nd priestess of the city. With them went a herald and the
sacrificer, and two bands of youths and maidens. So holy was the Bull
that nothing unlucky might come near him; the youths and maidens must
have both their parents alive, they must not have been under the
_taboo_, the infection, of death. The herald pronounced aloud a prayer
for "the safety of the city and the land, and the citizens, and the
women and children, for peace and wealth, and for the bringing forth of
grain and of all the other fruits, and of cattle." All this longing for
fertility, for food and children, focuses round the holy Bull, whose
holiness is his strength and fruitfulness.

The Bull thus solemnly set apart, charged as it were with the luck of
the whole people, is fed at the public cost. The official charged with
his keep has to drive him into the market-place, and "it is good for
those corn-merchants who give the Bull grain as a gift," good for them
because they are feeding, nurturing, the luck of the State, which is
their own luck. So through autumn and winter the Bull lives on, but
early in April the end comes. Again a great procession is led forth, the
senate and the priests walk in it, and with them come representatives of
each class of the State--children and young boys, and youths just come
to manhood, _epheboi_, as the Greeks called them. The Bull is
sacrificed, and why? Why must a thing so holy die? Why not live out the
term of his life? He dies because he _is_ so holy, that he may give his
holiness, his strength, his life, just at the moment it is holiest, to
his people.

"When they shall have sacrificed the Bull, let them divide it up
among those who took part in the procession."

The mandate is clear. The procession included representatives of the
whole State. The holy flesh is not offered to a god, it is eaten--to
every man his portion--by each and every citizen, that he may get his
share of the strength of the Bull, of the luck of the State.

* * * * *

Now at Magnesia, after the holy civic communion, the meal shared, we
hear no more. Next year a fresh Bull will be chosen, and the cycle begin
again. But at Athens at the annual "Ox-murder," the _Bouphonia_, as it
was called, the scene did not so close. The ox was slain with all
solemnity, and all those present partook of the flesh, and then--the
hide was stuffed with straw and sewed up, and next the stuffed animal
was set on its feet an