Hecatomb

a Greek word meaning literally a hundred oxen. In the worship of the Greeks it was customary to sacrifice a large number of animals, preferably oxen. The legs and certain portions of the intestines were wrapped in fat and burned on the altar. The remainder of the carcass served for a feast which came at the conclusion of the religious ceremony. While the sacrifice by no means required the full number of oxen, and might, indeed, be performed with other animals, it is needless to say that the prospect of a bountiful feast led the populace to regard the full number of one hundred oxen with favor. A man of wealth hardly deemed it consistent with his social standing to tender the priests a smaller number. Hecatomb has passed into popular use, rather inappropriately, to designate a sacrifice of human life, as in case of a railroad accident and the burning of a ship at sea, or an assault on a fortress. See Barbecue