The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race Volume I Part 6

9. The process of our investigation will shortly lead us to examine the Attic legends, consisting of a confused ma.s.s of tradition, with which the worship of all the G.o.ds, including that of Apollo, was in that country perplexed.

To commence then with the legends which are connected with the temple of Apollo at THORICUS. Thoricus, situated on the south-eastern coast of Attica, was one of the ancient twelve towns of that country, and always remained a place of consequence, of which there are still extant considerable remains. Favoured by its situation, it soon became a commercial station; Cretan vessels were accustomed in ancient times to anchor in its harbour.(996) The fable of Cephalus and Procris appears, from some poetical and mythological accounts, to have been connected with Crete and the worship of Apollo.(997) We know for certain that the Cephalidae, who existed at a still later period in Attica,(998) preserved some hereditary rites of Apollo: for when in the tenth generation Chalcinus and Daetus, the descendants of the hero, returned to the country which their ancestor had quitted in consequence of murder, they immediately built a temple to that G.o.d on the road to Eleusis.(999)

10. But the fable of Cephalus was also connected with another great temple of Apollo, which in the west of Greece looked down from the chalky cliffs of the promontory of Leucatas over the Ionian sea, and of which there are ruins still extant.(1000) Now Cephalus, the hero of Thoricus, is said to have gained these regions in company with Amphitryon:(1001) he is also said to have first made the celebrated leap from the rock of Leucatas.(1002) This leap, doubtless, had originally a religious meaning, and was an expiatory rite. At the Athenian festival of Thargelia, a festival sacred to Apollo, criminals, crowned as victims, were led to the edge of a rock, and thrown down to the bottom; and the same ceremony appears to have been performed on certain sacred occasions at Leucatas.(1003) Here, however, the fall of the criminal was broken by tying feathers, and even birds, to his body; below, he was taken up, and conveyed to a distance, that he might carry away with him every particle of guilt. This was without doubt the original meaning of the leap of Cephalus, who was stained with the guilt of homicide, and on that very account a fugitive from his country. According to a legend noticed in an ancient epic poem, his purification took place at Thebes;(1004) whereas the Leucadian tradition doubtless represented his leap from the rock as the act of atonement.

In later times, indeed, the object of this leap was totally altered; it was supposed to be a specific for disappointed love.(1005) This singular application of the ancient custom gave a romantic colour to the legend connected with it. Cephalus and Procris were also represented in after-times as tormented by love and jealousy. Probably the story partly obtained this form in Cyprus, the island of Aphrodite, whither the fable of Cephalus(1006) was early carried by Attic settlers. But in whatever manner it was perverted, we cannot doubt that the leap of Cephalus from the Leucadian rock was a part of the expiatory worship of Apollo.

These considerations refer to the Cretan rites solemnized at Thoricus. In Athens itself, the traditions of Crete and Delphi being found united together, it is necessary that we should first return to the latter place, and follow the Pythian worship through BOTIA.

11. This indeed is neither the time nor place to relate how the Pythian worship, in spite of the opposition of hostile races, traced the route of the procession through the pa.s.ses of Parna.s.sus. The fact is indeed evident from an almost unbroken chain of temples and oracles, the links of which, viz., Thurium, Tilphossium, the temple of Galaxius, the oracle of Eutresis, the Ismenium, Tenerium, Ptoum, and Tegyra, are all connected either by tradition or religious rites with Delphi. Delium is probably the only place on the eastern coast founded from Delos. Pindar represents the establishment of several such temples under the form of a migration of the G.o.d himself.(1007)

I shall content myself with noticing a few of the temples above-mentioned.

The first in order is the oracle at the fountain of Tilphossa under Mount Helicon, famous for the grave of Tiresias and the monument of Rhadamanthus, who is said to have dwelt here with Alcmena the mother of Hercules.(1008) To this spot were attached some remarkable traditions of the Cretan worshippers of Apollo, forming a branch of the colonization of Cirrha; which is alluded to in Homer's account of the Thracians' bringing Rhadamanthus to Euba for the purpose of seeing t.i.tyus;(1009)-a remarkable pa.s.sage, which I can only understand to mean that the Cretan hero was desirous to see t.i.tyus, who was vanquished by Apollo.

