§ 1. Ritual worship of Apollo. Bloodless offerings. § 2. Expiatory
rites. § 3. Peace offerings. § 4. Festivals of Apollo. § 5. Traces
of a festival calendar. § 6. Expiations for homicide. § 7. Rites
of purification—use of the laurel therein. § 8. Prophetic
character of Apollo. § 9. His modes of divination. § 10. Use of
music in the worship of Apollo. § 11. Apollo represented as
playing on the cithara. § 12. Contest of Apollo and Linus. Ancient
plaintive songs. § 13. Ancient hymns to Apollo. § 14. The pæan and
hyporcheme. § 15. The Hyacinthian and Carnean festivals. § 16.
Apollo as represented by the sculptors. § 17. Ancient statues of
Apollo. § 18. Apollo as represented by successive schools of
sculptors. § 19. Political influence of the worship of Apollo. §
20. Its connexion with the Pythagorean philosophy.
1. Our intention in this chapter is to show that, besides the mythology,
the ceremonies also of the worship of Apollo so agree and harmonize
together, as to furnish a decisive proof of its regular and systematic
development; after which we will endeavour to point out this agreement,
and elucidate its relative bearings; although an attempt of this kind must
necessarily be very imperfect, since the religion, which, in order to
comprehend, we should regard with the ardour of devotion, is now merely
the subject of cold and heartless speculation.
First, with regard to the sacrifices, it is remarkable, that in many of
the principal temples a particular sanctity and importance was attributed
to _bloodless_ offerings. At Delphi cakes and frankincense were
consecrated in holy baskets;(1341) at Patara, cakes in the form of bows,
arrows, and lyres, emblems both of the wrath and placability of the
deity.(1342) At Delos, an altar, called the altar of the pious, stood
behind the altar built of horns, on which were deposited only cakes of
wheat and barley; this, according to tradition, was the only one on which
Pythagoras sacrificed.(1343) In this island also at festivals were offered
mallows and ears of corn;(1344) the simplest food of man, in remembrance
of primitive simplicity and temperance. At Delphi the young women of
Parnassus are said to have brought the first-fruits of the year to Apollo,
immediately after the destruction of the Python.(1345) The pious offerings
of the Hyperboreans, as has been remarked above, were the same as those
last enumerated. And perhaps we may add to our list the custom, at the
Attic autumnal festival of the Pyanepsia, of hanging grapes, fruits, and
small jars of honey and oil, to branches of olive or laurel bound with
wool, and carrying them to the doors of a temple of Apollo;(1346) though
perhaps this rite belonged rather to Bacchus, the Sun, and the
Hours,(1347) who shared the honour of this festival with Apollo.
2. The above offerings doubtless express the existence of a pure and
filial relation, like that in which the Hyperboreans stood to Apollo; it
being quite sufficient for persons in so innocent a state to give a
constant acknowledgment of the benevolence and power with which the god
defends and preserves them. But as the pure deity was himself supposed to
be stained with blood, so might the minds of his worshippers become
tainted with sin, and lose their internal quiet. When in this state, being
as it were under the influence of a fiendlike and corrupting power (Ἄτη),
the mind naturally wishes to put an end to its unhappy condition by some
specific and definite act. This is effected by the solemn expiation and
purification of the religion of Apollo. Expiatory rites were thus
introduced into the regular system of worship, and formed a part of the
ancient _jus sacrum._ It was soon however perceived that the usual routine
of life sometimes needed the same ceremony, and hence expiatory
_festivals_ were connected with the public worship of the god; by which
not only individuals, but whole cities were purified. These festivals were
naturally celebrated in the spring, when the storms of winter disappear,
and nature bursts into fresh life.(1348) But in these the pious gifts of
individuals no longer sufficed, nor even the sacrifice of animals; and the
troubled mind seemed to require for its purification a greater sacrifice.
