Session 4: To Kill or Not to Kill?
Moderator: Antoine Lilti (Collège de France)
Abstract
Greek culture is a millennia-old culture of sacrifice: the killing of a domestic animal in honor of the gods is the central ritual of communal life in all its forms. But Greek culture is also a reflective culture, one that has preserved for us many readings and interpretations of the acts it has performed. This presentation will focus on highlighting key aspects of the interpretation of sacrifice at the heart of Greek culture, through an analysis of certain terms from the sacrificial vocabulary of tragedy and the significance of the civic ritual of the Bouphonia (“killing of the ox”).
