Introduction: the paradox of sacrifice and the politics of feasting
Hesiod and the interpretation of Greek sacrifice
Reevaluating the value of sacrifice: commensal politics
The use of sacrifice: gendered politics
Interpreting the politics of Greek sacrifice through poetics
Anger and honorary shares: the Promethean division revisited
The anger of Zeus in the Theogony
Metaphors of anger and the mythic origin of sacrifice
Why Zeus is angry: the socio-poetics of anger and distribution
Conclusion: contested portions in poetry and practice
Sacrifice, succession, and the politics of patriarchy
Contest and deception, sacrifice and birth in Hesiod's Theogony
Controlling consumption: sacrifice and Pandora
Ending sacrifice, challenging patriarchy in the Homeric hymn to Demeter
Conclusion: sacrifice and patriarchy in poetry and practice
The desire of a god: semiotic sacrifice and patriarchal identity in the Homeric hymn to Hermes
Desire, deception, and Hermes' conflicted genealogy
Conspicuous consumption and sanctuary economics
Hermes' semiotic sacrifice
Sacrifice and song: the poetics of distribution
Conclusion: Hermes' sacrificial self-fashioning
Cities where men sacrifice: Odysseus returns to the fatherland
Not misrecognizing Hermes
Returning to the fatherland, returning to sacrifice
Consumption without return: Odysseus' companions and the suitors
Recognizing fathers and sons
Conclusion: sacrifice, genealogy, and patriarchy in the Odyssey
Conclusion: sacrificial narrative and the politics of the belly.