Tegyra was a place of great importance in the Botian tradition, as being the birthplace of Apollo.(1010) The Delphian oracle was more favourable to this tradition than to that of Delos. Pindar(1011) represents the youthful G.o.d as coming to take possession of Pytho from Tegyra, not, as the Attic poets, from Delos.

12. The ident.i.ty of the Botian with the Delphian worship of Apollo was particularly striking in the temple of Ismene at Thebes. As at Delphi the Python was slain and the laurel broken anew every eight years, so at Thebes a procession of laurel-bearers took place at the same periods, the use of which, as a measure of time, is evident.(1012) Here also, as at Delphi, the statue of Athene was placed in front of the temple (p???a??).(1013) Tripods were the sacred vessels in both temples, though never employed in the latter for the purpose of prophecy. In later times the priests were contented with observing omens from the flame and ashes of sacrifices,(1014) like the p?????? of Delphi;(1015) although the mode of delivering oracles, from a mental enthusiasm, was prevalent also in Thebes at an earlier period; at least Tiresias (whom we may consider as a prophet of the temple of Ismene)(1016) does not, either in Homer or the tragedians, appear as a diviner from fire.

That, however, the whole worship of Apollo was not one of those originally inst.i.tuted at Thebes, will be evident from the following observations. In the ancient legends respecting Cadmus, in which Demeter, Cora, Cadmus, and afterwards Bacchus, predominate in succession, Apollo never appears in a conspicuous character. For particular additions of the poets may be easily distinguished from the genuine popular tradition. The fable, that Cadmus, after the slaughter of the serpent, was, like Apollo, compelled to live _eight_ years in slavery,(1017) must be considered as a poetical transposition. Cadmus and Apollo had originally no points of resemblance to each other. The situation of the temple of Apollo at Thebes is a most convincing proof that his worship was totally distinct from any other.

Those of the ancient national G.o.ds were built on the citadel of Cadmeia, whilst Apollo was not only not worshipped in the citadel, but even without the gates, in the temple of Ismene,(1018) which, according to Pausanias, must have been situated opposite to the temple of Hercules and the house of Amphitryon. This proximity of the hero and G.o.d, as well as all other points of union between the two at Thebes, will be employed for the purpose of establishing further conclusions, when we explain the legend of Hercules.(1019)

To settle with any accuracy, from the traditions concerning Tiresias and Hercules, the time at which the Botian temples of Apollo were founded, seems hardly possible, since the former contain no chronological information, and the latter are entirely unconnected with the rest of the Theban mythology. A tradition respecting the establishment of the festival of the Daphnephoria places it at the time of the aeolian migration,(1020) whence it might perhaps be inferred that the aeolians introduced the worship of Apollo into Botia. This hypothesis would however involve us in endless perplexities; and it is most probable that its diffusion was gradually effected, soon after the settlement at Cirrha, about the time at which the worship of Apollo rose to importance at Athens.

13. The introduction of this worship into ATTICA coincides exactly with the pa.s.sage of the Ionians into that country. The traditions respecting the most ancient kings, Cecrops, Erichthonius, and Erechtheus, chiefly refer to the temples, symbols, and festival rites of Athene; and this G.o.ddess, together with the other deities of the Acropolis, plays the princ.i.p.al part in them, particularly in her connexion with the blessings of husbandry. But with the reign of Ion the Attic mythology a.s.sumes quite a different character.(1021) This seems to me a complete refutation of the a.s.sertion of the Ionians as to their ident.i.ty with the aboriginal nation of the Pelasgians.(1022) Still more evident is it then, that in proportion as the Ionians, being a warlike nation,(1023) separated themselves from the original inhabitants, whose employment was agriculture and pasturing, their h.e.l.lenic worship deviated from the ancient one of the country.

