Isidora Tolić - Whodunit? A Comparative Analysis of Bouphonia

Whodunit? A Comparative Analysis of Bouphonia
The Athenian custom of bouphonia stands out as a complex, amusing and at times unpredictable example of religious practice in ancient Greece. It is documented by several ancient authors, whose primary focus was explaining the ritual’s aetiology. An integral part of the festival of Zeus
Polieus, this ritual involves a series of practices centered around the sacrificial offering of bulls or oxen. While accounts of bouphonia vary among ancient writers, they predominantly emphasize the ritual transgression of the first sacrificial animal, followed by its punishment in the form of the first murder, interpreted as the first sacrifice. This aetiological model is not uncommon among the texts describing ancient Greek rituals, serving as a prevalent method for transferring guilt from the sacrificers to the sacrificial animal. In the second book of his work On Abstinence from Killing Animals, drawing extensively from Theophrastos’ treatise On Piety, Porphyry of Tyre records a somewhat different and a much more detailed description of the aetiology and course of each ritual aspect connected to Athenian bouphonia. Porphyry portrays this custom as a multi-level ritual mechanism aimed at absolving the participants of guilt. The protagonist of Porphyry’s account is an Athenian metic who, in a fit of rage provoked by the animal’s cult transgression, slaughters an ox. This incident sets off a series of interconnected events, beginning with the metic’s escape from Athens, divine retribution in a form of a natural disaster, a pursuit of the fugitive, the fugitive’s plan to cheat the Athenians, and ultimately, an attempt at redemption and guilt diffusion through a complex chain ritual with interdependent elements. Since Karl Meuli’s influential 1946 paper on Greek sacrifice, Porphyry's narrative of bouphonia has been labeled as Unschuldskomödie or comedy of innocence. This interpretation highlights the ritual's symbolic complexity and underscores the absurdity of transferring guilt to an animal or an inanimate object. In this paper, we aim to offer a comprehensive analysis of Porphyry’s account, dissecting various aspects of bouphonia to emphasize the individual methods employed to cope with guilt in sacrificial acts. Through comparisons with similar rites in Greek and other cultural traditions, particularly those featuring chain narratives with interdependent elements, we seek to illuminate the relevance of bouphonia and similar customs in the study of ancient religious practices. Additionally, we aim to explore the connections between bouphonia and concepts such as guilt, responsibility, and morality, shedding light on its role in both ritual and judicial contexts.
Isidora Tolić (Department of Classics, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade)