tuted with
equal effect, and we often find that people who had advanced to that
point of philosophy, when face to face with a great calamity showed that
they did not believe that the effect was equal. They went back to child
sacrifice.[1975] The Hebrews in the seventh century thought that they
felt the wrath of God and they tried to avert it in this way.[1976]
Tiele thinks that there is no evidence of child sacrifice or of the
temple consecration of women in the Euphrates valley in historical
times, but in Syria and Arabia child sacrifice lasted on in spite of the
culture of the Aramaeans and Phoenicians. In old Arabia fathers burned
their little daughters as sacrifices to the goddess.[1977] Human
sacrifices were used for auguries before any important enterprise, and
as thank offerings for victory or success. Every year a number of
children of the foremost families were sacrificed as an expiation for
the sins of the nation, "while fiendish music drowned their cries and
the lamentations of their mothers."[1978] The Carthaginians kept up the
custom. The leading families were bound to furnish the sacrifice as
representatives of the commonwealth. The children to be sacrificed were
selected by lot from those who were liable. Children were exchanged in
order to be saved. The parents might not lament, for to do so would
deprive the sacrifice of its efficacy.[1979] The custom was an
abomination to the Romans, but it was so firmly fixed in the mores of
the Carthaginians that the conquerors could not stop it. The proconsul
Tiberius put an end to it by hanging the priests of the cult to the
trees of their own temple grove.[1980] As Tertullian says that soldiers
who executed this order were still living when he wrote, the order of
Tiberius must have been issued about the middle of the second century
A.D. or a little later.

+610. Dedication by vows.+ The connection between child sacrifice and
the temple consecration of girls is in the substitution of the latter
for the former, as a ransom. The girl devoted to death belonged to the
goddess in one way, if not in the other. Vows made in illness sometimes
included such substitution. In the historic period, after child
sacrifice had ceased in the Euphrates valley, many variations occurred.
Barren women made vows. Children were vowed to the goddess for life or
for a time. They were redeemed by money which they earned in the temple
life. The accumulation of a dowry was only a variation.[1