_Bronze Implements._--A series of early Italic bronze implements (No. =92=), may have been used in sacrifice. Those with the curved claws were probably used for taking boiled meats out of a caldron. They remind us of the five-pronged sacrificial forks mentioned in Homer, and of the custom of the Jewish priests' servants as described in the Book of Samuel: "The priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand; and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the fleshhook brought up the priest took therewith."[19] On the right are three bronze gridirons. These, like the fleshhooks, originally had wooden handles inserted into their sockets. The meat was spitted upon hooks, which only remain in one instance. A series of implements terminating in a hand bent at the knuckles (No. =93=), and a pair of tongs on wheels (No. =94=), are probably meant for manipulating embers. _Miscellaneous._--A small silver model of a temple key is shown in Case 100. The small alabaster statuette of a goddess with turreted crown (No. =95=) is of special interest from the fact that her mouth and breasts are pierced, evidently with the object of allowing some fluid, such as milk or wine, to flow from them for the edification of her votaries. A jar (No. =96=) contained perhaps the honey syrup, used in Egypt for feeding the sacred crocodiles. [Illustration: FIG. 32.--THE DIOSCURI COMING TO THE THEOXENIA (NO. 98).] _Religious Rites._--_Prayer._--The fifth century kylix (No. =97=) shows the gesture of the raised right hand, often used in prayer. The young athlete, whose oil-flask hangs behind him, is probably praying before the altar. That athletes entered upon their tasks with extreme seriousness is clear from the oath taken by them before the image of Zeus in the Council House at Olympia, when they swore upon the cut pieces of a boar that they would be guilty of no foul play. In the Greek view athletics and religion were very closely connected. _The Lectisternium_, or Theoxenia, was the ceremony in which a banquet was set, and the gods were invited to attend. It is illustrated by the drawing of a lekythos (No. =98=) from Kameiros in Rhodes (about 500 B.C.), which represents the two gods Castor and Pollux descending from heaven on horseback to take part in the festival of the Theoxenia (fig. 32). This feast, indicated by the couch on which they were to recline, was given in honour of the twin gods. Such a festival well illustrates the perfectly human interests which the Greeks attributed to their deities.