At Athens, during the Thargelia, two men (or a man and a woman), adorned
with flowers and fruits, having been rubbed over with fragrant herbs, were
led in the most solemn manner, like victims, before the gate, and thrown
with imprecations from the rock; but were in all probability taken up
below, and carried beyond the borders. The persons used for these
expiations (Φαρμακοὶ) were condemned criminals, whom the city provided for
the purpose.(1349) This festival was common to all Ionians; it is
particularly mentioned at Miletus(1350) and Paros;(1351) and the same
rites were also practised in the Phocæan colony of Massalia.(1352) In
Ionia the victims were beaten with branches of the fig-tree and with
sea-onions; at the same time there was played on the flute a strain
(called χραδίης), which, according to the testimony of Hipponax, was
reduced by Mimnermus into elegiac measure.(1353) At Athens also the
victims were crowned with figs and fig-branches, being probably the symbol
of utter worthlessness. The antiquity of this manner of purification has
been shown above, in our remarks upon the religious ceremonies of
Leucadia.(1354)
3. The _peace-offerings_ (ἱλασμοὶ), by which Apollo was first appeased,
and his wrath averted, should, as it appears, be distinguished from the
_purifications_ (καθαρμοὶ), by which he was supposed to restore the mind
to purity and tranquillity. At Sicyon (where the religion of Apollo
flourished at a very early period) it was related, that Apollo and Artemis
had, after the destruction of the Python, wished to be there purified, but
that, being driven away by a phantom (whence in after-times a certain spot
in the town was called φόβος), they proceeded to some other place. Upon
this the inhabitants were attacked by a pestilence; and the seers ordered
them to appease the deities. Seven boys and the same number of girls were
ordered to go to the river Sythas and bathe in its waters, then to carry
the statues of the two deities into the temple of Peitho, and from thence
back to that of Apollo.(1355) The Attic festival of Delphinia (on the
sixth of Munychion) had evidently the same meaning; in this seven boys and
girls reverently conveyed the ἱκετηρία, an olive-branch bound with white
fillets of wool, into the Delphinium.(1356) This took place exactly one
month before the Thargelia; and in all probability the peace-offerings and
purifications (ἱλασμοὶ and καθαρμοὶ) were celebrated at the same period
throughout the whole of Greece.
4. By comparing and arranging the scattered fragments of information
respecting the time of the festivals belonging to these two classes, we
shall obtain the following clear and simple account.(1357)
In the commencement of the Apollinian year, in the first month of spring,
called Bysius (_i.e._ Πύθιος) at Delphi, Munychion at Athens, Apollo was
supposed to come through the defile of Parnassus to Delphi, and begin the
battle with the Delphinè. He next assumes the character of the wrathful
god, whom it was necessary to appease; and hence, on the sixth day of the
month, the expiatory festival of Delphinia took place at Athens, and
probably also at Miletus and Massalia; we may likewise suppose that it was
the same month which in Ægina and Thera went under the name of
Delphinius:(1358) on the seventh Apollo destroyed the Python.(1359) The
pæan was now sung. This too was the day on which, according to immemorial
custom, the oracle first broke silence; at a late period it was also
esteemed at Delphi as the birthday of Apollo.(1360) Immediately after, the
Delphian procession moved on to Tempe; and at the same time the tithes of
men were once despatched to Apollo in Crete.(1361)
In the second month of spring, called by the Ionians Thargelion, Apollo
was purified at the altar at Tempe, and probably on the seventh day of the
month; for the great expiatory festival of both deities, Apollo and
Artemis, was at Athens celebrated on the sixth and seventh days; and Delos
was at the same time purified; this ceremony was immediately followed by a
feast of thanksgiving in honour of the god of light. According to Delian
tradition, Artemis and Apollo (ἑβδομαγέτης)(1362) were born on the sixth
and seventh days of this month.(1363) On the same day however on which the
Delphian boy broke the laurel and turned homewards, the purifying
laurel-boughs (from which the festival of the Daphnephoria derived its
name)(1364) were probably also carried round in Bœotia, and throughout the
rest of Greece.(1365) Soon after this, the setting of the Pleiades took
place (the day before the ides of May, according to the statement of
Eudoxus);(1366) at which time Hesiod makes the harvest begin; then, as has
been above remarked, on the testimony of Diodorus and ancient works of
art,(1367) Apollo, having been presented with the first ears of corn,
leaves the Hyperboreans, and appears in a milder and more noble character
at Delphi.
