First, we must notice that it was not only at Elis that a holy Bull
appears at the Spring Festival. Plutarch asks another instructive
_Question_:[26] "Who among the Delphians is the Sanctifier?" And we find
to our amazement that the sanctifier is a Bull. A Bull who not only is
holy himself, but is so holy that he has power to make others holy, he
is the Sanctifier; and, most important for us, he sanctifies by his
death in the month Bysios, the month that fell, Plutarch tells us, "at
the beginning of spring, the time of the blossoming of many plants."

We do not hear that the "Sanctifier" at Delphi was "driven," but in all
probability he was led from house to house, that every one might partake
in the sanctity that simply exuded from him. At Magnesia,[27] a city of
Asia Minor, we have more particulars. There, at the annual fair year by
year the stewards of the city bought a Bull, "the finest that could be
got," and at the new moon of the month at the beginning of seedtime they
dedicated it, for the city's welfare. The Bull's sanctified life began
with the opening of the agricultural year, whether with the spring or
the autumn ploughing we do not know. The dedication of the Bull was a
high solemnity. He was led in procession, at the head of which went the
chief priest and priestess of the city. With them went a herald and the
sacrificer, and two bands of youths and maidens. So holy was the Bull
that nothing unlucky might come near him; the youths and maidens must
have both their parents alive, they must not have been under the
_taboo_, the infection, of death. The herald pronounced aloud a prayer
for "the safety of the city and the land, and the citizens, and the
women and children, for peace and wealth, and for the bringing forth of
grain and of all the other fruits, and of cattle." All this longing for
fertility, for food and children, focuses round the holy Bull, whose
holiness is his strength and fruitfulness.