§ 1. Propagation of the worship of Apollo from Crete. § 2. in
Lycia. § 3 and 4. in the Troad. § 5. in Thrace. § 6 and 7. on the
Coast of Asia Minor. § 8. at Trœzen, Tænarum, Megara. § 9.
Thoricus. § 10. and Leucatas. § 11 and 12. in Bœotia. § 13. 14.
and 15. and in Attica.
1. But whilst the worship of Apollo was experiencing so much opposition in
the north of Greece, the sea, with the neighbouring coasts and islands
afforded ample opportunities for its propagation from the shores of Crete.
This serves to account for the singular fact, that the most ancient
temples of Apollo throughout the south of Greece, are found in maritime
districts, and generally on promontories and headlands.
The colonies of Apollo branched out in various directions from the
northern coast of Crete, carrying every where with them the expiatory and
oracular ceremonies of his worship.(916) The remarkable regularity with
which these settlements were established cannot, however, be regarded as
the work of missions systematically carried on, or as part of the policy
of Minos.(917) They are to be accounted for by the natural desire of the
tribes of Crete, whilst migrating along the coast of the Ægean sea, to
erect, wherever they touched, temples to that god, whose worship was
blended with their spiritual existence.
We shall first advert to those settlements which (taking the coast of
Crete as our centre) were founded in the direction of LYCIA, MILETUS,
CLAROS, and the TROAD; the first and last of which were the most ancient,
the others being perhaps a century later.(918)
2. It is stated by Herodotus that Sarpedon migrated with some _barbarous_
nations from Crete to Lycia or Milyas.(919) This unsupported and singular
account is however probably not founded on tradition, the popular idea
being that he was a brother of Minos the Cnosian, whom it represented as a
prince of purely Hellenic blood. By these means the Cretan laws (that is,
the Doric customs, which had been first fully developed in Crete), and
also the Doric worship of Apollo, were spread over Lycia. For the
situation of the chief temples is a sufficient proof that the settlers of
Lycia came, not from the inland countries of Asia, but over the sea to the
coast. Xanthus, a city renowned for the valour of its inhabitants,(920)
and situated on the river of the same name, was a Cretan settlement.(921)
It seems to have been a Lycian tradition, that Xanthus was the father of
Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon:(922) in this town was a temple sacred
to Sarpedon;(923) but it is uncertain whether to the elder Sarpedon, the
brother of Minos, or to the younger, a hero of the same family mentioned
in Homer, whose corpse Apollo rescued from the Greeks, and conveyed to his
native country.(924) Apollo was also worshipped under the title of
Sarpedonius.(925) Sixty stadia below the town, and ten from the mouth of
the river Xanthus, was a grove sacred to Latona, near an ancient temple of
the Lycian Apollo.(926) To this spot the goddess had been conducted by
wolves; here also she had bathed her new-born babes in the river,(927) and
been hospitably received by an old woman in a wretched hovel.(928) These
are the only remains of the national tradition, which in its general
character was perhaps only another version of that prevalent at Delos. But
the chief temple was one at Patara, in the southern extremity of
Lycia,(929) the winter habitation of the god, where he also gave out
oracles through the mouth of a priestess.(930) The oblations of cakes in
the shape of lyres, bows and arrows, which were made to Apollo at Patara,
remind us of similar customs at Delos, and furnish a fresh proof of the
close connexion between the worships of these two countries.(931)
Further to the east was the oracle of Apollo Thyrxeus, near the Cyanean
islands;(932) to the west lay Telmissus, with its interpreters of dreams,
who attributed their origin to Apollo.(933) Not only the towns just
mentioned, but almost every other on the coast of Lycia, honoured the god,
from whom even the name of the country was derived.(934)
Amongst these settlements we must probably also reckon that on the
promontory of Corycus in Cilicia, since we find in its vicinity the temple
of Zeus Sarpedon. The name of the place, if compared with that of the
Corycian grotto on Parnassus, is of itself sufficient evidence that the
worship of Apollo prevailed there, which is still further proved by the
tradition that stags swam over from thence to Curium in Cyprus.(935) Here
also stood an altar of Apollo, of particular sanctity, which no one was
allowed to touch on pain of being thrown from the rocks of the
neighbouring promontory. In this punishment we shall presently recognise
one form of the expiatory rites, which every where accompanied the worship
of Apollo.
