In historic times, however, as in earlier, the altar of sacrifice was to be found, in Grecian and Roman temples, near the threshold of the door. While there were smaller altars, for the offering of incense and bloodless sacrifices, in the interior of temples, the larger and more important altars, for the offering of animal sacrifices, whether of beasts or of men, were before the temple, in front of the threshold,–_bomoi pronaoi_.[395]
A ruined temple of Artemis Propylæa, at Eleusis, shows the main altar immediately before the threshold, between the antæ. The altar of the temple of Apollo at Delphi was in a like position; as shown in the fact that “when Neoptolemus is attacked by Orestes in the vestibule of the temple at Delphi, he seizes the arms which were suspended by means of nails or pins from one of the antæ, takes his station upon the altar, and addresses the people in his own defense.”[396]
When the “priest of Jupiter, whose temple was before the city” of Lystra, would have given divine honors to Paul and Barnabas, he brought the garlanded oxen “unto the gates,” to sacrifice them there. At the gate of the city, within which the supposed gods were to be found, seemed the proper place of sacrifice.[397]
There are references in classic story, as in Babylonian legends, in Phenician and Syrian beliefs, and in the Hebrew prophetic visions, to life-giving waters flowing out from under the threshold of the sanctuary. In the garden of the palace-temple of Alcinoüs “are two springs, the one ripples through the whole garden, the other opposite it gushes under the threshold of the courtyard to the lofty house, and from it the citizens draw their water.”[398] On “the apple-growing shores of the Hesperides,” where Atlas upholds “the holy threshold of heaven,” according to the poets, “springs of ambrosia pour from the chamber of Zeus, from his bedside,” and give a rich blessing to the life-giving earth.[399] And of Delphi it is said: “Going toward the temple we come upon the spring Cassotis: there is a low wall about it, and you ascend to the spring through the walls. The water of this Cassotis they say sinks underground, and in the shrine of the god [Apollo] makes the woman prophetic [is inspiration to her.]”[400]