The story is that when, in obedience to the soothsaying of Calchas, the Greeks were about to sacrifice Iphigeneia on the altar, the goddess substituted a deer to be the victim instead of her. They preserve in the temple what still survives of the plane-tree mentioned by Homer in the Iliad. The story is that the Greeks were kept at Aulis by contrary winds, and when suddenly a favouring breeze sprang up, each sacrificed to Artemis the victim he had to hand, female and male alike. From that time the rule has held good at Aulis that oil victims are permissible1.
See:
- Homerus, Ilias II.280
- Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918
- Frederick E. Winter, in Østby (ed.) Ancient Arcadia, 2005, pp.483–492 - https://digitalt.uib.no/bitstream/handle/1956.2/3048/Arkadian%20Temple-designs_Winter.pdf?sequence=1
- http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/image?img=1987.08.4035&redirect=true
Bronnen
- ↑Pausanias, IX.19