3. No place contained so many temples of Apollo within so small a space as
the coast of Troy; Cilia, in the recess of the Adramyttian gulf; Chryse,
in the territory of the Hypoplacian Thebes;(936) the Smintheum, in its
immediate neighbourhood;(937) the island of Tenedos (whose religious
ceremonies were by some unaccountable means transplanted to Corinth and
Syracuse),(938) are all mentioned in a few verses of the Iliad.(939) No
less celebrated was Thymbra, situated at the confluence of the Thymbrius
and Scamander, where Cassandra was reported to have been brought up in the
temple of Apollo, and thus to have learnt the art of prophecy.(940) On the
Trojan citadel of Pergamus itself was a temple of Apollo, with Artemis and
Latona; and hence Homer represents these three deities as protecting the
falling city.(941) It is however important to remark, that the inhabitants
of Zelea, a town on the northern foot of mount Ida, and the native place
of the archer Pandarus, the son of Lycaon, worshipped Apollo under the
title of Lycius, or Lycegenes; and that Zelea was also called Lycia;(942)
for these facts show that there was a real connexion between the name of
Lycia and the worship of Apollo, and that it was the worship of Apollo
which gave the name to this district of Troy, as it had done to the
country of the Solymi. In Chryse also Apollo was called Lycæus.(943) The
origin of this worship can neither be attributed to the native Trojan and
Dardan race, nor yet to the later Æolians, although these for the most
part adopted it into their religious ceremonies.(944) It is however
certain, from an ancient tradition, that the Cretans also colonized this
coast; though we are not aware what was the precise account of Callinus,
the ancient elegiac poet,(945) who preserved it. It was however the
popular belief that Apollo Smintheus, and indeed the whole Trojan nation,
were derived from Crete.(946) The last notion, that all the Trojans were
of Cretan origin, is in the highest degree improbable; but it will hardly
be denied that there came to Troy a Cretan colony in connexion with Apollo
Smintheus. Indeed the Cretans who inhabited the district of Troy must
often have been mentioned in ancient traditions, as a strange account of
their strict administration of justice has been preserved.(947) Could we
but obtain a more authentic source of traditions relating to the religious
worship than the deceitful accounts of poets, we might perhaps discover in
it many confirmations of the historical traces to which we have just
adverted. Even now we may perceive that the servitude of Apollo under
Laomedon(948) is the same fable as that of Admetus at Pheræ, the locality
alone being changed.
4. By observing Homer’s accounts of the worship of Apollo in different
Trojan families, we may discover a remarkable consistency and connexion in
the ancient tradition.
In the first place he represents it as belonging chiefly to the family of
the Panthoidæ. Panthus (from whom a tribe in modern Ilium derived its name
Πανθωῒς)(949) was a priest of the god,(950) and hence his sons were
protected by Apollo in battle.(951) Hence also Euphorbus, the descendant
of Panthus, is selected to kill Patroclus, who, as well as all the other
Æacidæ, was in the heroic mythology represented as odious to Apollo.(952)
The other family, described in the Iliad as connected with Apollo, is that
of Æneas, whom, when wounded by Diomed, the god himself conducted to his
temple on the citadel of Troy, and delivered over to the care of Latona
and Artemis.(953) Now that this history was not a mere arbitrary fiction
of the poet may be distinctly proved. For we know that, after Troy had
fallen, the remaining Trojans still maintained themselves in the
mountains; they are mentioned by Herodotus as a separate state existing in
the stronghold of Gergis, in the defiles of Ida;(954) and, even after the
Peloponnesian war, Dardan princes reigned here and at Scepsis.(955) It
can, we think, be shown that Homer’s prophecy(956) respecting the future
dominion of the descendants of Æneas over the remnant of the Trojan
nation, refers solely to the town of Gergis, and perhaps to the
neighbouring valleys. Now the chief temple at Gergis was that of
Apollo,(957) and in the same town there was an ancient Sibylline oracle,
known by the name of the _Hellespontine_ or _Mermessian_. We now see that
the ancient poet, being well acquainted with the existence of the Æneadæ
at Gergis, their festivals and sacrifices, felt himself bound, according
to the spirit of mythology, to represent Apollo as the ancient guardian of
that family.
