'Frequently and Fundamentally Misapprehended': The Scapegoat Rituals of Ancient Greece

<p><strong>Evidence for the performance of scapegoat rituals – wherein a member of the population was abused and expelled for the purpose of city-wide purification – survives for a remarkable number of communities across the ancient Greek world. However, this evidence tends to be both fragmentary and late. The issue is compounded by the characterisation of scapegoat rituals by early scholars of Greek religion as rare, violent, and primitive, a characterisation which has continued to influence more recent scholarship. This has contributed to our poor understanding of the context in which scapegoat rituals were performed and the place of these rituals in the wider scheme of Greek religion. This thesis re-examines the evidence for Greek scapegoat rituals performed in the archaic and classical periods with a specific focus on understanding their relationship to other rituals and myths. Accordingly, I first identify the common features of the – often highly variable – Greek scapegoat rituals through an examination of our evidence. I then explore the performance of scapegoat rituals in the context of the Athenian cults of Apollo and the Thargelia festival. I argue that the regular place of scapegoat rituals within the Athenian festival calendar demonstrates that they were not so esoteric as the scholarship might suggest. Finally, I investigate the relationship between scapegoat rituals and selected elements of Greek myth and cult: the sacrifice of parthenoi, the performance of hero cult, and the myths of scapegoat-like figures. In doing so, I go some way towards contextualising scapegoat rituals within the scheme of Greek religion and, in turn, demonstrating their resonances with other aspects of Greek myth, cult, and society.</strong></p>