in Grecian Antiquity, signifies, according to its etymon, an offering of a hundred oxen. Even before Homer's time, however, the word had lost its strict etymological meaning, and was employed to denote generally a great public sacrifice. Homer himself (Il. vi., 93) talks of a hecatomb of twelve oxen; and again (Il. i., 315), hecatombs of oxen and rams; and even (Il. xxiii., 146) a hecatomb of fifty rams. Later writers used sometimes to reckon even the votive gifts under the hecatomb. (See Sacrifice.)

HECATOMBÆON, in Grecian Antiquity, the first month in the Attic year, answering to the last half of our July and the first of August. It took its name from the great festival of the Hecatombæ, at which hecatombs were offered.