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 return them thanks. Some choose to derive the word from hostio, the same as ferio, I strike. Isidore remarks on this word, that the name hostia was given to those sacrifices which they offered before they marched to attack an enemy (antiquam ad hostem pergerent); in contradistinction to victima, which were properly those offered after the victory.

Hostia also signified the lesser sorts of sacrifice, and victima the larger. Aulus Gellius says, that every priest, indifferently, might sacrifice the hostia, but that the victima could be offered by none but the conqueror himself. After all, however, we find these two words promiscuously used, one for the other, by ancient writers. We read of many kinds of hostia, as hostia purae, which were pigs or lambs ten days old; hostia praecidanea, sacrifices offered the day before a solemn feast; hostia bidentatae, 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 ambareales, victims sacrificed after having been solemnly led round the fields at the ambarealia; hostia amburbiales, victims slain after the amburbium; hostia canereae or caviariae, victims sacrificed every fifth year by the college of pontiffs, in which they offered the part of the tail called caviar; hostia prodigiae, sacrifices in which the fire consumed all, and left nothing for the priests; hostia piacularaes, expiatory sacrifices; hostia ambegnae or ambiegnae, sacrifices of cows or sheep that had brought forth twins; hostia harugae, victims offered to predict future events from; hostia mediales, black victims offered at noon.