The way humans talk to gods. Cattle, sheep, a bull, a black ram — slaughtered properly, the fat burned on the altar, the smoke rising for the deity, the rest cooked and eaten by the people who paid for the animal. Done well it is xenia run upward — feeding the god, asking for favor, marking the day. Nestor’s eighty-eight black bulls at Pylos is the upper end of the practice. Circe’s black ram and white ewe at the underworld’s edge is the magical end, blood poured into a pit for shades to drink. The cattle of Helios are the rule’s worst inversion: animals you cannot sacrifice no matter how hungry you get, because they belong to the god already. Sacrifice run wrong is one of the fastest ways in this book to die.
Sacrifice / Hecatomb
Animals to the gods, by the dozen. A hecatomb is technically a hundred bulls. The gods eat the smoke. The men eat what's left.