We shall seize this opportunity of briefly pointing out the results which
may be drawn from these facts, in illustration of the fable of Æneas. We
must first assume that the above oracle of Apollo at Gergis announced to
the Trojan Gergithians the re-establishment of their nation under the
dominion of the descendants of Æneas. Such a prophecy, in fact, agrees so
exactly with the spirit and system of the ancient oracles, that its
existence can scarcely be doubted. The hopes, the longing after a
restoration of their ancient power, must necessarily have assumed this
form among the distressed and conquered Trojans. Now a colony of
Gergithians also inhabited the territory of the Æolian Cume,(958) where
Apollo possessed a magnificent temple;(959) and if these oracles had been
known to the Cumæans, they would readily have passed over to their kinsmen
the Cumans of Campania. At this last place there was, on the summit of a
rock, a temple of Apollo (one of the most ancient in the whole settlement,
and, as it was pretended, built by Dædalus);(960) underneath was the
grotto of the sibyl. Here it was said that Æneas landed; and here,
according to Stesichorus, he remained, and never went further to the
north.(961) Nothing was more probable than that these oracles should in
both cases have been applied locally, and that a new Troy should in
consequence have been founded both in Asia and Italy. Hence, when the
Greek sibylline oracles, in connexion with the worship of Apollo, became
the state-oracles of Rome, all that had been prophesied of districts near
the Hellespont was, without scruple or ceremony (though not without the
ingenuity of commentators and interpreters), applied to Rome. It is
evident that the origin of the strange fable of Æneas, the father of
Romulus, and all that was afterwards added to it, may be explained in this
simple manner.
5. The most ancient temple of Apollo in THRACE was also founded by
Cretans, as well as that at Ismarus or Maroneia;(962) Maron its priest
being, according to tradition, a Cretan adventurer.(963) With this
sanctuary was probably connected the ancient oracular temple of Apollo at
Deræa near Abdera,(964) alluded to in the device on the coins of Abdera;
on one side of which Apollo is seen with the arrow in his hand; and on the
reverse is a griffin, a symbol which appears to have been adopted by the
Teians in consequence of their having resided for some time in their
colony of Abdera.
6. The Cretan worshippers of Apollo also established some considerable
temples on the Ionian coast. The principal of these was the Didymæum, in
the territory of Miletus. Before the Ionic migration, Miletus was a Cretan
fortress, on the coast, in a country at that time called Caria.(965) The
disagreement of traditions as to whether Sarpedon or Miletus (the Cretan)
was the founder, confirms, rather than weakens, the principal fact of its
settlement from Crete, both traditions describing the same fact in a
different manner. With the founding of this stronghold was connected that
of a temple, which is ascribed to Branchus, an expiatory priest(966) of
Delphi, whose name (which was well fitted for a prophet),(967) moulded
into a patronymic form, was afterwards adopted by the priests of the
temple;(968) the temple itself, and even the place (which was also called
Didyma). Thus we here again see a fresh connexion between the Delphians
and Cretans, there being indeed hardly any distinction between them before
they were dispersed by the different migrations of the Doric race. The
worship at Didyma was in fact the same with that of Crete and Delphi;
expiatory ceremonies and prophecies being united, and the latter delivered
with rites very similar to those observed at the Pythian oracle. Apollo
was here called _Philesius_ and _Delphinius_, which names were afterwards
adopted by other Ionians;(969) with him was connected Zeus, both,
according to Callimachus, being the ancestors of Didyma; and also Artemis,
who, in an ancient hymn ascribed to Branchus, is with Apollo addressed
under the titles of ἑκάεργος and ἑκαέργη.(970) The ruins of this temple,
so highly honoured in Asia, still bear witness to its ancient fame and
splendour. From the temple to the harbour(971) Panormus there was a sacred
road adorned on both sides with more than sixty statues in a very ancient
style of workmanship: amongst these, an Egyptian lion attests the
connexion of king Necho with the oracle.(972) The Ionians of Miletus,
however, acknowledged the god of Branchidæ as the principal deity in their
town, and introduced him into their numerous colonies, from Naucratis(973)
to Cyzicus,(974) Parium,(975) Apollonia Pontica,(976) and the distant
Taurica: the coins and inscriptions of which place agree in representing
him as the guardian deity (προστάτης).(977)
7. The twin brother of the Didymæan god, both in origin and in the
