Certificates

Τρίττοια βούαρχος. The form τρίττοια Ziehen (1906: 10 with note 23) considers to be the correct Attic one (although it appears only in Herodian, ed. Lentz, I, p. 281, below); on inscriptions it occurs as τρίττοα βόαρχος (full catalogue of occurrences below), and in lexicographers and scholiasts as τριττύς (Eustath. commentary on the Odyssey, 11, 130-131 [1, 404, 16-19]; schol. Arist. Plut. 820, Callimachus fr. 578 in the Lexicon of Phocius - below).

The full, two-word name for this type of sacrifice occurs only on inscriptions in the 5th and 4th centuries BC and much later by lexicographers, commentators and scholiasts. References in the literature contain only indirect references to it.

Formally the phrase is formed by the deductive adjective τρίττοια in the feminine gender (possible forms found in the texts are τρίττοα, τριττύα, τρικτύα - see Bekees, and Chantraine s.v. τριτύς), presumably as an appendage to the default θυσία, and a compound adjective, built from the subject βου(Ϝ) (Bekees, and Chantraine s.v. βοῦς) and the subject ἀρχ-/ἀρχε- (see Chantraine s.v. ἄρχω), related to the categories of beginning, leading and starting (ἀρχή, ἄρχομαι).

Literary sources

In Porphyry (De abstin. 2.60.5) the "trinity with golden horns" appears as an alternative to the hecatomb: ἢ πόθεν οἳ μὲν τριτύας χρυσόκερως, οἳ δ' ἑκατόμβας (...) ἔθυεν. In the neighbourhood of the hecatomb, as a sacrifice equivalent in meaning and seriousness to it, it also occurs in Suda (s.v. βουθυτεῖ) with a reference to Aristophanes' Plutos (v. 820): Βουθυτεῖ- δοτικῇ. ᾿Αριστοφάνης Πλούτῳ. ὁ δεσπότης ἔνδον βουθυτεῖ. καταχρηστικῶς εἴρηται ἡ βουθυσία, δηλοῦσα τόν τε ὄγκον τοῦ μεγέθους καὶ τὸ ἐντελὲς τῆς θυσίας, ἣν ἑκατόμβην καλοῦσι καὶ τριτύν. ("He sacrifices a bull [βουθυτεῖ]: [which] connects with dativ. Aristophanes in Plutos. The lord sacrifices a bull in the middle. By catachresis there they speak of 'sacrificing a bull', indicating the importance of the magnitude and extraordinary nature of the sacrifice, which they call hecatomb and triple [τριττύν]"). The same commentary is included in the scholion to Plutos with a detailing of the information that the triple sacrifice was considered as perfect as the hecatomb (ad. loc.): Μεγάλην θυσίαν ποιεῖ, ἢ ἁπλῶς θύει. βουθυτεῖν κυρίως τὸ βοῦν θύειν. ἐκάλουν δὲ τὴν ἐντελῆ θυσίαν ἑκατόμβην διὰ τὸ ἐκ βοῶν ἑκατὸν γίνεσθαι. ἦν δὲ καὶ ἄλλη ἐντελὴς θυσία τριτὺς λεγομένη, ἡ ἐκ χοίρου καὶ κριοῦ καὶ τράγου, ἣν καὶ ἐνταῦθα λέγει ("He makes a great sacrifice, or simply offers a sacrifice. Basically βουθυτεῖν means 'to offer an ox'. A perfect sacrifice was called a hecatomb because it consisted of a hundred oxen. However, another perfect sacrifice was called 'triple' [τριττύς], consisting of a piglet, a ram and a goat, and it is this that is referred to here"). Suda also mentions it by comparing it with the sacrifice of twelve animals (s.v. δωδεκίδες): Δωδεκίδες: θυσίαι δώδεκα ἱερείων, ὡς τριττύς, ἡ ἐκ τριῶν ("The twelve: sacrifices of twelve animals, as the triple of three"), and conversely, when he speaks of the "triple sacrifice" he juxtaposes it with the sacrifice of twelve animals (s. v. τριττύς): Τριττύς: ἡ ἐντελὴς θυσία, ἐκ συός, κριοῦ καὶ τράγου. ἐκ τριῶν, ὥσπερ δωδεκίδες, θυσίαι δώδεκα ἱερείων ("Triple. A perfect sacrifice, composed of a pig, a ram, and a goat. Of three animals, just as the twelve are sacrifices of twelve animals").