If it was wished that the setting of the Pleiades should occur at a
regular interval from the preceding festival, this could have been
effected only by cycles, by which the lunar and sidereal years were made
to agree. Now it was not difficult to observe, that, after ninety-nine
lunar months, the setting of the Pleiades coincided pretty exactly with
the same phase of the moon. From this circumstance arose the period of
_eight years_, called by the Greeks ἐνναετηρὶς, in conformity with which
the great festivals of Apollo at Delphi, Crete, and Thebes were from the
earliest times arranged.(1368)
5. These data afford a sufficient proof of a remarkable and by no means
fortuitous connexion between the expiatory festivals of Apollo: we may
discover the vestiges of a sacred calendar, once, without doubt, preserved
entire, but which, through the various combinations introduced into the
Grecian worship, became disjointed and broken. This was particularly the
case in the Attic festivals, where the same festival is frequently, as it
were, doubled, and placed in different portions of the year. A remarkable
instance, illustrative of the above remark, immediately occurs to us. As
the months Munychion and Thargelion succeeded each other in the _second_
half of the year, so did Boëdromion and Pyanepsion in the _first_. The
sixth of Boëdromion was sacred to Artemis; the seventh, without doubt, to
Apollo Boëdromius, _the martial god_; who therefore corresponds with the
Delphinian Apollo, and the festival with the Delphinia. The Pyanepsia,
however, were very similar to the Thargelia; the laurel-boughs wrapt with
wool, carried round at the celebration of both, remind us of the
Daphnephoria;(1369) only, as was above remarked, the worship of Bacchus,
which Theseus is said to have established at Naxos, after his return from
the islands, was mixed up with it, and is to be recognised in the carrying
of boughs (ὀσχοφορία), which was introduced into this festival. Thus these
four seventh days (ἑβδόμαι) correspond with each other as follows:
7th Munychion.
7th Thargelion.
7th Boëdromion.
7th Pyanepsion.
6. We turn from these expiatory festivals of universal occurrence to the
expiations which the religion of Apollo enjoined for those who had
incurred the guilt of homicide.(1370) We previously noticed some
establishments of this nature connected with the temples at Tænarum, at
Trœzen, and of Branchidæ: a similar one also existed at Delphi, as may be
gathered from the fable of Orestes, related by Æschylus, in which Apollo
appears at the same time as leader of the avenging Furies, and as purifier
of the murderer. Immediately after this deed, the matricide takes an
olive-branch bound with woollen fillets,(1371) and flies _like a
frightened stag_(1372) to Delphi, where Apollo himself purifies his
blood-stained hands by the sacrifice of swine and ablutions;(1373) and
thus liberates him from the Furies, as a defence against whom he had
(according to Stesichorus) also given him a bow and arrows.(1374) After
the purification of Orestes at Delphi, the Athenian poets affirm that he
went to Athens, and, under the protection of the god, placed himself
before the Areopagus, where Cephalus had also stood in a similar
situation.(1375)
At Athens likewise, as was remarked above, the expiatory rites of the
worship of Apollo were connected with the criminal courts of justice, the
aristocratic ephetæ being intrusted both with the ceremony of purification
and the duties of judges. These were fifty-one men, of noble birth,(1376)
who in early times had jurisdiction in five courts of justice (amongst
which the Areopagus was of course included) over every description of
homicide.(1377) Solon probably first separated the Areopagus from the
other four courts; and in order to make it a timocratic tribunal, with
cognizance over cases of wilful murder, he gave it great political, though
not religious power; the latter he was not able to bestow. The
jurisdiction of the ephetæ was now confined to cases of unintentional or
justifiable homicide, and some others of no importance; thus remaining a
singular remnant of the ancient judicial forms, in the midst of an
universal change. We shall now describe the ceremonies in use at the
expiation of homicides. It is necessary, however, in the first place, to
distinguish the wilful murderer, who either left for ever his native land,
losing all privileges and property therein, or who suffered the penalty of
the laws, from the man who killed another without design, or with some
good cause, to be approved by the sentence of the ephetæ. A person in the
latter situation left his country by a particular road for a certain time;
during which he also kept at a distance from places of public resort
(ἀπενιαυτισμὸς).(1378) Afterwards, the reconciliation took place either
with the kindred or certain chosen phratores; but only in case they were
willing,(1379) and that it was only a homicide of the second
description.(1380) The term used was αἰδέσασθαι, because an offender of
this kind was an unfortunate person, and therefore, according to the
opinion of the ancient Greeks, worthy of respect. Afterwards, the
perpetrator was purified from all guilt by sacrifices and expiatory rites.
