every day cult, which was a duty incumbent upon the priests, but at which the private worshipper also might assist to offer prayer or sacrifice.  The ordinary sacrificial animals were oxen, cows, goats, sheep, and lambs; swine were not offered, being regarded as unclean;[11112] but the stag was an acceptable victim, at any rate on certain occasions.[11113] At all functions the priests attended in large numbers, habited in white garments of linen or cotton, and wearing a stiff cap or mitre upon their heads:[11114] on one occasion of a sacrifice Lucian counted above three hundred engaged in the ceremony.[11115] It was the duty of some to slay the victims; of others to pour libations; of a third class to bear about pans of coal on which incense could be offered; of a fourth to attend upon the altars.[11116] The priests of each temple had at their head a Chief or High Priest, who was robed in purple and wore a golden tiara.  His office, however, continued only for a year, when another was chosen to succeed him.[11117]

Ordinarily, sacrifices were offered, in Phoenicia as elsewhere, singly, and upon altars; but sometimes it was customary to have a great holocaust.  Large trees were dug up by the roots, and planted in the court of the temple; the victims, whether goats, or sheep, or cattle of any other kind, were suspended by ropes from the branches; birds were similarly attached, and garments, and vessels in gold and silver.  Then the images of the gods belonging to the temple were brought out, and carried in a solemn procession round the trees; after which the trees were set on fire, and the whole was consumed in a mighty conflagration.[11118] The season for this great holocaust was the commencement of the spring-time, when the goodness of Heaven in once more causing life to spring up on every side seemed to require man’s special acknowledgment.

Hymns of praise are spoken of especially in connection with this same Spring-Festival.[11119] Votive offerings were continually being offered in every temple by such as believed that they had received any benefit from any god, either in consequence of their vows, or prayers, or even by the god’s spontaneous action.  The sites of temples yield numerous traces of such offerings.  Sometimes they are in the shape of stone stelae or pillars, inscribed and more or less ornamented,[11120] sometimes of tablets placed within an ornamental border, and generally accompanied by some rude sculptures;[11121] more often of figures, either in bronze or clay, which are mostly of a somewhat rude character.  M. Renan observes with respect to these figures, which are extremely numerous:—­“Ought we to see in these images, as has been supposed, long series of portraits of priests and priestesses continued through several centuries?  We do not think so.  The person represented in these statues appears to us to be the author of a vow or of a sacrifice made to the divinity of the temple . . .  Vows and sacrifices were very fleeting things; it might be