BUPHONIA, in Greek antiquities, a sacrificial ceremony, forming part of the Diipolia or Diipoleia, a religious festival held on the 14th of the month Skirophorion (June-July) at Athens, when a labouring ox was sacrificed to Zeus Polieus as protector of the city. A number of oxen were driven to his altar on the Acropolis, on which grain was spread ; and when one of the oxen began to eat, the priest slew it with an ax, which he im mediately threw away and fled. The ax, being polluted by murder, was now carried before the court of the Prytaneum (which tried inanimate objects for homicide) and there charged with having caused the death of the ox, for which it was thrown into the sea. Apparently this is an early instance analogous to deodand (q.v.). The ox itself was probably the embodiment of the corn-spirit, and therefore its slaughter was regarded as murder.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. See W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Bibliography. See W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites (1894) ; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (abridged edition, 5922) ; J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1922).