Anaperos

    Original publication: "Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greece" database (http://www.sacrificium.filg.uj.edu.pl).

    Authors: Przemysław Biernat (2016-09-06: written contents); Przemysław Biernat (2017-02-27: updated document contents); Irene Vagionakis (2021-10-12: encoded in XML)

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    ἀνάπηρος anaperos, adj.: mutilated

    Morphology

    Compound of the prefix ana- (in an intensifying function) and the adjective perós "crippled" (a word without etymology, see Beekes 2010: 1188-1189).

    Occurrences

    As a term for sacrificial animals, the adjective occurs in a fragment of Hermippos' comedy Kerkopos (ca. 417 BC, see → Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta ➚) and in Pseudo-Platon's Alkibiades II ➚ (149a). Apart from the few cases where cultic regulations required the sacrificer to sacrifice an animal that was defective in some respect, the rule was that the animals killed were free from physical defects. However, the author of Alkibiades the Second attributes to the Lacedemonians the custom of sacrificing crippled animals also when there were no such regulations. It is difficult to say how much truth there is in this and how much stereotypical representation of the Spartans (cf. Broulé, Touzé, 2008: 122; Ekroth 2014: 332).

    Bibliography:

    Beekes, Robert (2010). Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Leiden-Boston.

    Broulé, P., Touzé, R. (2008). Le hiereion : phusis et psuchè d’un medium. w: P. Broulé, V. Mehl (eds.), Le sacrifice antique. Vestiges, procédures et stratégies: 111-138. Rennes.

    Ekroth, G. (2014). Animal Sacrifice in Antiquity. The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life: 324-354. Oxford.


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