If the dead ask for fresh water, with which to quench their insatiable thirst, they are above all eager for the warm blood of victims. This sacrifice to the dead was at first often a human sacrifice of slaves or prisoners, and barbarous immolations of this kind had not entirely disappeared even in the historic period. When, after the taking of Perugia, Octavius, on the Ides of March (that is, on the anniversary of the slaying of Julius Caesar), caused three hundred notables of the town to be slaughtered on Caesar’s altar,[116] this collective murder, inspired by political hatred, perpetuated an old religious tradition. Fights of gladiators, whose blood drenched the soil, originally formed part of the funeral ceremonies by which the last duty was paid to the remains of an illustrious personage. It is said that these sacrifices were intended to provide him who had gone to the other world with servants and companions, as the offering of a horse gave him a steed, or else that, in case of violent death, they were meant to appease the shade of a victim who claimed vengeance. And doubtless these ideas, which correspond to conceptions already evolved, contributed to keeping this cruel custom in force. But originally the object of this sacrifice, as of the sacrifice of animals, was essentially to ensure the duration of the undefinable something which still inhabited the tomb. Among all the peoples of antiquity the blood was looked upon as the seat of life;[117] the vapour which rose from the warm red liquid, flowing from a wound, was the soul escaping therewith from the body; and therefore when blood was sprinkled on the soil which covered the remains of a relative or a friend, a new vitality was given to his shade. With the same motive women were wont to scratch their faces with their nails in sign of mourning.[118] This ancient conviction that fresh blood was indispensable to the dead, was maintained in some countries with surprising tenacity. In Syria, as late as the seventh century of our era, Christians insisted, in spite of episcopal objurgations, on immolating bulls and sheep on tombs, and in Armenia, where these practices were sanctioned by the national clergy, the faithful remained persuaded that the dead found no happiness in the other life unless the blood of victims had been made to flow for them on the days fixed by tradition.[119]