Leveling charges against various dissenting groups or heretical sects both of holding meetings at which babies were ritually slaughtered and of conducting orgies at which every form of intercourse, including incest, together with the worshiping of odd divinities in the form of animals, was almost a standard procedure in the history of religions. Cannibalism or sexual intercourse between close relatives, which are usually considered against human nature and as such forbidden in almost every society, were the natural imputation against persons who saw themselves as outside the normal customs or rules. Moreover, dissenting factions were labeled "conspiratorial organizations" and often faced charges of conducting ritual murder and cannibalistic feasts. In some cases it is possible to establish with certainty that these charges were no more than a stereotype, as in the case of such activities imputed to the...