Aristotle indeed speaks of the paternal Apollo (?p????? pat????) as being a son of Athene and Hephaestus;(1024) but this is nothing more than an endeavour to create a family connexion between the princ.i.p.al G.o.ds of the same town: for where do we ever find a temple dedicated conjointly to Athene and Apollo? what ceremonies and sacrifices were offered to them in common? and in what legends are they found connected? Till such an union of the two deities is discovered, we must consider Athene as an ancient and native deity, Apollo as one of much later introduction. The Athenians, indeed, maintained that an ancient hero of their country, Erysichthon, a son of Cecrops himself, erected the first statue of Apollo at Delos:(1025) but it is easy to recognise in this account the attempt of the Athenians to fortify their claims to the dominion of the Delian temple, and to represent their rights as prior to all others. In all that is related of the Ionian princes (to whom aegeus(1026) and Theseus belong) with reference to religious inst.i.tutions, mention is seldom made of the ancient Athenian deities, Athene and Hephaestus. The whole is taken up with accounts either of the establishment of the worship of Poseidon (which prevailed in the Ionian cities and in the places of their national a.s.semblies), or the establishment and maintenance of an intercourse with the temples of Apollo at Delos, Delphi, and Cnosus.

14. In the second place, the fabulous history of these heroes also concerns the worship of Apollo, in so far as the origin of the Pythian Theorias is contained in it. Ion is even a real son or adopted disciple of the Pythian G.o.d; and in all probability there was no more difference originally between his two fathers, Apollo and Xuthus,(1027) than between the two fathers of Theseus, aegeus and Poseidon. Theseus consecrated his hair to the same G.o.d; a place at Delphi was called Thesea.(1028) It is also related of aegeus, that his kingdom, embracing the plain of Attica, stretched as far as Pythium, where it bordered on Megaris.(1029) This Pythium was situated in the "sacred noe,"(1030) a fortified borough town of the tribe Hippothoontis, on the frontiers of Megaris, Botia, and Attica,(1031) to the north of the plain of Eleusis, and in a district of remarkable fertility.(1032)

This temple was manifestly built on the frontiers in order to afford a resting-place to the sacred procession, which in the beginning of the spring went from Athens to Pytho. For if favourable omens had been observed in the town itself, and it was intended to despatch the procession, the prophet in the Pythium at noe performed sacrifices every day, in order to procure a favourable journey, just as the Delian procession was regulated by omens observed in the Delium at Marathon.(1033) The families charged with the preparations for sending the procession (probably all of ancient Ionian extraction) were called Pythaistae and Deliastae.(1034) The omens looked for were the _Pythian lightnings_, a very unusual mode of divination in Greece. The Pythaistae took their station in the town, near the altar of Zeus Astrapaeus, between the Olympieium and Pythium, both of which were among the earliest sanctuaries, although they first owed their magnificence to Pisistratus.(1035) From this spot it was the custom to watch for nine nights, during three months, a lofty peak of mount Parnes,(1036) called Harma; and it was only in case the wished-for lightnings flashed favourably over the heights that the emba.s.sy could proceed along the Pythian road. This road led from Athens, near mount Corydallus (on which there was a temple of Apollo),(1037) through the Eleusinian plain to noe; from thence through the pa.s.s of Dryoscephalae to Botia, where it touched either Thespiae or Thebes, then Lebadeia and Chaeronea, and then pa.s.sed on by Panopeus and Daulis through the defile between Parna.s.sus and Cirphis to Delphi: a mountain road which the Athenians declared that they had themselves opened,(1038) and which Theseus is said to have freed from robbers,(1039) in the same manner that he purified the road to the Isthmus from monsters. This was also the sacred road for the Peloponnesians, if we except that part of it which traversed Attica.(1040)

There still remains to be mentioned a remarkable fact respecting noe, which will greatly a.s.sist us in explaining the fable of the voyage of Theseus to Crete: I allude to the existence of a tomb of Androgeus, the son of Minos, whom the natives had put to death as he was pa.s.sing on the Pythian road.(1041) A Cretan was murdered in the sacred way of the Cretan worship; Minos came to take vengeance for the violation of the sacred armistice; and hence Athens was obliged to send a tribute to Cnosus. Now the nature of this tribute may be perceived from a tradition preserved by Aristotle,(1042) that the boys who were sent to Crete by the Athenians lived at Cnosus as slaves; and that afterwards, when the Cretans, in consequence of an ancient vow, sent a t.i.the of men to Delphi, the descendants of these slaves went with them, and subsequently pa.s.sed from thence to Italy. From this it appears that the Athenians were compelled to send sacred slaves to the chief temple at Cnosus, viz., that of Apollo.

For this reason these missions took place every eight years (d?? ????a ?t??);(1043) that is, probably at every Ennaeteris of the Cretan and Delphic festival; and for the same reason they consisted of seven young men and women, as this number was especially sacred to Apollo.(1044)

It is well known how much this tradition was disfigured by the Athenians (originally perhaps in their popular legends, and afterwards by the poets), in what an odious light it was represented, and so mixed up with extraneous matter, that we should only render the problem too difficult if we attempted to investigate the whole of its component parts.

We may however affirm with certainty that the voyage of Theseus to Crete had originally no other meaning than the landings at Naxos(1045) and Delos, which were connected with it-viz., a propagation of religious worship.

The landing at Delos is a mythical type of the theorias, which the Athenians, in common with all the Ionian islands, had from early times sent to this place;(1046) moreover, the ship which conveyed Theseus home was always regarded as a sacred vessel. It was sent out at the Thargelia, after the priest, on the sixth day of Thargelion, had crowned the p.o.o.p.(1047)

Amongst other Delian rites the worship of Eilithyia was also at that time brought over to Athens, probably from the island of Crete, where an ancient cavern of the G.o.ddess, near Amnisus, has been already mentioned.(1048) One point at which the procession from Attica to Crete touched was the borough town and harbour of Prasiae, on the eastern coast of Attica, where, besides the temple of Apollo, was the tomb of Erysichthon, the Delian and Athenian hero; and tradition represented the gifts of the Hyperboreans to have been transported from this port to that sacred island.(1049)

Lastly, the origin of the Delphinian expiatory festival from Delphi and Crete is as evident as its introduction by the Ionian princes; for aegeus dwelt in the Delphinium, and was there buried. To him was also ascribed the establishment of the Delphinian tribunal. Theseus, previously to his expedition to Crete, here placed the olive-branch, bound with wool, on the sixth day of Munychion,(1050) and purified himself from the murder of the Pallantidae.(1051)

15. The political situation of the worship of Apollo at Athens still requires to be noticed. From our previous observations it is clear that the Ionians had adopted it from the Dorians; hence Ion himself is called the son of the Pythian G.o.d. The paternal deity of Athens was, as Demosthenes says, no other than the Pythian Apollo.(1052) We may then a.s.sert, without hesitation, that the Ionians were the only race who had gentilitious rites of Apollo, and that they alone could properly be called ?e??ta? ?p??????? pat????. Thus, when the archons at the scrutiny swore, that besides Zeus Herceus, the household G.o.d, they worshipped also Apollo pat????;(1053) this form of oath originated at a time when the Eupatridae, that is, the n.o.ble Ionic and h.e.l.lenic families, were alone eligible to the dignity of the archonship. Nor was it till, by the timocracy of Solon and democracy of Aristides, the richer cla.s.s in general and the whole people were admitted to this office, that Apollo pat???? was considered as a deity common to all families.(1054) The democratical judges of Athens also yearly took an oath before this deity:(1055) this ceremony was at first perhaps only required of the criminal judges of aristocratical descent, viz., the Ephetae. It is however clear that originally the religion of Apollo was adapted for the military caste alone, the ancient Hopletes; hence he was not a G.o.d of artisans and husbandmen, but of warriors. Hence also Ion or Xuthus adopted him as the Athenian G.o.d of war (p???a????) at the festival of Boedromia,(1056) the name of which is derived from the onset of armed troops in battle.

As originally the Eupatridae alone cultivated the worship of Apollo, they alone possessed the ceremony of purification, which is here, as elsewhere, mixed up with the rites of the Cretan worship. According to Plutarch,(1057) Ion had instructed the Athenians in religion, _i.e._, in that of Apollo; and the same author relates,(1058) that Theseus established the Eupatridae as administrators of the government, judges, and interpreters of the sacred rites (?????ta? ?s??? ?a? ?e???).

