Damocritus°
DAMOCRITUS° (possibly first century B.C.E.), Greek historian who, according to Suda, wrote a work "On the Jews," in which he claimed that the Jews worshiped a golden ass' head, and that every seven years they captured a foreigner whom they sacrificed to their god – the first occurrence in literature of the *blood libel. *Apion has a similar account. Since the Romans of that time prohibited human sacrifice, the inference made by Damocritus is that Judaism condoned superstition and misanthropy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism., vol. 1 (1974), 530–31.
Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.
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