similarity of worship, is the Clarian Apollo. However fabulous the
particular circumstances of its foundation, still it was impossible in
ancient times to invent a religious colonial connexion where none in fact
existed. The traditions manifestly imply a double dependence of the
establishment at Claros: viz., upon Delphi and Crete. Manto, the daughter
of Teiresias the Theban soothsayer, was, according to the epic poets,
consecrated by the Epigoni to the Delphian Apollo after the taking of
Thebes,(978) and she was afterwards sent by Apollo to the spot on which
the Ionians at a later period founded the city of Colophon; having, in
obedience to the commands of the oracle, married on her way Rhacius the
Cretan, whose name, according to the dialect of Crete, had the double form
Rhacius and Lacius.(979) Augias, the Cyclic poet, mentioned the tomb of
her father Teiresias at Colophon,(980) which was generally supposed to be
in Bœotia. The offspring of this marriage was Mopsus, who was probably
called the progenitor of the family from which, even in the Roman time,
the priests of the oracle were selected.(981) The forms of prophecy were
in this temple also similar to those at Delphi.
The other temples of Apollo on the coast of Asia Minor were generally
connected with some one of the four already mentioned. The temple of
Leucæ, between Smyrna and Phocæa (where the Cumæans celebrated a
festival),(982) was probably a member of the Trojan family, to which the
Grynean Apollo, in the territory of Myrina near Cume (where there was also
an oracle), appears to be related.(983) Apollo Malloeis, in the territory
of Mytilene, in Lesbos, was an off-shoot of the Clarian worship:(984) to
the same branch also belonged the oracle of Apollo at Mallus in
Cilicia,(985) inasmuch as it was said to have been founded by Mopsus the
son of Manto.
8. The worship of Apollo also penetrated to several parts of European
Greece, where it was established by Cretan adventurers on capes and
headlands—particularly at Trœzen, Tænarum, Megara, and Thoricus.
TRŒZEN, as has been above remarked,(986) shared with Athens both the race
of her inhabitants and her worship, together with the connexion between
Athens and Crete; the meaning of which will be explained hereafter.(987)
Hence we may conjecture the Cretan origin of the nine families, which were
in existence at a late date at Trœzen, and in early times performed the
rites of atonement and purification (of which Orestes was said to have
been the first subject) near a laurel-tree in front of the temple of
Apollo, and a sacred stone in front of the temple of the Lycean
Artemis.(988)
The expiatory establishment(989) on the promontory of TÆNARUM was also
said to have been founded by Tettix, a Cretan,(990) who is merely a
personified symbol of Apollo, like Lycus, Corax, Cycnus, &c, in other
places. Callondas is said to have purified the soul of the murdered
Archilochus at this gate of the infernal regions. Considering the
proximity of Delium in Laconia(991) and of the little island of Minoa to
this temple, we may conclude that the origin of the above sanctuary was
connected with these places.
In front of the harbour of MEGARA was another island called Minoa, and
numerous legends had been there preserved in which the Cretans of Minoa
(though probably only by a corruption of the original tradition) were
represented as enemies and plunderers. Megara had two citadels: the Carian
with the temple of Demeter, and a more modern one towards the sea,
surmounted by temples of Apollo. This is said to have been built by
Alcathous the son of Pelops, while Apollo stood by and played upon his
lyre. A sounding-block of stone was exhibited at the place where the god
lay down his lyre.(992) The same fable is also alluded to by Theognis of
Megara.(993) Here then there is a worship and temples of an earlier date
than the Doric migration, and which certainly proceeded from Crete. On the
former citadel stood a statue of Apollo Decatephorus,(994) “the receiver
of tithes,” whose name is explained by the fable that the daughter of
Alcathous was once sent as a tribute to Crete, like the Athenian youths
and maidens. Thus a fact which will be soon proved with respect to Athens,
is also true of Megara—viz., that these missions always conveyed a sacred
tithe.(995)
9. The process of our investigation will shortly lead us to examine the
Attic legends, consisting of a confused mass of tradition, with which the
worship of all the gods, 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
Cephalidæ, who existed at a still later period in Attica,(998) preserved
some hereditary rites of Apollo: for when in the tenth generation
Chalcinus and Dætus, 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 god 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 BŒOTIA.
