- Source
- Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, editor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:4.60.1-4.60.2
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-10
Describes the uniform method of sacrifice among the Scythians, detailing how the victim is bound and strangled to death without fire or preparatory rites.
θυσίη δὲ ἡ αὐτὴ πᾶσι κατέστηκε περὶ πάντα τὰ ἱρὰ ὁμοίως, ἐρδομένη ὧδε· τὸ μὲν ἱρήιον αὐτὸ ἐμπεποδισμένον τοὺς ἐμπροσθίους πόδας1 ἔστηκε, ὁ δὲ θύων ὄπισθε τοῦ κτήνεος ἑστεὼς σπάσας τὴν ἀρχὴν τοῦ στρόφου καταβάλλει μιν, πίπτοντος δὲ τοῦ ἱρηίου ἐπικαλέει τὸν θεὸν τῷ ἂν θύῃ,2 καὶ ἔπειτα βρόχῳ περὶ ὦν ἔβαλε3 τὸν αὐχένα, σκυταλίδα δὲ ἐμβαλὼν περιάγει καὶ ἀποπνίγει, οὔτε πῦρ ἀνακαύσας οὔτε καταρξάμενος οὔτʼ ἐπισπείσας· ἀποπνίξας δὲ καὶ ἀποδείρας τρέπεται πρὸς ἕψησιν.
But the same manner of sacrifice is established among them all for all the gods alike, being performed as follows: first, the victim itself stands with its forefeet bound, and the sacrificer, standing behind the beast, pulls the end of the rope and casts it down. As the victim falls, he calls upon the god to whom he is sacrificing, and then, having cast a noose around its neck, he inserts a small stick, twists it, and strangles the beast, neither lighting a fire, nor performing the preparatory rites, nor pouring a libation. Having strangled and flayed it, he turns to boiling it.
- 4.60.1τοὺς ἐμπροσθίους πόδας
An accusative of specification (respect) modifying the perfect passive participle ἐμπεποδισμένον ("bound"), meaning "bound with respect to its forefeet."
- 4.60.2τῷ ἂν θύῃ
The relative pronoun τῷ (dative) combined with the particle ἂν and the subjunctive θύῃ forms a conditional relative clause of general present time ("to whichever [god] he may be sacrificing").
- 4.60.2περὶ ὦν ἔβαλε
An instance of tmesis, where the preposition περί and the verb ἔβαλε are separated, equivalent to the compound verb περιέβαλε ("cast around"). The intervening ὦν is the Ionic dialect form of the particle οὖν ("then, therefore").