The case of the supposed ‘human sacrifice’ of Athamas is instructive, both as to its original content and as to the shifting sentiments with which it was regarded. When Xerxes came to Alos in Achaia his guides, Herodotus[279] tells us, anxious to give him all possible information as to local curiosities, told him the tradition about the sanctuary of Zeus Laphystios: ‘The eldest of the race of Athamas is forbidden to enter the Prytaneion which is called by the Achaians the _Leïton_. If he enters he can only go out to be sacrificed.’ It was further told how some, fearing this fate, had fled the country, and coming back and entering the Prytaneion were decked with fillets and led out in procession to be sacrificed (ὡς θύεταί τε ἐξηγέοντο στέμμασι πᾶς πυκασθεὶς καὶ ὡς σὺν πομπῇ ἐξαχθείς). Here there is obvious confusion, as the man who left the country to avoid death would never have been so foolish as, immediately on his return, to enter the forbidden place. The point is clear: great stress is laid on the leading forth in procession—the descendant of the royal race was a scape-goat. Herodotus makes this quite clear. Athamas was sacrificed because the Achaeans _were making a purification of the land_ (καθαρμὸν τῆς χώρης ποιευμένων Ἀχαιῶν). Herodotus gives as the cause of this primitive and perfectly intelligible custom various conflicting reasons which well reflect the various stages of opinion through which the thinking Greek passed. We have first the real reason—Athamas as a scape-goat. Then the public conscience is uneasy, and we have a legend that the ‘sacrifice’ is interrupted at the moment of consummation either by Herakles (according to Sophocles in the lost _Athamas_) or by Kytissoros. It is wrong to sacrifice; hence the sacrifice is interrupted, but it is wrong to interrupt sacrifice, so the descendants of Kytissoros are punished. Then, finally, it is felt that the sacrifice must go on, but it is a dreadful thing, an ἄγος, so a chance of escape is given to the victim. Finally in the same complex legend we have the substitution of a ram for the human victim Phrixos. Sometimes incidentally we learn that other peoples adopted the device which may have satisfied the Athenians, i.e. needing a pharmakos they utilized a man already condemned by the state. Thus in the long list of ‘human sacrifices’ drawn up by Porphyry[280] in his indictment of human ignorance and fear he mentions that on the 6th day of the month Metageitnion a man was sacrificed to Kronos, a custom, he says, which was maintained for a long time unchanged. _A man who had been publicly condemned to death_ was kept till the time of the festival of Kronia. When the festival came they brought him outside the gates before the image (ἕδους) of Aristobule, gave him wine to drink and slew him. The victim is already doomed, and it would seem intoxicated before he is sacrificed.