The ritual the convicted Minneapolis police officer was subjected to was less a legal trial than a sort of pagan sacrifice.
Chez Kimball, we are spending part of most evenings reading The Iliad aloud. I wish I could say that we are doing it in the original Greek, but no—we are reading Richmond Lattimore’s translation, which was published in 1951. Other translations are more popular than Lattimore’s, but I think it is the best English translation because it manages to preserve something of the primitive current of Homer’s verse.
In any event, whatever version you choose, you cannot read far into Homer without being struck by the prevalence of sacrifice and expiation. The Achaeans and Trojans alike are always making sacrifices to the gods. Something good happens: better slit the throats of a few oxen and roast the carcasses. Something bad happens: make that a hundred oxen or sheep.
First they drew back the victims’ heads and slaughtered them and skinned them,
and cut away the meat from thighs and wrapped them in fat,
making a double fold, and laid shreds of flesh upon them.
The old man burned these on a cleft stick and poured the gleaming
Yea he is. What a sad, disputable country we now live in!