,
12 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
Ver sacrum (sacred spring) was a religious practice of ancient Italic peoples, Sabines and Samnites, in which they, in times of danger, vowed to give all the children and cattle born in spring to God Mars, in exchange for overcoming the danger @MagicalEurope @TheAncientWorld 
The human children who had been devoted had to leave the community at the age of 20 or 21. They were led to the border with a veiled faces and were supposed to go into the world and there, protected by Mars, establish their own settlement by expelling the original inhabitants
But many think that originally they were actually sacrificed to Mars
Dionysius of Halicarnassus states the practise of child sacrifice was one of the causes that brought about the fall of the Pelasgians in Italy.
This is similar to other "first fruit" sacrifices to other god's of vegetation (as Mars was originally god of vegetation)
Like for instance the first fruit sacrifices which were, according to the Irish annals, offered to old Irish god Crom Dubh (Crom Cruach), to whom first born children were also sacrificed oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2015/04/how-ol…
Why would anyone dedicate (sacrifice) their children and their cattle, the most precious things one possessed during Iron age, to the god of vegetation war and agriculture? Because, under the circumstances, this was "a good bargain" @FolkloreThurs @TheAncientWorld @sentantiq
What is a sacrifice? It is a price we are willing to pay for what we want to the force (anthropomorphised as "god") that controlls acces to that something we want.
If the harvest was good but we want it to be even better, then a loaf of bread seems like a fair bribe (sacrifice).
If a harvest wasn't as good as we expected it to be and we might have to struggle through the winter, a cockerel or even a pig or a bull would seem like a decent amount of wealth that would make god give us a good harvest the following year
But if a harvest failed and starvation and death was threatening the whole community, then a human life, the one most likely to be the first to end due to hunger, infant's life, seemed like a fair price to pay for the next harvest and the survival of the community as whole
As horrible as this looks, in the eyes of our ancestors this was probably seen as a bargain...
