Scythian Ares by unknown artist
"Such is their way of sacrificing to all other Gods and such are the beasts offered; but their sacrifices to Ares are on this wise. Every district in each of the governments has in it a building sacred to Ares, to wit, a pile of fagots of sticks three furlongs broad and long, but of a less height, on the top of which there is a flattened four-sided surface; three of its sides are sheer, but the fourth can be ascended. In every year an hundred and fifty wagon-loads of sticks are heaped upon this; for the storms of winter ever make it sink down. On this pile there is set for each people an ancient scimitar of iron, which is their image of Ares; to this scimitar they bring yearly sacrifice of sheep and goats and horses, offering to these symbols even more than they do to the other Gods. Of all their enemies that they take alive, they sacrifice one man in every hundred, not according to their fashion of sacrificing sheep and goats, but differently. They pour wine on the men's heads and cut their throats over a vessel; then they carry the blood up on to the pile of sticks and pour it on the scimitar. So they carry the blood aloft, but below by the sacred building they cut off the slain men's right arms and hands and throw these into the air, and presently depart when they have sacrificed the rest of the victims; the arm lies where it has fallen, and the body apart from it."
-Herodotus, The Histories: Chapter 62
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| Scythian Ares by unknown artist. |
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