There were priests and there were prophets, but the State was decidedly "Erastian." The Commander-in-chief superintended sacrifices in the general interest, where the welfare of the host was concerned, and individuals sought the favour of the gods by sacrifices offered at their own expense. These were most elaborate after a theophany, or visit from a visible and friendly god, as when Athene sat at meat with Nestor in his house at Pylos. The rite is minutely described: the household of Nestor and the crew of Telemachus are summoned, the cow is driven up from the meadow; the goldsmith brings his tools: seats are set out, wood is collected, water for hand-washing is brought; Nestor provides gold to gild the horns of the victim, and make it seem splendid in the eyes of the goddess. The son of Nestor, Thrasymedes, holds the axe; Perseus has the vessel into which its blood fell,--whether to avoid making a mess, or because the ground must not be ceremonially polluted by the gore. But of ceremonial pollution of any kind, Homer is ignorant. He says nothing suggestive of a sacramental theory of the blood as apt "to pollute the earth or even cry for vengeance."[1] Nestor, then, does the rite of hand-washing and scattering barley grain: Thrasymedes hamstrings the cow, which falls; and the women raise a cry, not a wail of sympathy as among the Todas in India. (It may be a cry of joyful vengeance. Odysseus forbids Eurycleia to raise this cry (_ὀλυλύξαι_) over the blood of the dead wooers.[2]) "The _ὀλυλυγή_ was a joyful cry, uttered by women, especially at the moment of the consummation of a sacrifice."[3] Pisistratus then slaughters the victim; "the black blood flowed from it, and the life left the bones." The limbs are carved, fat is laid on them; the flesh is roasted, cut up, and put on spits; then follows the feast.[4] The same rites are practised on solemn occasions in time of war and in a hostile country, when a whole hecatomb is sent with Chryseis to Chryses, priest of Apollo.[5] We do not hear in this case of the gilding of the horns of the victims,--there were too many of them,--but Diomede promises a sacrifice of a heifer with gilded horns to Athene, before setting forth to slay the sleeping Thracians in the Trojan camp.[6] Sacrifice may be offered in a temple, or at an altar in the open air. Twelve kine are sacrificed in the Trojan temple of Athene,[7] but a temple could not accommodate a hecatomb. An army in the field has no temples, and does sacrifice in the open air; indeed, even where temples exist there are abundant altars in the open air; for example, where Hector did sacrifice, "amid the crests of many-folded Ida," and at other times on the city height.[8]