Hdt. 3.11 – Punishment, Human Sacrifice, Oath, Symposion? Ritual and Group Cohesion

Abstract

At the beginning of the third book of the Histories, while presenting the way Kambyses conquered Egypt, Herodotos makes a short digression on the way the Greek and Karian mercenaries serving the Egyptian king killed the children of a former comrade who defected to the Persians and conspicuously drank their blood, mixed with water and wine. Although the fragment is one of the few sources regarding the practices and rituals conducted by Greek mercenaries in the archaic period, the fact narrated by Herodotos remains obscure as there is no consensus whether it should be linked with Greek punishment customs, symposia or the blood rituals used when taking oaths. The interpretation proposed in this paper is that of an oath taken in order to dispel any suspicions regarding the commitment of some mercenaries to their former comrade’s cause.