Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Hostia

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

HOS'TIA (ἱερεῖον). A victim sacrificed to the gods; properly, as a peace-offering to avert their wrath, as contradistinguished from victima, which was offered as a thanksgiving for favours received. Victims consisted mostly of domestic animals, such as oxen, sheep, pigs, &c., and when sacrificed to the Gods of Olympus, they were slain with the head upwards, as in the annexed example (Hostia/1.1), from the Vatican Virgil; when offered to the deities of the lower regions, to heroes, or to the dead, with the head towards the earth. The larger ones were first stunned by a blow of the mallet from the hand of the popa, as in the annexed engraving (Hostia/1.2), from a Roman bas-relief; the smaller ones were struck in the throat by the cultrarius, as shown by the first example.

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  Hostia/1.1
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  Hostia/1.2