Buphonia
In the enactment of this comedy of innocence, and the joint feasting of all who participated save the slayer himself, individual consciences were assuaged and the polis was reaffirmed.The burden of guilt was doubly displaced, not only through the buck-passing of the trial, but also through the apparently "guilty" act of the oxen in selecting itself through the initial eating.When the people consulted the Pythian deity, the God said the murderer must be punished and a statue of the ox erected in the place.Diomus, seeking to be freed from the crime, determined that an ox should be slain by the city so that all the men would have the act in common.This would have sufficed to hold the singular oxen for the Bouphonia, as well as having the capacity to host larger numbers of sacrifices during the Panathenaia.More recently it has been proposed that, in combination with the post holes in the area, these cuttings served in the function of a cattle chute.The dressed bedrock in the area represents channels used to rinse down the blood and discarded animal parts generated during the slaughter.