By this we are to understand that it was their duty to give information respecting every thing which regarded the _jus sacrum_; which in ancient times especially comprehended expiations and excommunications for homicide. The rites necessary at purification were also entirely in the hands of the Eupatridae, (p?t??a);(1059) and this is the reason why in old times they took cognizance of every homicide, and in later times of manslaughter, the connexion of which duties with the worship of Apollo will be shown hereafter.(1060)

I have been induced to place these points in as strong a light as possible, from the democratical tendency of Athenian poetry, which endeavoured to obliterate all traces of the forcible occupation of Attica, and of the foreign extraction of the families of the Eupatridae. On this account the vacant period between the times of the Erecthidae and aegidae was notoriously supplied by arbitrary insertions, and the fable of Ion represented in a thousand various ways. This tendency is also recognised in the tragedy of Ion by Euripides, the artful and ingenious plan of which cannot be sufficiently admired. According to the ancient tradition, Ion was the son of the hero Xuthus, or of the Pythian Apollo (who were originally considered as identical), and probably of Creusa, a native of Attica, which was a mode of expressing his new settlement there.

Euripides, on the other hand, separates Ion from Xuthus,(1061) who is always represented as somewhat rude and coa.r.s.e, and even tyrannical,(1062) and so alters the whole story, that the hero does not appear as a newcomer, but as the legitimate offspring of the female line of the race of the Erecthidae. By this device the poet preserved the idea that the Athenians were an aboriginal nation, on which they so prided themselves,(1063) and set aside, in a manner most agreeable to their feelings, the fable which contradicted this claim to antiquity. Ion himself in the tragedy gives utterance to some very popular sentiments; and of the power of aristocracy, once so firmly established, the last faint memorial is almost buried in oblivion.(1064)

Chapter III.

-- 1. Diffusion of the worship of Apollo in Peloponnesus by the Dorians. -- 2. His Introduction by the Dorians at the Olympic festival. -- 3. Influence of the Delphian oracle of Apollo.

Subjects of the oracle. -- 4. Migrations caused by the oracle. -- 5.

Connexion of the temple of Delphi with the Amphictyons of Thermopylae. -- 6. Worship of Apollo in Asia Minor and the islands.

-- 7. In Italy and Sicily, in Apollonia and Cyrene.

1. We now come to the _third_ epoch of the propagation of the worship of Apollo. The first embraced the earliest migrations of the Doric nation, when the great temples at Delphi, Cnosus, and Delos were founded from Tempe. The second period is that of the maritime supremacy of Minos, when the coasts of Asia and Greece were covered with groves and expiatory altars of this G.o.d. The third comprehends the chief migration of the Dorians, and others occasioned by it. Through these means Apollo became the princ.i.p.al deity in Peloponnesus, where, in early times, we find few traces of his existence. That the Carnean Apollo of the Lacedaemonians, and the Apollo Nomius of the Arcadians, form no exceptions to our a.s.sertion, will be proved in a subsequent inquiry into the nature and origin of these worships.(1065)

After the Doric conquest of Peloponnesus, the chief temples were every where consecrated to Apollo. We have already spoken of the sanctuary of Apollo Pythaeus, in which the Argive confederacy held their meetings;(1066) nor was the temple of Apollo Lyceus in the market-place less celebrated.(1067) The Spartans also worshipped this deity under the former name,(1068) and the inhabitants of Sicyon under the latter.(1069) Hecatus, it is pretended, was a soothsayer, who came with the sons of Aristodemus to Sparta; and his descendant, in the second Messenian war, held the same office:(1070) the name of this family refers to the worship of Apollo Hecatus (the far-darting G.o.d). At Sparta Apollo was the national deity; the kings sacrificed to him on the first and seventh days of every month;(1071) the influence of the capital city had also caused its general extension throughout the country.(1072) Corinth,(1073) Epidaurus,(1074) aegina,(1075) and Trzen(1076) followed the same example.

The name of the Delphian G.o.d had now attained throughout Peloponnesus the universal respect which it so long enjoyed: it had even led the way to the settlement and conquest of that peninsula, and hence Apollo was called by the Dorians their _leader_ and _founder_.(1077) It was not till a later period that the kings of Messenia (who upon the whole adhered less strictly to the Doric customs than the Spartans) entered into a connexion with the sanctuary at Delos, which had then already fallen into the power of the Ionians. About the fifth Olympiad (760 B.C.) Eumelus, the Corinthian poet, composed an ode for a Messenian chorus to that holy island.(1078) On the other hand, it was owing to the Dorians (particularly to the Spartans) that the Pythian sanctuary remained independent, in the hands of the Delphians; to preserve it in this state was one of the duties which they inherited from their fathers;(1079) and they protected it more than once, particularly against the Athenians.