Eustathios in his commentary on Odyssey 11, 130-131 [1, 404, 16-19]:

᾿Ιστέον δὲ ὅτι ἡ τοιαύτη θυσία τριττύα λέγεται παρὰ τοῖς παλαιοῖς, οἳ τριττύαν ἔλεγον τὴν ἐκ τριῶν ζώων θυσίαν, οἷον, δύο μήλων καὶ βοὸς, ὡς ᾿Επίχαρμος, ἢ βοὸς καὶ αἰγὸς καὶ προβάτου, ἢ κάπρου καὶ κριοῦ καὶ ταύρου. ἡ δὲ τοιαύτη καὶ βούπρωρος φασὶν ἐλέγετο διὰ τὸ προηγεῖσθαι αὐτῆς οἷα νηὸς πρώραν τὸν βοῦν.

"It must be known that such a sacrifice is called in the ancients a triple sacrifice (τριττύα), and they called it triple because it consists of three animals: two kids and an ox, as in Epicharmus, or an ox, a goat and a sheep, or a pig and a ram and a bull. They say that it is called o sacrifice with an ox in front (βούπρωρος1), because an ox is led at its head, as if on the prow of a ship."

Hesychius (s.v.) instead of the name tρίττοια βούαρχος uses elliptically the word τρικτύα itself, which, incidentally, appears in this sense only once more, in Athenaeus 11.59.19):

τρικτύα- τριάδα. ἔνιοι θυσία κάπρου, κριοῦ, ταύρου.

"Triktya: triad. In some [it is] an offering of a hog, a ram and a bull".

The reference to a sacrifice consisting of three animals of different kinds is still found in Herodian in a treatise on prosody (Lentz 1867: 281):

Τρίττοια ἡ θυσία, ἥτις ἐκ τριῶν ζώων ἐθύετο, ἢ ὅτι τριγενῆ ἦν τὰ θυόμενα ("a triple sacrifice is one made of three animals, or it is so called because the sacrificial animals belonged to three species"). For the Herodian trittoia was first and foremost a sacrifice of three animals; the question of their differentiation, let alone the particular function of the bull in this sequence, was of secondary, if any, importance.

The key literary texts to which the commentaries of lexicographers and scholiasts refer are Odyssey 11, 130-131 and verse 820 of Plutos by Aristophanes. In the Odyssey it is a description of a sacrifice (ἱερὰ καλὰ) to Poseidon (Ποσειδάωνι ἄνακτι) consisting of a sheep, a bull and a breeding boar chosen from the flock (ἀρνειὸν ταῦρόν τε συῶν τ' ἐπιβήτορα κάπρον): ἕρξας ἱερὰ καλὰ Ποσειδάωνι ἄνακτι, / ἀρνειὸν ταῦρόν τε συῶν τ' ἐπιβήτορα κάπρον (meaning of ἐπιβήτωρ according to LSJ Supplement, pp. v.). In Aristophanes' Plutos, Carion speaks of Chremylos sacrificing (here commented on by scholiasts, indeed comically using the verb βουθυτέω2) a pig, a goat and a ram: (...) ὁ δεσπότης μὲν ἔνδον βουθυτεῖ / ὗν καὶ τράγον καὶ κριὸν (...). Modern commentaries on both passages do not give them special attention (cf. e.g. Heubeck, Hoeckstra 1989: 85).

The attention of commentators has not yet been attracted by other attestations of a sacrifice made of three animals, which should be noted here.

