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Ἄλος or Ἅλος, an ancient city (of the Myrmidons, Hom. Il. ii. 682) to the north-east of Mount Othrys, on the river Amphysus near the Pagasaean gulf (cf. 173. 1), was said to have been founded by Athamas (Strabo 433). Xerxes no doubt led his detachment from Larissa by Pherae to Phthiotian Thebes. If he marched thence along the coast to Lamia, he must have passed Halus, if he turned inland by Itonus, he would go within 60 stades of it (Strabo, l. c.). ἐπιχώριον λόγον, ‘a local legend.’ The story of Athamas, a tradition of pre-Hellenic Minyan origin, is associated with both the homes of the race, Orchomenus in Boeotia and the shores of the Pagasaean gulf (Iolcus). In Boeotia, 2 1/2 miles from Coronea, stood the shrine and statue of Zeus Laphystius, where legend said Phrixus had been saved by a ram from being sacrificed (Paus. ix. 34). Mount Laphystius stood over against Orchomenus, and on the opposite (eastern) side of Lake Copais there was, near Acraephia (viii. 135. 1 n.), a πεδίον Ἀθαμάντιον (Paus. ix. 24. 3), while Mount Ptoon was named after Ptous son of Athamas (Paus. ix. 23. 6). Near Halus, too, there was a πεδίον . . . Ἀθαμάντιον (Apoll. Rhod. ii. 514 and schol.). Λαφυστίου, ‘the devourer,’ from λαφύσσειν: cf. Ἅρτεμις Λαφρία, Paus. iv. 31. 7; vii. 18. 12. Human sacrifices were regarded by the Greeks as impious and only practised by barbarians (cf. iv. 103); so pseudo-Plato, Minos 315 B-D ἡμῖν μὲν οὐ νόμος ἐστὶν ἀνθρώπους θύειν ἀλλ᾽ ἀνόσιον, Καρχηδόνιοι δὲ θύουσιν ὡς ὅσιον καὶ νόμιμον αὐτοῖς, καὶ ταῦτα ἔνιοι αὐτῶν καὶ τοὺς αὑτῶν υἱεῖς τῷ Κρόνῳ. Plato, however, admits as exceptions ‘the sons of Athamas’ and the worshippers of Zeus Lycaeus in Arcadia; cf. Paus. viii. 38. 7. At Orchomenus in Boeotia the priest of Dionysus Laphystius every year at the festival of the Agrionia pursued the young women of Minyan descent, known as Oleae, with a drawn sword, and within Plutarch's memory had slain one (Plut. Mor. 299 F; Quaest. Gr. 38). Again in Chios and Tenedos in early times a man was torn in pieces as a sacrifice to Dionysus Omestes (Porph. de Abstin. ii. 55), and for Attica cf. § 3 n. Human sacrifices were frequent among the Carthaginians (cf. ch. 167 n.; Plato, l. c.). The burning of their children in honour of Baal and Moloch was common among the Canaanites (Deut. xii. 31; xviii. 9, 10), and the Israelites frequently relapsed into the abominable practice (2 Kings xvii. 17; Jer. vii. 31; xix. 5; xxxii. 35). The kings themselves, Manasseh and Ahaz, made their children pass through the fire in the valley of Hinnom (2 Chron. xxviii. 3; xxxiii. 6), while the king of Moab when hard pressed ‘took his eldest son and offered him for a burnt-offering (2 Kings iii. 27). Frazer (Golden Bough, pt. iii (the dying God), ch.6), argues from this and from Micah vi. 6, 7; Ezek. xx. 26, 31, as well as from the consecration of the firstborn among the Israelites (Exod. xiii. 1, 12; xxxiv. 19) and the feast of the Passover, that the Semitic custom was to sacrifice the firstborn as here, but that the custom was mitigated by the permission to redeem the child (Numb. xviii. 15; iii. 44 f.), or by the vicarious sacrifice of a lamb (cf. also Gen. xxii. 1-13). In the legend here the ram that saved Phrixus points to the substitution of a ram for the human victim. So at Salamis in Cyprus an ox took the place of a man, and at Syrian Laodicea a deer that of a maiden (Porphyry, de Abstin. ii. 54-6). At Potniae goats were substituted for boys (Paus. ix. 8. 2), and in a sacrifice to Munychian Artemis for a girl. But the man rescued must henceforth be treated as under God's ban and flee from his home; cf. the Italic ver sacrum Festus, p. 158, and especially 379. The legend here is an explanation of the ancient ceremony, and an attempt to find a reason for an abhorrent worship in the wickedness of men (cf. inf.). Φρίξῳ. Apparently his sister Helle was unknown in the earliest form of the myth. Again in the later writers it is Ino, the wicked step-mother, who by getting the seed-corn roasted secretly caused a famine in the land; she then bribed the messenger sent to inquire of the Delphic oracle to say that the children of Nephele, the first wife of Athamas, must be sacrificed; but they were saved by the ram with the golden fleece who bore Phrixus to Colchis (Apollodorus, i. 9. 1). ἀέθλους. The word implies there was some feat to be performed (cf. i. 126. 2; iv. 10. 2), but H. writes obscurely here and elsewhere in the chapter, perhaps from sacred reserve. Possibly undetected entrance into the Prytaneion established the claimant's right to the enjoyment of the consecrated land (τέμενος, § 4).
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