Singular life
Sacrificial offerings
Petronella Wyatt
In case you hadn't noticed, I ain't the rustic sort. But even the likes of me, who think that cattle grids are things you get your Gucci slingbacks stuck in, have been startled by recent events. But then I began to wonder where we had seen it all before. The sheep and bulls led to the slaughter; the smoking pyres; the solemn, whitened faces of our country's leaders.
So much for 'Bloody Mary'; the Prime Minister will go down in history as 'Toasting Tony'. Not to put too fine a point on it, everyone knows that Mr Blair is sacrificing the country's animal population to his political ambition. Our cows are being killed so we can go to the polls on 3 May. By George, I've got it, as Prof Higgins might have said.
In Ancient Greece and Rome they went in for the same thing. Only burning animals wasn't called 'creating fire breaks' then, but 'propitiating the Gods'. At the Greek Dionysia, apparently, the theatrical performances were preceded by a day in which as many as 240 bulls were killed. Restrained compared to last week, of course. But there seems to be no reason why Alastair Campbell shouldn't kill a few heifers before one of his press conferences.
What a vista opens before us, At Aizani, any activity could be preceded by sacrificing livestock. According to historians, in the 4th century BC divisions of the town's citizens body presented a well-groomed ox on parade in the market place while the magistrates sat and picked the prize animal for the pyre.
Each government department, perhaps, should do the same and present a Cumbri
an bull or a Dumfries sheep for parade. Then Nick Brown would be called upon to decide which healthy animal should be sacrificed. In the Greek world the animals were killed to what is described as the piercing cry of female spectators. This is easy to replicate. Margaret Beckett and the Blair Babes will stay to watch. That'll teach the cows. The four-legged ones, I mean.
All those ancient heroes sacrificed innumerable animals at the start of a campaign. Agamemnon sent them to the slaughter before an important political skirmish. It is with the Romans, though, that Blair should feel most affinity. The 2nd and 3rd centuries saw a great interest in bulls' testicles, associated with offerings 'on behalf of the safety of the Emperor'. The EU Health Commission might have had something to say about that.
Outside the Roman Senate, obliging stall-keepers sold animals to politicians who felt that a sacrifice would help their legislation through. Were the government to set up a livestock pen outside the Commons. they could at the very least save time by requiring MPs to dispatch an animal on their way out.
Mark Antony burnt sheep and cows like nobody's business. Whole herds went up in flames before the Battle of Actium in 31 AD. Actium was even more important that a May General Election. Blair seems to have a bit of a Mark Antony complex, except for the booze and the nooky. That must make Gordon Brown Octavian. Lord Irvine looks very much like the Sibyl at Cumae, who is described as 'mad looking with a high forehead and unblinking eyes'. The Sibyl decided the rise and fall of emperors. Before being permitted to visit her the applicant had to sacrifice a bull and a ewe.
In AD 22, sacrifices of bulls were made for the recovery of the Dowager Empress Livia from an illness. Next time Cherie comes down with flu? Of course the meat was cooked and eaten by the human participants. Why should it be any different now? If half a million animals are to be burned for Blair, he ought to have the decency to eat some of them. I admit that we are talking about a lot of steaks. But Labour did, after all, propose a society of stakeholders.
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