Xenophont (An. 2.2.9) also speaks of a sacrifice (of the sphagia type) consisting of a bull, a hog and a ram (ταῦρον καὶ κάπρον καὶ κριὸν). So also, and in the same order, Plutarch (Pyrrh. 6.9: ταύρου καὶ κάπρου καὶ κριοῦ προσαχθέντος). Diodorus the Sicilian (4.39) speaks of and offering to Heracles, made to honour him "like a hero" (τιμᾶν ὡς ἥρωα τὸν ῾Ηρακλέα), which consisted of a hog, a bull and a ram (κάπρον καὶ ταῦρον καὶ κριὸν θύσας). Pausanias (2.11. 7), on the other hand, speaks of the worship of Alexander and Euamernion, the former of whom is worshipped like a heros (τῷ μὲν ὡς ἥρωι) with burnt offerings (ἐναγίζουσιν), and to the latter the inhabitants of Epidauros offer a sacrifice "as to a god" (Εὐαμερίωνι δὲ ὡς θεῷ θύουσιν); this sacrifice consists of a bull, a sheep and a pig (θυομένων δὲ τῷ θεῷ ταύρου καὶ ἀρνὸς καὶ ὑὸς). A passus from Callimachus (fr. 578 in the edition: Pfeiffer 1949: 403) preserved in the Lexicon of Phocius (s.v. τριττύαν - II.227 ) mentions successively a ram, a bull and a hog (τριττύαν θυσίαν Καλλίμαχος μὲν τὴν ἐκ κριοῦ, ταύρου καὶ κάπρου), and a passus from Istros' work on the epiphanies of Apollo, preserved at the same point in Phocius' Lexicon - oxen, goats, and piglets, all three years old (ἐκ βοῶν, αἰγῶν, ὑῶν ἀρρένων, πάντων τριετῶν); the remark on the age of the sacrificial animals is in this passus the only one of all the source texts on this type of sacrifice (cf. Hermary, Legiuilloux 2004: 110 - where some of the sources discussed above are cited).

None of these literary texts - with the exception of the Phocian extract from Callimachus, the original wording of which we cannot verify - uses any of the possible forms of the technical name of the triple sacrifice, neither in partial (τρίττοια or derivatives) nor full (τρίττοια βόαρχος or derivatives) versions, and the composition of the animals varies. It is also intriguing that not in all the instances discussed above, by Ziehen (1939: 329) considered as examples of the fulfilment of the trittoa boarchos sacrifice, the bull (or ox) is mentioned first (only in Xenophon and Pausanias). Therefore we can conclude that since in a sacrifice of the trittoa boarchos type the number of victims is equally important as the fact that an ox is the most important one - which seems to follow directly from the name - then a sacrifice made of three animals must be different from one in which an ox is at the head of three animals. So would a trittoia be different from a trittoia boarchos. While the former - unnamed - is confirmed in literary texts, the latter - with its full two-part name - appears only on inscriptions and in direct or indirect connection with Eleusis (see analysis of inscriptions below). It is significant that the same Ziehen, in a commentary on his edition of the inscriptions (1906: 11), more than thirty years before he wrote the article for RE, considered this type of sacrifice to be exclusively associated with Eleusis - and probably rightly so, since the commentary makes no reference to extra-epigraphic attestations.

Epigraphic sources (see Hermary, Legiuilloux 2004: 110):

The full technical name of the sacrifice: τρίττοια βούαρχος (with possible modifications) occurs only in epigraphic material and always in direct or indirect connection with Eleusis (Lupu 2005: 144; Sokolowski 1969 locates three occurrences: 4.5 [= 13 in Clinton's edition], 5.37 [28a in Clinton's edition], 16.6-12, the latter three times [missing from Clinton], LSJ s.v. notes only one occurrence, that in inscription 4 [LSG]).

In the inscriptional material the term always denotes a sacrifice of three animals, of which the first, i.e. the one led in front and the most important, is the ox, which seems significant (see Ziehen 1906: 10-11, Dittenberger 1915: 106, Straten van 1995: 16-17, 71, illustration 6, and Sokolowski 1969: 8). With regard to the other two animals one cannot be certain, and in any case no key of a normative nature can be found in the epigraphic sources. In the illustration in van Straten's collection cited above, a sheep and a pig are visible next to an ox, which - presumably in juxtaposition with the literary data discussed above - led this scholar to consider this representation normative; he does not consider other possibilities (Straten van 1995: 16); he also fails to note (unlike Lupu 2005: 144) that all epigraphic attestations of this type of sacrifice are related directly or indirectly to Eleusis, so that his search for a prototype sacrifice for the Attic iconography under analysis outside the Eleusinian context must be considered rather risky3. The categorical acceptance of his belief that the trittoia consisted of an ox, a sheep and a pig led van Straten to track down just such a sequence of animals on one Attic inscription (Straten van 1995: 17), containing the sacrificial calendar of Marathon and Trikorinth (Sokolowski 1969: 46-50, inscription 20, column B verse 21) and immediately to take this - an essentially random enumeration of a number of sacrificial animals, over a dozen similar sequences - as evidence for non-Athenian (in his interpretation not even extra-Aleuzian) forms of this type of sacrifice, which I believe to be incorrect (these findings are, however, accepted by Hermary, Legiuilloux 2004: 110).

