It is interesting to note in this connection that the word σφάγιον is always used of human victims, and of such animals as were in use as surrogates. The term is applied to all the famous maiden sacrifices of mythology. Ion[153] asks Creousa: ‘And did thy father sacrifice thy sisters?’ And Creousa with greater ritual precision makes answer: ‘He dared to slay them as _sphagia_ for the land.’ As a σφάγιον Polyxena[154] is slain on the tomb of Achilles; she dies as an atonement, a propitiation, as ‘medicine of salvation.’ The normal and most frequent use of σφάγια was, as in the case of ἐναγισμοί in general, for purification by placation. In stress of great emergency, of pestilence, of famine, and throughout historical times at the moment before a battle, σφάγια were regularly offered. They seem to have been carried round or through the person or object to be purified. Athenaeus[155] records an instructive instance. The inhabitants of Kynaetho, a village in Arcadia, neglected the civilizing influences of dancing and feasting, and became so savage and impious that they never met except for the purpose of quarrelling. They perpetrated at one time a great massacre, and after this, whenever their emissaries came to any other of the Arcadian cities, the citizens by public proclamation bade them depart, and the Mantineans after their departure made a purification of the city, leading the slaughtered victims round the whole circuit of the district. As purifications the use of σφάγια needs no further comment. It is less obvious at first why σφάγια were always employed in the taking of oaths. The expression τέμνειν σφάγια is the equivalent of the familiar τέμνειν ὅρκια. In the _Suppliants_ of Euripides[156] Athene says to Theseus: ‘Hearken whereinto thou must cut the _sphagia_.’ She then bids him write the oaths in the hollow of a tripod-cauldron and then cut the throats of the victims into the cauldron, thus clearly identifying the oaths and the blood.