In Attica, all girls not over ten or under five were consecrated to the service of Diana, during a solemnity which took place once in five years. On that occasion all female children of the proper age appeared dressed in yellow robes, while victims were offered to the goddess, and certain men sung one of Homer’s Iliads. No Athenian woman was allowed to be married unless this ceremony had been performed. The festival in honor of Ceres was observed with much solemnity at Athens. None but free-born women were allowed to be present; and every husband who received a portion of three talents with his wife, was obliged to assist in defraying the expenses. The women were assisted in the ceremonials by a priest, who wore a crown, and by certain maidens, who were strictly secluded, kept under severe discipline, and maintained at the public charge. The solemnity lasted four days. All the women who aided in it were clothed in simple white garments, without ornaments or flowers. Not the slightest immodesty or merriment was permitted; but it was a custom to say jesting things to each other, in memory of Jambe, who by a jest extorted a smile from Ceres, when she was discouraged and melancholy. On one of the festival days, the women walked in procession to Eleusis, carrying books on their heads, in memory of Ceres, who was said to have first taught mankind the use of laws; on this occasion it was against the law for any one to ride in a chariot. There was likewise a mysterious sacrifice to Ceres, from which all men were excluded; this was said to have been because in a dangerous war, the prayers of women so prevailed with the gods, that their enemies were driven away. The custom of offering human beings as sacrifices to the gods was regarded with great abhorrence by the primitive Greeks; but several instances occurred in later times where captives taken in war were devoted to this purpose. There is reason to suppose that the victims were generally men; but there were exceptions to this remark. Bacchus had an altar in Arcadia, upon which young damsels were beaten to death with bundles of rods. Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, was likewise about to be sacrificed to Diana, because the soothsayer so decreed, when the Greeks were kept back from the Trojan war by contrary winds; and Macaria, the daughter of Hercules and Dejanira, voluntarily offered herself as a victim, when the oracle declared that one of her father’s family must die, to insure victory over their enemies. Great honors were paid to the memory of this patriotic girl, and a fountain in Marathon was called by her name. The Athenian slaves were much protected by the laws. If a female slave had cause to complain of any want of respect to the laws of modesty, she could seek the protection of the temple, and demand a change of owners; and such appeals were never discountenanced or neglected by the magistrates.