http://books.google.com/books?id=U1sUAAAAYAAJ&dq=sling%20stone%20hyperochus&lr=&as_brr=3&pg=RA1-PA151#v=onepage&q=sling%20stone%20hyperochus&f=false


Quote:

Plutarch (2) informs us, that the Aenianes, in their wanderings before their final settlement, approached and were desirous of obtaining possession of the country occupied by the Inachians, a people so called from the river Inachus. They were commanded by Phenicus, whilst the leader of the Inachians was named Hyperochus. ... In this state of affairs, the rival chiefs having defied each other to single combat, Phenicus, waiting for his enemy, and remarking his approach accompanied by his dog, called out to him that it was unfair to bring with him a companion; and whilst Hyperochus was engaged in driving away the animal, Phenicus hurled a stone from his sling with such precision, that the Inachian chief was slain. (3) In consequence of this victory, unworthy as it appears, the Aenianes banished the inhabitants, and possessed themselves of their lands; and Plutarch adds, that, from that time, the stone which caused the death of Hyperochus became an object of sanctity and veneration; sacrifices were awarded to it, and on those occasions it was customary to envelope it in the fat of the victim; a solemn offering was made to Apollo, as well as a bull sacrificed to Jupiter, when the choicest parts of the victim were reserved for the descendants of Temon. 2 Quaest. Graec. 13. 3 A similar stratagem was practised by Melanthus, king of Athens, in a combat with Xanthus, king of Boeotia.

A question concernig the translation. Is it ment the way that the fat of the "victim" or the "sacrifice"? Victim sounds somehow strange to me.

funda iucunda

Victim works if the sacrifice was human. :o

The Greeks only did human sacrifice in the most dire of situations. It would not have been for battles or anything.