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ANGELIKI PETROPOULOU

Hellenic Open University at Patras

The altar (bōmos), usually a simple block of stone with a flat upper surface, was an essential feature of ancient Greek religious practice. Altars were raised in temenē (sing. temenos, a sacred space “cut off” from the profane), sanctuaries, and other contexts. On them the Greeks offered their gods and HEROES burnt‐animal SACRIFICE and/or other offerings. The raising of altars, beside which DEDICATIONS were occasionally placed, or their violation through sacrilegious or impious acts, receive special mention in Herodotus’ Histories. Extravagant altars and incense offerings, or the absence of altars for burnt‐animal sacrifice among foreign peoples, are features of the “other.”

AMASIS, king of EGYPT, granted Greek sailors who did not wish to settle in NAUCRATIS plots of land where they could establish altars and temenē for the gods (2.178). When POLYCRATES’ death was reported, MAEANDRIUS (II) built an altar to ZEUS Eleutherios (“Liberator”) at SAMOS and demarcated a temenos around it which could still be seen in front of the city in Herodotus’ time (3.142.2). The Metapontines claimed that ARISTEAS OF PROCONNESUS himself appeared in their land and urged them to raise an altar in honor of APOLLO, placing near it a statue bearing Aristeas’ name, because they were the only Italiots whose country Apollo had visited (4.15.2). The Byzantines carried off to their city the pillars erected by DARIUS I on the shores of the Thracian BOSPORUS, which were inscribed with the names of the nations forming his army. These they used, except for one block, to build an altar to ARTEMIS Orthosia (4.87.1–2). Alarmed by the Persian approach, the Delphians sought advice from Apollo who urged them “to pray to the winds.” They thus raised an altar within the temenos of THYIA and placated the WINDS with sacrifices, a practice continued up to Herodotus’ time (7.178).

At the entrance of THERMOPYLAE, above the warm springs called “the Cauldrons” (CHYTROI) by the local inhabitants, stood an altar of HERACLES (7.176.3). At the Delphic shrine the gold TRIPOD made from a tenth of the Persian spoils at PLATAEA (9.81.1) and the “bull‐piercing” spits, dedicated by the courtesan RHODOPIS (2.135.4), were located near the altar of Apollo, which the Chians had dedicated.

Under pressure from the Thebans, the Plataeans sent representatives to hand themselves over to the Athenians by sitting as SUPPLIANTS on the altar of the Twelve Gods when the Athenians offered sacrifices there (6.108.4). The sanctity of the altar as a place of refuge is also violated on occasion. The Selinuntines killed EURYLEON, who had attempted to become TYRANT, though he had fled to the altar of Zeus agoraios (5.46.2). Although CLEOMENES, being a foreigner, was forbidden to sacrifice on the altar of Argive HERA, he ordered the priest to be dragged from the altar and scourged, and performed the sacrifice himself (6.81).

Herodotus’ comments on altars and offerings of non‐Greeks focus on difference or extravagance. At BABYLON, outside the temple of Zeus BELUS stood a golden altar on which only suckling lambs were sacrificed. On another, larger altar every year at the FESTIVAL of Zeus Belus, the CHALDEANS burned 1,000 TALENTS of frankincense (1.183.1–2). DATIS, Darius’ general, burned 300 talents of frankincense on the altar of the Delian Apollo as an offering (6.97.2). It was not a Persian custom to erect altars for animal sacrifices, nor did they light a FIRE when they were about to offer sacrifice (1.131.1, 132.1). The SCYTHIANS did not erect altars for any god except ARES (4.59.2).

SEE ALSO: Ethnography; First Fruits; Gods and the Divine; Libations; Priests and Priestesses; Religion, Greek; Religion, Persian; Sacrilege; Temples and Sanctuaries