Sparagmos

Sparagmos of Pentheus. Lid of a Lekane , approx. 450 BC. BC , Louvre

Sparagmos describes the tearing of a living animal or human being as a form of sacrifice in religious ritual , especially in the cult of Dionysus .

Known human victims are:

• Orpheus torn apart by Thracian maenads
• the Theban king Pentheus , who is torn apart by his own mother Agaue and his aunts Ino and Autonoë in a bakchantan frenzy.
• Hippasus, son of the minyad Leukippe, who is torn apart by his mother and her sisters Arsinoe and Alkathoe

literature

• Katrin Hesse: child murder and madness. Investigations into the tradition of murdering parents in antiquity. Dissertation Heidelberg 2006. [1]

Web links

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