(the iambic satirist Hipponax) shows the pharmakos being beaten and stoned, but not executed. A more plausible explanation would be that sometimes they were executed and sometimes they weren't depending on the attitude of the victim. For instance a deliberate unrepentant murderer would most likely be put to death. Similarly, at Massilia, on the occasion of some heavy calamity (plague or famine), one of the poorest inhabitants volunteered as a scapegoat. For a year he was fed up at the public expense, then clothed in sacred garments, led through the city amidst execrations, and cast out beyond the boundaries. The ceremony on the 7th was of a cheerful character. All kinds of first-fruits were carried in procession and offered to the god, and, as at the Pyanepsia (or Pyanopsia), branches of olive bound with wool, borne by children, were affixed by them to the doors of the houses. These branches, originally intended as a charm to avert failure of the crops, were afterwards regarded as forming part of a supplicatory service. On the second day choruses of men and boys took part in musical contests, the prize for which was a tripod. Further, on this day adopted persons were solemnly received into the genos and phratria of their adoptive parents. See also Eiresione Notes References Jan Bremmer, "Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87 (1983): 299-320. Gardner, Percy; Jevons, Frank Byron, A Manual of Greek Antiquities, University of Wisconsin, 1895, Charles Scribner's Sons. Parker, Robert, Polytheism and Society at Athens, Oxford University Press, 2005. . Cited in Chisholm 1911: Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie, i. (1894); Georg Friedrich Schömann, Griechische Alterthümer (4th ed. by J. H. Lipsius, 1897–1902); P. Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusalterthümer (1890); article in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, revised by L. C. Purser (3rd ed., 1891); August Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen (1898); L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iv. (1906), pp. 268–283; J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough (2nd ed., 1900), ii. appendix C, "Offerings of First-Fruits," and iii. p. 93, 15, "On Scapegoats"; W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte (2nd ed. by W. Heuschkel, 1904–5). May observances Festivals in ancient Athens Festivals of Apollo Festivals of Artemis Horae Helios