2. The political power of the Dorians over the whole of Peloponnesus necessarily ensured the preponderance of their religious inst.i.tutions; nevertheless we find that the Achaeans and Arcadians possessed few temples of Apollo, and those not the princ.i.p.al ones in their cities.(1080) The worship of Apollo was however, through Spartan influence, held in great respect at Tegea (the customs of which town had indeed become almost entirely Doric), where there was also a tribe called Apolloneatis.(1081) The country moreover being intersected in every direction by roads to Olympia and Delphi (to which place Peloponnesus despatched her hecatombs in the beginning of the spring),(1082) must have been by this very circ.u.mstance induced to establish temples in honour of Apollo, an instance of which appears in that at Onceum.

The princ.i.p.al deity of the Doric name soon obtained a conspicuous place in the national festival, held equally sacred by all Peloponnesians; I mean that of Olympia. The establishment of this festival is probably of early date; perhaps it took place during the time when the dominion of the Pelopidae spread from Pisa and Olympia over most parts of the peninsula.

Hence the Elean aetolians, when they seized upon the presidency of these games, were, by the command of the oracle, at the same time obliged to take one of the Pelopidae from the Achaean town of Helice for their prince.(1083) Moreover, the ancient rivalry between the Olympian and Isthmian worship, which occasioned the prohibition against any Elean contending at the Isthmus,(1084) can hardly have arisen at any other time than when (previously to the Doric usurpation) the Olympian Zeus was the chief G.o.d of the Achaeans,(1085) the Isthmian Poseidon of the Ionians.

But it was not till the Dorians, for the purpose of a.s.sembling all the Peloponnesians, at least every four years, under the protection of their G.o.d, had taken possession of the temple at Olympia; nor till Iphitus the aetolian, and Lycurgus the Dorian, had renewed these contests, or given them a greater degree of importance, that Apollo and Zeus are found in connexion with each other, and even contending in the course at Olympia.

And as a further instance of change, the sacred armistice of Olympia went by the local name of Therma;(1086) and hence Apollo, as the patron and guardian deity of the inst.i.tution, was called Thermius, and worshipped under that t.i.tle in the grove of Altis.(1087) At this time Hercules (whose worship, once entirely unknown in Elis, was introduced by Iphitus)(1088) is also reported to have brought the wild olive-tree from the Hyperboreans to the Alpheus, and planted the sacred grove of Altis with it.(1089) The important influence of the Delphian oracle on the Olympian games also occasioned the time of their celebration to be regulated by the Pythian cycle of eight years.(1090) For whereas the whole cycle of eight years consisted of ninety-nine lunar months, at the expiration of which time the revolutions of the moon and sun again nearly coincided; this period was at Olympia divided into two unequal parts of fifty and forty-nine months, so that the festival took place sometimes in the month of Apollonius, sometimes in Parthenius.

The introduction of the worship of Apollo must have had no less influence on the families of the soothsayers, who ministered at the altars of the Olympic deities. These were the Clytiadae, Iamidae, and Telliadae;(1091) of which the Clytiadae considered themselves as belonging to a clan, which produced very many soothsayers, viz., the Melampodidae.(1092) This explains the fable that Melampus received the gift of prophecy from Apollo on the banks of the Alpheus,(1093) in the place where it was exercised by his descendants the Clytiadae.

3. The Doric migration gave rise to many others, which spread the worship of Apollo in various directions; no longer, however, as a peculiar deity of the Dorians and Cretans, but, in a more extended sense, as the national G.o.d of the Greeks. This was chiefly occasioned by the influence of Delphi, which seems to have given the chief stimulus to that great migration. In fact, it became from this time invested with a power which hardly belonged to any subsequent inst.i.tution. Apollo is represented as governing nations with an arbitrary power, compelling them, however unwilling, to undertake distant expeditions, and pointing out the settlements which they are to occupy. In order to convey a more distinct idea of this singular phenomenon, it is necessary that the condition of the immediate subjects of the Pythian temple should be more closely examined.

