Quote Originally Posted by Ludens View Post
Interesting indeed. Another interpretation may be that humans may be sacrificed for the state, but not for individual gain (although Catiline would no doubt argue that his cause was that of the state). For the record: there was another incident in which the Romans ordered human sacrifice after a catastrophe (IIRC the battle of Arausio), but that is the last known instance of religious human sacrifice in Rome.
After doing a little more looking, I found that Pliny wrote that Rome explicitly forbid human sacrifice in 97BC. Pliny wrote, "At last, in the year of the City 657, Cneius Cornelius Lentulus and P. Licinius Crassus being consuls, a decree forbidding human sacrifices was passed by the senate; from which period the celebration of these horrid rites ceased in public, and, for some time, altogether." (Pliny, 30.3).

Following on your point, Ludens, about the possible difference of sacrifice being for the state or individual gain, Tacitus attributes Germanicus's failing health to curses worked by human sacrifice. He says, "And certainly there were found hidden in the floor and in the walls disinterred remains of human bodies, incantations and spells, and the name of Germanicus inscribed on leaden tablets, half-burnt cinders smeared with blood, and other horrors by which in popular belief souls are devoted so the infernal deities." (Tacitus, Annals 2.69).

That again sounds like a story to me, rather than reality, but it again points to using human sacrifice for a "bad cause" or for "individual's gain" (and now also at a time when it's formally illegal), rather than for a "good cause" or for the "state's gain."

Sorry if I'm continuing to knock this thread off-topic. Perhaps the subject should be broken out?