modified and
refined. The Thracians brought into Phrygia, and the Persian magi into
Cappadocia, the fast spreading belief in the immortality of mankind. Under
their influence, especially under that of Mazdaism, which made the mythical
steer the author of creation and of resurrection, the old savage practice
assumed a more spiritual and more elevated meaning. By complying with it,
people no longer thought they were acquiring the buffalo's strength; the
blood, as the principle of life, was no longer supposed to renew physical
energy, but to cause a temporary or even a