Hecatomb (pronounced hek-uh-tohm or hek-uh-toom)
(1) In ancient Greece and Rome, any great public
sacrifice and feast, originally a public sacrifice to the gods of 100 oxen.
(2) In Medieval use, by extension, any great sacrifice; a
great number of people, animals or things, especially as sacrificed or
destroyed; a large amount.
(3) In modern use (loosely), any great slaughter.
1585–1595: From
the Latin hecatombē, from the Ancient
Greek ἑκατόμβη (hekatómbē)
(originally (and literally) “an offering of 100 oxen” and later “any great
sacrifice”), from hekatombwā, the construct
derived from the idea of ἑκατόν (hekatón) (one hundred) + -bwā,
(a form which etymologists have always found curious an assumed to be a derivative
of βοῦς (boûs)
(ox), from the primitive Indo-European root gwou-
(ox, bull, cow). The origin of hékaton is also a mystery but the
construct may be from hem-katon, with
hen (a neuter of heis or eis (one)) + katon (hundred). The first month of the Attic calendar (July-August)
was Hekatombaion, the annual season
of sacrifice. Hecatomb is a noun; the noun plural is plural
hecatombs.
Hecatomb remains rare and obscure except in historic use
but can, in the correct context, be used as a linguistic flourish as an
alternative to warfare, havoc, killing, slaughter, crime, butchery, bloodshed,
homicide, murder, liquidation, rapine, blood, blitz, holocaust, extermination,
annihilation, shambles etc but should not replace the specific forms genocide
or the holocaust; opinion is divided on whether it’s a suitable substitute for events
pre-dating World War II which were historically described as holocausts. Holocaust was from the Middle English holocaust (burnt offering), from the Anglo-Norman
holocauste, the Old French holocauste & olocauste (which exists in modern French as holocaust), from the Late Latin holocaustum,
from the Ancient Greek ὁλόκαυστον (holókauston), the neuter form of ὁλόκαυστος (holókaustos)
(wholly burnt), the construct being ὅλος (hólos) (entire,
whole (ultimately from the primitive Indo-European solh- (whole)) + καυστός (kaustós)
(burnt), from καίω (kaíō) (to burn,
burn up), the source of which is uncertain although there may be some link with
the primitive Indo-European kehw-. The verb is derived from the noun
The word holocaust is regarded by some as problematic (in
the modern way that word is now used). Holocaust
has since at least the 1960s been established as the descriptor of the industrialized
mass murder of Jews by the Nazis, the decision to exterminate the Jews of
Europe taken in 1941 and formalized in 1942.
Some Jewish scholars however criticize the use of the word because of
the historical associations with voluntary sacrifices to God and don’t wish any
to draw the inference there was any voluntary religious purpose in the Nazi crime,
either from the perspective either of the perpetrators or the victims. Their preferred term is Shoah, (from the Hebrew שׁוֹאָה (catastrophe). Other Jewish scholars note the technical
point but argue the use of Holocaust (capitalized) uniquely as a descriptor for
the events of 1942-1945 is didactically helpful in a way a wider adoption of Shoah would not serve.
According to a legend which
appears in more than one source, when the Greek philosopher Pythagoras discovered
what came to be called the Pythagorean
theorem (the one about famous right-triangles), he celebrated by
sacrificing a hecatomb (100 head) of oxen to the gods. Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,
1832–1898) is remembered now mostly for Alice’s many adventures but he was also
a prolific author of works in mathematics, a discipline in which he took a
first at Oxford. In A New Theory of Parallels (1895), he wrote his whimsical take on
the legend of the Pythagoras’s sacrifice.
As an anecdote it probably wouldn’t get many laughs in a any of today’s stand-up
comedy clubs but it’s a nice relic of gentlemanly Victorian humor by one who was
once an Oxford under-graduate and never quite recovered:
But neither thirty years,
nor thirty centuries, affect the clearness, or the charm, of Geometrical
truths. Such a theorem as “the square of
the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of
the sides” is as dazzlingly beautiful now as it was in the day when Pythagoras
first discovered it, and celebrated its advent, it is said, by sacrificing a
hecatomb of oxen — a method of doing honor to Science that has always seemed to
me slightly exaggerated and uncalled-for. One can imagine oneself, even in these
degenerate days, marking the epoch of some brilliant scientific discovery by
inviting a convivial friend or two, to join one in a beefsteak and a bottle of
wine. But a hecatomb of oxen! It would produce a quite inconvenient supply of
beef.
That in the German vernacular someone thought a dunce is
called “an ox” allowed the penning of some Teutonic whimsy, the satirist Karl
Ludwig Börne (1786–1837) observing: “After
Pythagoras discovered his fundamental theorem he sacrificed a hecatomb of oxen.
Since that time all dunces tremble whenever a new truth is discovered.” The botanist and romantic poet Adelbert von
Chamisso (1781–1838) also liked the pun which he used in a short verse:
Truth lasts throughout
eternity,
When once the stupid world
its light discerns:
The theorem, coupled with
Pythagoras’ name,
Holds true today, as’t did
in olden times.
A splendid sacrifice
Pythagoras brought
The gods, who blessed him
with this ray divine;
A great burnt offering of a
hundred kine,
Proclaimed afar the sage’s
gratitude.
Now since that day, all
cattle [blockheads] when they scent
New truth about to see the
light of day,
In frightful bellowing
manifest their dismay;
Pythagoras fills them all
with terror;
And powerless to shut out
light by error,
In sheer despair, they shut
their eyes and tremble.
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