sacrificing to gods

[sinhakumara]

A big Hello to all the friends ! I have two questions for my very knowledgeable friends on Greek matters. First one is - What were the various greek names given to the 'ritual sacrifice' of the beasts conducted at the beginning or conclusion of a major event in the course of an expedition ? Secondly - How was the Viscera/ entrails of the sacrificed beast interpreted to be a good or bad Omen ...? Scholars to my aid please......! Sinhakumara.

[zeugma]

Hey, that looks like a lot of (fun) source language searching!

[sinhakumara]

And mega-curious though I have been all this while, none of my scholar friends have been able to enlighten me on the above subject !! I mean surely somebody would be knowing !

[Lex]

I don't know anything about Greek sacrifices, but I've heard of the Roman suovitaurilia. It's a sacrifice of a pig (su-s), a ram (ovi-s), and a bull (taur-us). No llamas, thank goodness. Don't know if you'd be interested in that.

[jamesbath]

A big Hello to all the friends ! I have two questions for my very knowledgeable friends on Greek matters. First one is - What were the various greek names given to the 'ritual sacrifice' of the beasts conducted at the beginning or conclusion of a major event in the course of an expedition ? Secondly - How was the Viscera/ entrails of the sacrificed beast interpreted to be a good or bad Omen ...? Scholars to my aid please......! Sinhakumara.

Here is an interesting link to ancient Greek festivals that might help you in your search: http://www.fjkluth.com/festival.html

[parjanya]

I may be wrong, but the primary sources about greek sacrifice are scarce (no śrauta sūtra texts here...), and probably contradictory, as most things surely were different according to time and place. So your question is quite naturally difficult to answer. I can only refer you to what my google-fu could find:

• David Gerard Rice, John E. Stambaugh - Sources for the study of Greek religion.
  http://books.google.com.br/books?id=fkw ... kC&pg=PA84
  
• Halliday, W. R. - Greek divination; a study of its methods and principles.
  http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924058563259
  
• Cornford, F. M. - Greek religious thought from Homer to the age of Alexander.
  http://www.archive.org/details/greekrel ... 00cornuoft
  
• Smith, Sir William - A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (Augur)
  http://books.google.com.br/books?id=KWg ... AJ&pg=PA49

Please inform about your advances... it's an interesting subject.