Some light is perhaps thrown on the meaning of these practices by two ancient Oriental customs, the one Egyptian, the other Phoenician. When Egyptian boys or girls had recovered from sickness, their parents used to shave the children’s heads, weigh the hair against gold or silver, and give the precious metal to the keepers of the sacred beasts, who bought food with it for the animals according to their tastes. These tastes varied with the nature of the beast, and the beast varied with the district. Where hawks were worshipped, the keepers chopped up flesh, and calling the birds in a loud voice, flung the gobbets up into the air, till the hawks stooped and caught them. Where cats, or ichneumons, or {p30} fish were the local deities, the keepers crumbled bread in milk and set it before them, or threw it into the Nile. And similarly with the rest of the divine menagery.​[122] Thus in Egypt the offerings of hair went to feed the worshipful animals. [Sidenote: Syrian practice; sacrifice of chastity regarded as a substitute for the sacrifice of hair.] In the sanctuary of the great Phoenician goddess Astarte at Byblus the practice was different. Here, at the annual mourning for the dead Adonis, the women had to shave their heads, and such of them as refused to do so were bound to prostitute themselves to strangers and to sacrifice to the goddess with the wages of their shame.​[123] Though Lucian, who mentions the custom, does not say so, there are some grounds for thinking that the women in question were generally maidens, of whom this act of devotion was required as a preliminary to marriage.​[124] In any case, it is clear that the goddess accepted the sacrifice of chastity as a substitute for the sacrifice of hair.​[125] Why? By many people, as we shall afterwards see, the hair is regarded as in a special sense the seat of strength; and at puberty it might well be thought to contain a double portion of vital energy, since at that season it is the outward sign and manifestation of the newly-acquired power of reproducing the species. For that reason, we may suppose, the beard rather than the hair of the head is offered by males on this occasion. Thus the substitution permitted at Byblus becomes intelligible: the women gave of their fecundity to the goddess, whether they offered their hair or their chastity. But why, it may be asked, should they make such an offering to Astarte, who was herself the great goddess of love and fertility? What need had she to receive fecundity from {p31} her worshippers? Was it not rather for her to bestow it on them? Thus put, the question overlooks an important side of polytheism, perhaps we may say of ancient religion in general. The gods stood as much in need of their worshippers as the worshippers in need of them. The benefits conferred were mutual. If the gods made the earth to bring forth abundantly, the flocks and herds to teem, and the human race to multiply, they expected that a portion of their