When the district of the Cirrhaeans had, by the Amphictyonic war, become forfeited to the temple of Delphi, the sacred lands belonging to it formed a very considerable territory. Two inscriptions contain surveys of the Hieromnemons respecting its boundaries: one relating to those towards Anticirrha in the east, the other to those in the direction of Amphissa to the west.(1094) Now it certainly appears that in ancient times, when Cirrha was in existence, none of these lands belonged to the temple, which must therefore have possessed little or no territory. But in spite of the generally received accounts of the Amphictyonic war, it can be satisfactorily proved, that in earlier times Cirrha and the temple, with its appendages, formed one state.(1095) Their territory indeed consisted for the most part of rock, mountain, and narrow glens;(1096) yet towards the south it embraced the s.p.a.cious plain of Crissa, and in the north at least the luxuriant vineyards of Parna.s.sus. By whom then was this territory cultivated? certainly neither by the Doric n.o.bles nor the Cretan colonists, who in the Homeric hymn are derided by the G.o.d for thinking of the labours of agriculture, and commanded to employ themselves merely in sacrificing victims.(1097) Thus it is evident, that there were subjects of the temple, who, besides the humble employment of cultivating the soil, were also obliged to tend the herds belonging to the temple. These were the servants of the temple whom we so frequently find mentioned.(1098) The same cla.s.s also existed in Crete, as we have before proved from the tribute sent by Athens; and Crete, in its turn, as well as Eretria and Magnesia,(1099) sent such "human firstlings" to the temple of Pytho.

Mention is also made of a town in Crete composed of a thousand men, all sacred slaves.(1100) Now these slaves of Delphi may have been procured in different ways, either as tribute (and that either of a city or of individuals), as voluntary bondsmen, or by purchase:(1101) the latter mode was probably of rare occurrence in early times. There still remain a considerable number of Delphian monuments, in which private individuals present or sell to the G.o.d those slaves whom they wish to favour.(1102) The condition of these va.s.sals corresponds to that of the Doric bondsmen;(1103) but their servitude was probably of a milder nature; for we find it frequently stated that the sacred slaves lived inviolate under the protection of the G.o.d, although (at least in early times) they were entirely dependent on the sacred council of the temple. Originally, a great part consisted of prisoners taken in war. We collect from ancient epic poems that Manto the daughter of Tiresias was, after the war of the Epigoni, sent to the Pythian G.o.d as a share of the spoil(1104) (??????????): one individual, as is usual in the language of mythology, standing for many. The Gephyraeans also are said to have been at that time decimated, sent from Thebes to Delphi, and thus to have arrived at Athens.(1105) After the Persian war, an idea was actually entertained of reviving this punishment against the Thebans, whose enemies considered them, at a still later period, as in the eye of justice decimated, and given as slaves to Apollo.(1106)

4. When the Pythian G.o.d was either unwilling or unable to retain within his territory the crowds who had been collected in this manner, he sent them out as colonists; without, however, entirely giving up all claim to their obedience. The early Grecian history affords several examples of this proceeding: the earliest is a Doric tradition respecting the Dryopes, which differs in some respect from their own account. Hercules, here represented as a Doric hero, had subjugated the Dryopes, and brought them to Delphi as an offering to Apollo, by whom he was commanded to settle them on the southern coast of Argolis.(1107) That this nation, probably of Pelasgic origin, did not in early times worship the Doric G.o.d, is evident from the tradition that Leogoras the Dryopian violated the temple of Apollo.(1108) But it is equally certain that they were henceforth compelled to serve Apollo as their chief deity, especially in his character of Apollo Pythaeus at Argos.(1109) A part of this nation however remained at Delphi, where it is frequently mentioned in later times under the name of Craugallidae, who, together with the Cirrhaeans, appear as enemies to the temple;(1110) from which circ.u.mstance it may be inferred that most of these Cirrhaeans were revolted subjects of the temple.

The migration of the Magnesians approaches rather nearer to the historical age. This race, dwelling under mount Pelion, felt itself, about the time of the Thessalian migration, so pressed for want of territory, that it had recourse to the Delphian oracle, by whose advice it decimated its numbers; that is, it sent off a tenth part of the young male population, who (like a _ver sacrum_ in Italy)(1111) renounced their native land.(1112) These young colonists were mostly despatched to the worshippers of Apollo in Crete, where they founded the town of Magnesia, which Plato speaks of as a place that had been destroyed, and considers as a prototype of his ideal state, Apollo having been its only legislator.(1113) The intercourse of Crete with the coast of Asia Minor soon carried over these sojourners to the banks of the Maeander and the Lethaeus, at the confluence of which rivers they had been settled some time before the Ionic migration;(1114) being, as was afterwards declared by a Panh.e.l.lenic decree, the first Greeks who settled in Asia Minor.(1115) Still, although thus separated from their mother country, they maintained, as sacred colonists (?e???

