The sacrifice of captives

Human sacrifice is attributable to the most forbidding customs of ancient tribes. Among Asian and European cultures, it permeated unevenly. The Greek myths speak of human sacrifice but historical sources provide no data of any actual practice of the kind. In the ancient Greece, it was considered an old yet no longer exercisable rite replaced by the sacrifice of animals. Although the gladiator fights point to the fact that the Romans enjoyed terrifying shows, neither can they be associated with the human sacrifice as a common feature of their customs.

History knows only two such instances, both taking place during the severe Punic Wars, at the end of the 3rd century BC. With no precedents in the Roman religion, this custom had been borrowed from the Etruscans and has never been repeated later. Human sacrifice was considered a phenomenon agains

The sacrifice of captives

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The sacrifice of captives

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