When Greeks and Persians Swore Together. About Xenophon’s Anabasis II, 2, 8-9

A dramatic episode occurring in Xenophon’s Anabasis 2, 8-9, describes the celebration of a pact of alliance and military solidarity between Greek and Persian soldiers by means of a very peculiar oath celebrated by the two parts. While the Greek soldiers dipped a sword in the blood of the sacrificial animals, the Persians would have plunged a lance. The present contribution deals with the symbolic net of meanings placed behind these two different weapons within the framework of the Greek-Iranian relations. Furthermore, it enters the problem of the determination of the full set of the actual sacrificial animals involved within the mentioned ritual. In particular, the possible presence of a wolf as an animal acceptable or not within this special framework is a matter of detailed discussion. This subject involves not only the philological tradition of the Greek text, but concerns also a number of ethno-anthropological considerations, which inevitably derive from the act of killing a savage animal such a wolf (frequently considered demonic) within an ancient sacrifice.