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Hecatomb

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Hecatomb 

an ancient Greek sacrifice, originally consisting of 100 oxen; later “hecatomb” came to mean any major public sacrifice. Hecatombs were offered in Athens during the most important holiday, Panathenaea, which was celebrated during the month of Hekatombaion (late July and early August). In the figurative sense, the term “hecatomb” denotes the many victims of war, terror, an epidemic, and the like.



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Let us ask some priest or prophet, or some reader of dreams (for dreams, too, are of Jove) who can tell us why Phoebus Apollo is so angry, and say whether it is for some vow that we have broken, or hecatomb that we have not offered, and whether he will accept the savour of lambs and goats without blemish, so as to take away the plague from us.
They were almost innumerable, and seemed to have been a vast hecatomb offered up in thanksgiving to the Great Spirit for some signal success in the chase.
{1} He had gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house of Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first.
 
 
 
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