Trittoia boarchos appears on yet another inscription, noted by Sokolowski (1969: 32-33, inscription number 16). Clinton does not include it, although a link to Eleusis appears on it. Van Straten (1995: 17), on the other hand, also regards it as strong evidence for the practice of this type of sacrifice in other demos outside Athens. For it contains the regulations of the sacrificial calendar for Oinoe, located about 50 kilometres north-west of Athens, on the road to Eleutherai. It is dated to the 4th century BC. (none of the editions detail the dating). In addition to the threefold invocation of a trittoia type sacrifice, the boarchos contains a reference to two kerics (v. 3) and to Eleusis, possibly, depending on the version of the supplement adopted, Eleusini (v. 4). These two important data, legible and indisputable, are completely ignored in critical commentaries. The inscription prescribes the fulfilment of three trittoia boarchos sacrifices: for Atremida the Oenos (v. 5), for Apollon Morios (vv. 8-10) and for Athena the Oenos (vv. 11-13). These three offerings to these particular three deities could indeed be considered a ritual of local character if the inscription did not contain a clear reference to Eleusis. It is difficult to say what kind of connection these offerings might indicate with the sanctuary (lying halfway between Ojnoe, to which it refers, and Athens, where it was found), but it cannot be overlooked.

Van Straten's conviction about the animals comprising a trittoia-type sacrifice, developed on the basis of an analysis of unitary and fragmentary iconographic representation, needs to be revised in the perspective of still other epigraphic data. In the Eleusinian inscriptions commented on below (28 and 37 according to Clinton's numbering), reference is made to animals with gilded horns - thus, in addition to the ox, a ram and a goat are also included (cf. remarks by Dittenberger 1915: 83).

The sacrifice in question also appears on an inscription containing the law of the Delphic Amphictyons from 380/379 BC. (IG II2 1126 v. 34 = Ziehen 1906: 226-234 no. 75), where its name appears in the only form attested there: τρίκτευα (θύεν τρικτεύαν κηΰαν) as an appendage to the noun κηΰα - a hapax legomenon considered equivalent to καθάρματα (so LSJ).

Another - doubtful, since supplemented - occurrence of a trittoia-type sacrifice on an inscription containing ritual regulations for the demu Erchia, published by Lupu (2005: 115-149, document no. 1, verse 41), needs to be noted: ἐς Πυθίο Ἀπόλλωνος τρίτ[τοαν ...] - after additions by Daux (1980) and Labarbe (1977). This would mean that - in Lupu's (2005: 144) view - the inhabitants of Thorikos were obliged to send an offering of this type to one of the shrines of Apollo the Pythian in Attica (Parker 1987: 146 suggests that such a shrine may also have existed in Thorikos itself). Lupu, on the other hand, argues that the preposition ἐς, unusual here, may indicate the 'sending' of the victim beyond the demos. He takes into account the shrine of Apollo at Daphne, which has a strong connection with the demos of Thorikos, which in turn provides an, admittedly tenuous, trace of the connection of the trittoia sacrifice with the Eleusinian context, since the shrine at Daphne lay on the sacred road from Athens to Eleusis and was the place of celebration during the Eleusinian procession of mysteries (Mylonas 1961: 255).

Offerings of the trittoia type - albeit without invoking their technical name - occur on two more inscriptions from the 3rd century BC outside Attica (overlooked by van Straten): on one from Kamiros (Sokolowski 1962: 164-165 = LSS 94) and on one from Kos (Ziehen 1906, 326-329 no. 131, v. 55-74). In the first case the sacrifice relates to the worship of Poseidon and consists of a bull (no younger than one year old: ταῦρον [μ]ὴ νεώτερον [ἐ]νιαυτίου), a ram (κριὸν πρατήνιον) and a piglet (χοῖρον); and in the second, offerings to Zeus (twice each of two bulls, two sheep and two pigs), Athena (the same) and again to Zeus and Athena once each of three animals - a bull, a sheep and a pig.

Hermary, Legiuilloux 2004: 110 cite archaeological findings from Thasos attesting to the remains of an ox, a pig and a ram on two funeral pyres.

More on this in the commentary on the Eleusinian Inscriptions.