Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 2.13.2 · 2.13.2
How the robbers sacrifice
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ἔδει δὲ τὴν θυσίαν γενέσθαι τρόπῳ τῷ συνήθει. Τὸ μέλλον ἱερεῖον θύεσθαι, εἴτε ἄνθρωπος εἴτε βόσκημα εἴη, κρεμάσαντες ἐκ δένδρου καὶ διαστάντες ἠκόντιζον· καὶ ὁπόσοι μὲν ἐπέτυχον, τούτων ὁ θεὸς ἐδόκει δέχεσθαι τὴν θυσίαν· ὁπόσοι δὲ ἀπέτυχον, αὖθις ἐξιλάσκοντο· ἔδει δὲ τὴν Ἄνθειαν οὕτως ἱερουργηθῆναι.
The sacrifice had to take place in the customary way. The victim to be sacrificed, whether it was a human being or a beast, they hung from a tree, and standing apart they threw javelins at it. The god was thought to accept the sacrifice of all who hit it, while all who missed tried to appease him again. And this was how Anthia was to be sacrificed.
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The setting
Book 2, chapter 13. Hippothous' robbers have made everything ready for a sacrifice to Ares.
A note on this passage
ἱερεῖον is the ordinary word for an animal led to the altar, and the robbers' custom names ἄνθρωπος, "a human being," and βόσκημα, "a beast," as victims of the same kind; for a Greek reader that marks them as savages. Greek romance gives its bandits human sacrifice for that reason: in Achilles Tatius the herdsmen-bandits of the Nile Delta lead the heroine Leucippe to an altar as their victim (Leucippe and Clitophon 3.12–3.15). Here the god's answer is read from each man's throw, and the verbs are the plain ones for hitting and missing a mark, ἐπιτυγχάνω and ἀποτυγχάνω.
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