How did humans in the distant past interpret deadly infectious diseases, such as leprosy, typhus, and cholera, and what means did they use to confront them? How old is the common perception of the (self)sacrifice of the scapegoat? What is the connection between the recently experienced pandemic and the ancient notion of the scapegoat, the archaic Greek colonization, and the god Apollo? These are just some of the most significant questions posed in the present work.

Human societies, since prehistoric times, unable to comprehend the real causes for famine or plague, attributed the emergence of such calamities to the intervention of divine forces, which sent them as punishment and as a means of reforming immoral behavior. Aimed at appeasing the deity, healing, and returning to normalcy, appropriate rituals and specific prayers were mobilized, composed and performed by seer-healers who, due to their specialized training, were able to interpret the misfortunes and provide suitable solutions.

This book traces the evolution of the perception of the expulsion of the ritual scapegoat in ancient societies through the comparison of the earliest ancient Greek sources with various specialized ritual texts from Hittites, Luwians, Hurrians, and other healers of the third and second millennium B.C., derived from libraries of ancient eastern kingdoms.

Part of this valuable and ancient knowledge of the peoples of the ancient Near East seems to have seamlessly passed into the world of the Aegean and mainland Greece around the beginning of the first millennium B.C. During the great journey of myths in the ancient Greek world and the Near East, the figure of the powerful epichoric god Apollo emerged, significantly aided by Homer himself, as the god who healed infectious diseases and protector of Greek colonization, crucially influencing ancient Greek culture.

Cover image: Nikos Masteropoulos.