Laudator Temporis Acti

Homer, Iliad 3.292-301 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):

So he spoke, and with pitiless bronze he cut the lambs' throats,
letting them fall gasping again to the ground, the life breath
going away, since the strength of the bronze had taken it from them.
Drawing the wine from the mixing bowls in the cups, they poured it
forth, and made their prayer to the gods who live everlasting.
And thus would murmur any man, Achaian or Trojan:
'Zeus, exalted and mightiest, and you other immortals,
let those, whichever side they may be, who do wrong to the oaths sworn
first, let their brains be spilled on the ground as this wine is spilled now,
theirs and their sons', and let their wives be the spoil of others.'

ἦ, καὶ ἀπὸ στομάχους ἀρνῶν τάμε νηλέϊ χαλκῷ·
καὶ τοὺς μὲν κατέθηκεν ἐπὶ χθονὸς ἀσπαίροντας
θυμοῦ δευομένους· ἀπὸ γὰρ μένος εἵλετο χαλκός.
οἶνον δ᾽ ἐκ κρητῆρος ἀφυσσόμενοι δεπάεσσιν        295
ἔκχεον, ἠδ᾽ εὔχοντο θεοῖς αἰειγενέτῃσιν.
ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν Ἀχαιῶν τε Τρώων τε·
'Ζεῦ κύδιστε μέγιστε καὶ ἀθάνατοι θεοὶ ἄλλοι
ὁππότεροι πρότεροι ὑπὲρ ὅρκια πημήνειαν
ὧδέ σφ᾽ ἐγκέφαλος χαμάδις ῥέοι ὡς ὅδε οἶνος        300
αὐτῶν καὶ τεκέων, ἄλοχοι δ᾽ ἄλλοισι δαμεῖεν.'

301 δαμεῖεν sch^hT 3 554 A B²? Ε Τ: μιγείεν sch^bD Ω* Τ^s

See Margo Kitts, Sanctified Violence in Homeric Society: Oath-Making Rituals and Narratives in the Iliad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 137, who compares a Hittite military oath: "This is not your wine, it is your blood. As the earth swallows it, so shall it swallow your blood."