The scholiast on Sophocles[631] speaks of the holocaust of a black sheep to the Eumenides, whom he identifies with the Semnae; but, as he expressly states that this sacrifice took place in the Peloponnese, we cannot safely attribute it to the local Semnae of Athens. It is probable that σφάγια formed part of the regular sacrifice mentioned by Pausanias as offered to the Semnae by the acquitted; σφάγια belong, as has already been shown, to the class of expiatory offerings. It was on σφάγια, which were also called τόμια, that oaths were taken (p. 64) in the law courts, oaths the extraordinary solemnity of which Demosthenes[632] emphasizes. A man so swearing stood on the fragments of victims officially and solemnly slain, and devoted himself and his household to destruction in case of perjury. By standing on the slain fragments he identifies himself proleptically with them. We have no explicit statement that the divinities by whom these awful oaths on the τόμια had to be taken were the Semnae, but as the Semnae were the underworld divinities resident on the Areopagos, and as they were frequently invoked with the local heroes, and as sacrifice was done to them by the acquitted, it seems highly probable. If they were the goddesses of oaths, this is another link with the Erinyes, the avengers of oaths. It is notable that in an ordinary imprecation in the law-courts they take precedence of Athene herself. Thus Demosthenes[633] says, ‘I call to witness the Venerable Goddesses, and the place they inhabit, and the heroes of the soil, and Athene of the city, and the other gods who have the city and the land in their dominion.’