?p?????), a perpetual connexion with Delphi, and were bound, in ancient times, to provide all travellers with food and lodging.(1116) The Delphians could expect a similar reception at Delos:(1117) and indeed an extended exercise of the duties of hospitality formed one of the princ.i.p.al objects of this worship. Pausanias(1118) gives an account of this very important worship of Apollo in Magnesia as follows:(1119) "At Hylae, a place in the territory of the Magnesians,(1120) is a cavern consecrated to Apollo; not, indeed, remarkable for its size; but it contains a statue of Apollo of great antiquity, and which confers strength for every kind of work. Certain devotees throw themselves, by the a.s.sistance of this image, from steep and lofty precipices; or tearing large trees up by the roots, walk with their burden down the steepest paths." We would attempt to trace more minutely the connexion of Magnesia with Crete and Delphi, had not all clue to history been necessarily broken off by the conquest of this proud and prosperous city by the Ephesians, and its complete destruction by the Treres, a Cimmerian tribe, in the time of the Lydian monarch Ardys.(1121)

We have only time to notice some few other events of a similar nature.

Thus the aenianes came to the oracle about the same time, and on a similar emergency as the Magnesians; dwelt for some years in the territory of Cirrha, and were afterwards sent to the banks of the Inachus in southern Thessaly.(1122) An example of historical authority is furnished by the Chalcideans in Euba, the youthful part of whose population was despatched by Apollo to Rhegium in Italy;(1123) hence this town also celebrated the worship of the G.o.d with expiatory rites and festivals,(1124) to which the Messenians of Sicily sent choruses of thirty-five boys across the straits.(1125)

5. These events, which from their connected form cannot be poetical fictions, give some idea of the extensive influence of the temple of Delphi, the power of which was probably at its highest pitch in the time immediately succeeding the Doric migrations. Hence also this was the epoch of the greatest influence of the Amphictyons of Thermopylae;(1126) which confederation of Thessalian tribes, and of tribes derived from Thessaly, united the worship of the Doric temple of Apollo with that of Demeter at Thermopylae, and thus an h.e.l.lenic and ancient Pelasgic worship were combined together,(1127) probably not without a view of forming a more intimate union between the different races of Greece. The a.s.sembling in the spring of the year at Delphi was probably copied from the meeting of the neighbouring towns, in the spring festival, at Tempe, at which business of a political kind was sometimes transacted.(1128) The power, however, of the Amphictyons of Thermopylae was at no time actually political, and, with a very few exceptions, all their regulations and undertakings concerned the protection of the two temples in their rights and possessions, the rights of other temples in Greece, and the maintenance of some principles of international law (???? ?f??t???????), founded upon religious notions.

6. The Dorian colonies introduced Apollo into Asia Minor as the princ.i.p.al deity of their national and federal festival on the promontory of Triopium,(1129) where they probably first planted his worship, without, however, excluding the more ancient Pelasgic rites of Demeter and the infernal G.o.ds, which, although of a different nature, were united in the ceremonies at Triopium with those of Apollo.(1130) In the same manner the twelve towns of the aeolians, with whom Apollo was by no means so nearly connected, celebrated in his honour, as it seems, their federal festival in the grove of Gryneum near Myrina.(1131) And though when the Ionians crossed over from Athens to Asia Minor they remained so constant to the worship of Poseidon that they consecrated to him their national festival at Mycale, and also built in the island of Tenos a splendid temple of Poseidon and Amphitrite, honoured with festivals and sacred emba.s.sies;(1132) yet the Cretan worship was so prevalent at Delos, when first overrun by the Ionians, that this island was itself the religious metropolis of the Cyclades,(1133) at whose festivals and contests the higher cla.s.ses of the islanders attended with their families, even in ancient times; which naturally gave rise to the establishment of temples to Apollo, the princ.i.p.al deity, in the rest of the Cyclades; as Cythnus,(1134) Siphnus,(1135) Ceos,(1136) Naxos,(1137) &c.