There is good reason for believing that it was much the same with the Greeks as with the Romans, although the fact that this is not distinctly declared in the classic texts has led some modern scholars to call it in question. Barley-meal cakes, with or without salt, were certainly employed by the Greeks in their sacrifices.[167] And Homer speaks of salt as "divine."[168] When, therefore, it is considered that salt was counted essential in sacrifices among the ancient Egyptians, Hindoos, and Hebrews, as also later among the Romans, it would seem to need proof to the contrary to meet the natural presumption that the Greeks also made use of "divine salt" in their sacred sacrificial cakes. [167] Homer's _Iliad_, I., 449, 458; II., 410, 421; _Odyssey_, III., 425, 441; Philo's _Opera_, 2 : 240. [168] _Iliad_, IX., 214. See Eustathius's Commentary, I., 748-750, ed. Basle (p. 648, ed. Rome). Salt was offered at every little shrine by the wayside in Guatemala, in Central America, in olden time. It was an acceptable gift to the gods.[169] [169] See Bancroft's _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, II., 719. Wellhausen, in treating of the remains of Arabian paganism,[170] tells of the custom of the old priests of throwing salt into the fire of sacrifice, unperceived by the worshiper as he appealed to the gods in his oath, and of the consequent startling of the offerer by the up-leaping flames, as though under a divine impulse. Various popular sayings are cited as incidental proofs of this custom; the purport of them all being that salt in the fires of sacrifice is supposed to be an effective appeal to the gods. [170] Wellhausen's _Reste Arabischen Heidentumes_, in _Skizzen und Vorarbeiten_, III., 124, 131. Pliny says that "salt, regarded by itself, is naturally igneous, and yet it manifests an antipathy to fire, and flies from it."[171] This would seem to be a reference to the tendency of salt to spring up, or flash and sparkle, when thrown into the flames. [171] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 45. It has indeed been suggested that the very name "salt" was derived (through _saltus_, "to leap") from the tendency of this substance "to leap and explode when thrown upon fire."[172] If there be any probability in this suggestion, or in another, and more natural one, that _saltus_ was from the same root as _sal_, "salt," it is easy to see that the primitive mind might infer that such was the affinity of salt with the divine, that, when offered by fire, it leaped toward heaven, and so was understood to be peculiarly acceptable to God or to the gods, in sacrifice. The Latin verb _salis_ has the twofold meaning "to salt" or "to sprinkle before sacrifice," and "to leap, spring, bound, jump;" and the root _sal_ would seem to be in the Latin and the Sanskrit alike.[173] Similarly, the word "salacious," or lustful, had this origin. [172] See citation of Lennep, and Scheideus, in Richardson's _English Dictionary_, s. v. "Salt."