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 passes of Parnassus. 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
god 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 Eubœa for the purpose of seeing Tityus;(1009)—a remarkable
passage, which I can only understand to mean that the Cretan hero was
desirous to see Tityus, who was vanquished by Apollo.
Tegyra was a place of great importance in the Bœotian 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
god as coming to take possession of Pytho from Tegyra, not, as the Attic
poets, from Delos.
12. The identity of the Bœotian 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
(πρόναος).(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 πυρχόοι 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
instituted 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 gods 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 god, 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 Bœotian 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 Æolian migration,(1020)
whence it might perhaps be inferred that the Æolians introduced the
worship of Apollo into Bœotia. 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 passage 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
goddess, together with the other deities of the Acropolis, plays the
principal part in them, particularly in her connexion with the blessings
of husbandry. But with the reign of Ion the Attic mythology assumes quite
a different character.(1021) This seems to me a complete refutation of the
assertion of the Ionians as to their identity 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 Hellenic worship deviated from the ancient one of the country.
Aristotle indeed speaks of the paternal Apollo (Ἀπόλλων πατρῷος) as being
a son of Athene and Hephæstus;(1024) but this is nothing more than an
endeavour to create a family connexion between the principal gods 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 Ægeus(1026) and Theseus belong) with reference
to religious institutions, mention is seldom made of the ancient Athenian
deities, Athene and Hephæstus. 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 assemblies), 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 god; 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, Ægeus and Poseidon. Theseus consecrated his
hair to the same god; a place at Delphi was called Thesea.(1028) It is
also related of Ægeus, 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 Œnoë,”(1030) a fortified borough town
of the tribe Hippothoontis, on the frontiers of Megaris, Bœotia, 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 Œnoë 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
Pythaistæ and Deliastæ.(1034) The omens looked for were the _Pythian
lightnings_, a very unusual mode of divination in Greece. The Pythaistæ
took their station in the town, near the altar of Zeus Astrapæus, 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 embassy 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 Œnoë;
from thence through the pass of Dryoscephalæ to Bœotia, where it touched
either Thespiæ or Thebes, then Lebadeia and Chæronea, and then passed on
by Panopeus and Daulis through the defile between Parnassus 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 Œnoë,
which will greatly assist 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 passing 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 tithe of men to Delphi, the
descendants of these slaves went with them, and subsequently passed 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 (δι᾽ ἐννέα
ἐτῶν);(1043) that is, probably at every Ennaëteris 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
poop.(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 goddess, 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 Prasiæ, 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 Ægeus
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
Pallantidæ.(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 god. The paternal deity of Athens was, as
Demosthenes says, no other than the Pythian Apollo.(1052) We may then
assert, without hesitation, that the Ionians were the only race who had
gentilitious rites of Apollo, and that they alone could properly be called
γενῆται Ἀπόλλωνος πατρῴου. Thus, when the archons at the scrutiny swore,
that besides Zeus Herceus, the household god, they worshipped also Apollo
πατρῷος;(1053) this form of oath originated at a time when the Eupatridæ,
that is, the noble Ionic and Hellenic 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 class in general and the whole people
were admitted to this office, that Apollo πατρῷος 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 Ephetæ. 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 god of artisans and husbandmen, but of warriors. Hence
also Ion or Xuthus adopted him as the Athenian god of war (πολέμαρχος) at
the festival of Boedromia,(1056) the name of which is derived from the
onset of armed troops in battle.
As originally the Eupatridæ 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 Eupatridæ as administrators of the government, judges, and
interpreters of the sacred rites (ἐξηγηταὶ ὁσίων καὶ ἱερῶν).
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 Eupatridæ, (πάτρια);(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 Eupatridæ. On this
account the vacant period between the times of the Erecthidæ and Ægidæ 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 coarse, 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 Erecthidæ. 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)