Diabateria
διαβατήρια
Diabateria (διαβατήρια), a sacrifice offered to Zeus and Athena by the Spartan kings on passing the frontier of Laconia in command of an army (Xen. Rep. Lac. 13, § 2 ff.). If the victims were unfavourable, they disbanded the army and returned home (Thuc. 5.54, 55, 116; cf. Xen. Hell. 3.4, § 3; 4.7.2; 5.3.14, 4, § § 37, 47). We also find διαβατήρια offered by a Roman general in passing a swollen river (Plut. Luc. 24).
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.