oes not notice where he is going.
Behind him comes a crowd of excited but silent people, who watch him
with intense interest. The citizen reaches the steps of the town-hall,
while the excitement of his friends behind increases visibly. Without
thinking, the elderly person enters the building. With a wild and
un-Aryan howl, the other people of Alos are down on him, pinion him,
wreathe him with flowery garlands, and, lead him to the temple of Zeus
Laphystius, or "The Glutton," where he is solemnly sacrificed on
the altar. This was the custom of the good Greeks of Alos whenever a
descendant of the house of Athamas entered the Prytaneion. Of course the
family were very careful, as a rule, to keep at a safe distance from
the forbidden place. "What a sacrifice for Greeks!" as the author of the
Minos(1) says in that dialogue which is incorrectly attributed to Plato.
"He cannot get out except to be sacrificed," says Herodotus, speaking of
the unlucky descendant of Athamas. The custom appears to have existed as
late as the time of the scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius.(2)

(1) 315, c.; Plato, Laws, vi. 782, c.

(2) Argonautica, vii. 197.

Even in the second century, when Pausanias visited Arcadia, he found
what seem to have been human sacrifices to Zeus. The passage is so very
strange and romantic that we quote a part of it.(1) "The Lycaean hill
hath other marvels to show, and chiefly this: thereon there is a
grove of Zeus Lycaeus, wherein may men in nowise enter; but if any
transgresses the law and goes within, he must die within the space of
one year. This tale, moreover, they tell, namely, that whatsoever man
or beast cometh within the grove casts no shadow, and the hunter pursues
not the deer into that wood, but, waiting till the beast comes forth
again, sees that it has left its shadow behind. And on the highest crest
of the whole mountain there is a mound of heaped-up earth, the altar of
Zeus Lycaeus, and the more part of Peloponnesus can be seen from that
place. And before the altar stand two pillars facing the rising sun, and
thereon golden eagles of yet more ancient workmanship. And on this altar
they sacrifice to Zeus in a manner that may not be spoken, and little
liking had I to make much search into this matter. BUT LET IT BE AS IT
IS, AND AS IT HATH BEEN FROM THE BEGINNING." The words "as it hath been
from the beginning" are ominous and significant, for the traditional
myths of Arcadia tell of the human sacrific