Host, in antiquity, a victim offered in sacrifice to a deity.

The word is formed from hostis, "enemy;" it being the custom to offer up a sacrifice before they joined battle, to render the gods propitious; or, after the battle was over, to give them thanks. Some choose to derive the word from hostio, q. d. ferio, "I strike." Isidore on this word remarks, that the name hostia was given to those sacrifices which they offered before they marched to attack an enemy, (antequam ad hostem pergerent;) in contradiction from victima, which were properly those offered after the victory.

Hostia also signified the lesser sorts of sacrifice, and victima the larger. A. Gellius says, that every priest, indifferently, might sacrifice the hostia, but that the victima could be offered by none but the conqueror himself. But, after all, we find these two words promiscuously used one for the other by ancient writers. We read of many kinds of hostia: as hostia pura, which were pigs or lambs ten days old; hostia praecidanea, sacrifices offered the day before a solemn feast; hostia bidentata, sacrifices of sheep or other animals of two years old; hostia eximiae, a sacrifice of the flower of the flock; hostia succedanea, sacrifices offered after others which had exhibited some ill omen; hostia ambarrales, victims sacrificed after having been solemnly led round the fields at the ambarralia; hostia ambarriales, victims slain after the ambarrium; hostia caneares or caviares, victims sacrificed every fifth year by the college of pontiffs, in which they offered the part of the tail called caviar; hostia prodigia, sacrifices in which the fire consumed all, and left nothing for the priests; hostia piacularis, expiatory sacrifices; hostia ambegae or ambegna, sacrifices of cows or sheep that had brought forth twins; hostia baruye, victims offered to predict future events from; hostia mediaces, black victims offered at noon.