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Certain magic and religious rituals in Greece probably derive from Mesopotamian ones. Among them are purification rites for individuals and the use of a scapegoat. The ritual described in the Babylonian medical incantation is similar to the one envisaged for Orestes and the Proetids in the Aeschylus’ Eumenides and other Greek representations. The emphasis of substitution resembles a ritual described by Ovid in the context of the Roman festival Carmentalia.
Asakku Marsūtu 2.16-21:
(Anu to Marduk:) [Take] a suckling pig [and … at] the head of the sick man [put it (?) and] take out its heart and above the heart of the sick man [put it], [sprinkle] its blood on the sides of the bed, [and] divide the pig over his limbs and spread it on the sick man; then cleanse that man with pure water from the Deep [Apsu] and wash him clean and bring near him a censer [and] a torch, place twice seven loaves cooked in the ashes against the outer door, and give the pig as his substitute, and give the flesh and the blood as his blood: they [the demons] shall take it; the heart which you have placed upon his heart, give it as his heart - they shall take it. [ … ... that the] pig may be his substitute … May the evil spirit, the evil demon stand aside! May the kindly spirit, the kindly demon be present!
Ovid, Fasti 6.133-162:
There are some greedy birds, not those that cheated Phineus of his meal, though descended from that race: Their heads are large, their eyes stick out, their beaks fit for tearing, their feathers are grey, their claws hooked. They fly by night, attacking children with absent nurses, and defiling their bodies, snatched from the cradle. They are said to rend the flesh of infants with their beaks, and their throats are full of the blood they drink. They are called screech-owls, and the reason for the name is the horrible screeching they usually make at night. Whether they are born as birds, or whether they are made so by spells, old women transformed to birds by Marsian magic, they still entered Proca’s bedroom. Proca was fresh prey for the birds, a child of five days old. They sucked at the infant’s chest, with greedy tongues: and the wretched child screamed for help. Scared at his cry, the nurse ran to her ward, and found his cheeks slashed by their sharp claws. What could she do? The colour of the child’s face was that of late leaves nipped by an early frost. She went to Cranaë and told her: Cranaë said: ‘Don’t be afraid: your little ward will be safe.’ She approached the cradle: the parents wept: ‘Restrain your tears,’ she said, ‘I’ll heal him.’ Quickly she touched the doorposts, one after the other, three times, with arbutus leaves, three times with arbutus marked the threshold: sprinkled the entrance with water, medicinal water, while holding the entrails of a two-month sow. And said: ‘Birds of night, spare his entrails: a small victim’s offered here for a small child. Take a heart for a heart, I beg, flesh for flesh, this life we give you for a dearer life.’
Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Asakku Marsūtu 2.16-21
Ovid, Fasti 6.133-162
Bibliography
| Burkert 1992, 56-59 | Burkert, Walter. The Orientalizing Revolution. Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Period. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 1992. |
Links (external links will open in a new browser window)
cf. Aeschylus, Eumenides 276-284
cf. Aeschylus, Eumenides 448-452
Amar Annus
URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001099.php
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