In early times the purification probably always took place abroad,
frequently in the ancient settlements of the injured family. At Athens it
was performed after the return of the criminal; and there the cases of
atoneable murders were of course less frequent than in the heroic age;
since, under a less regular government, and with closer family ties, there
were more incitements and excuses for that crime. Hence at that time those
institutions must have been of double importance, which checked the
fearful consequences of an unlucky act, quieted the workings of an uneasy
conscience, and moderated the too eager thirst for revenge.(1381)
From this ancient connexion of the religious expiations and criminal
jurisdiction, we easily perceive why at Athens Apollo should have presided
over all the courts of justice;(1382) and why he was also represented at
Tenedos as armed with a double hatchet,(1383) the instrument used in that
island for the execution of adulterers.(1384)
7. Apollo was likewise supposed to preside over purifications of houses,
towns, and districts;(1385) and accordingly they were performed by
Tiresias, the prophet of the Ismenium, at Thebes;(1386) as also in later
times by Epimenides, in his character of a Cretan worshipper of Apollo, at
Athens (after Olymp. 46. 1.), and at Delos at a still earlier
period.(1387) This is the first purification of Delos of which we have any
account; the second is that instituted by Pisistratus (about the 60th
Olympiad); the third, that set on foot by Athens (Olymp. 88. 3. 426 B.C.),
when the island was entirely freed from the corpses so odious to
Apollo.(1388)
In all these rites we find frequent use of the _laurel_ (the δάφνη
Ἀπολλωνιὰς),(1389) to which a power of warding off evil was ascribed, both
when employed in sprinkling, and when merely carried round in
procession.(1390) This tree also served several purposes in the delivery
of oracles; a branch of it in ancient times distinguished the
prophets,(1391) and even the god himself as such;(1392) hence his nurses
were said by some to have been Κορυθάλεια,(1393) _i.e._ “_the laurel
itself_;” and Ἀλήθεια, or “_the fulfilment of oracles_.”(1394) The reason
why the laurel was supposed to have these powers is as obscure as the
origin of the ancient symbolical language in general. Perhaps it was
merely the appearance of the evergreen-tree, with its slender form and
glittering leaves, that made it a symbol of Apollo. The laurel will bear a
tolerably severe winter,(1395) and therefore nourished in the north of
Greece; while the olive, the tree of Athene, belongs to its more southern
regions. But, be this as it may, the situation of Tempe, where this shrub
still grows with great luxuriance, certainly added much to the sanctity of
the symbol:(1396) and for this reason the amour of the god with Daphne is
often placed on the banks of the Peneus.(1397) Indeed Apollo was supposed
to love all groves, particularly of forest-trees, laurels, wild-olives,
&c. The freshening coolness and holy silence of such places were thought
to be proper preparatives for entering the sanctuary.(1398)
8. It has appeared incomprehensible to many, why Apollo should be a god of
prophecy, and how this office can be reconciled with his other attributes.
Many have been satisfied with supposing an accidental association of
music, prophecy, and archery, without being able to discover any principle
of union. In the following pages we shall endeavour to account for the
combination in the same deity of attributes apparently so unconnected.
Prophecy, according to the ideas of the ancients, is the announcement of
fate (of μοῖρα, αἶσα). Now fate was considered to be the right order of
things, the established physical and moral harmony of the world, in which
every thing occupies the place fitted for its capacities and function.
Fate therefore coincides with supreme Justice (Θέμις); which notion Hesiod
expressed by saying that Zeus married Themis, who produced to him the
Fates. The pious, religious mind could not separate Zeus and Destiny: Fate
was the will and thought of the highest of the gods. A man whose actions
agreed with this established harmony, and who followed the appointed
course of things, acted _justly_ (κατ᾽ αἶσαν, ἐναίσιμα); the violent and
arrogant man endeavoured at least to break through the laws of Fate. Now
it was this right order of events which the ancient oracles were supposed
to proclaim; and hence they were called θέμιστες, ordinances or laws of
_justice_.(1399) They were not imagined to be derived from a foreknowledge
of futurity; but merely to declare that which, according to the necessary
course of events, must come to pass. It cannot indeed fail to surprise us
that the oracle was delivered by a woman in a state of ecstasy, and not as
the result of serious reflection. But do we not find in the earlier period
of Grecian philosophy (especially in the Ionic school) every new and
profound discovery appearing as the work of sudden illumination and
ecstasy, and indeed often accompanied with miraculous circumstances? And
would not the mind in that age have naturally been raised to such an
excited and rapturous state, when, endeavouring to escape from the narrow
bounds of daily life, it recognised in the general course of events the
influence of the gods? The means adopted to promote this inspiration, the
vapour of the chasm, the chewing of the laurel-leaves, the drinking of the
water of the well, are of the most innocent description. We do not however
mean to deny that these ceremonies soon became an unmeaning form, the
oracle being made subservient to political purposes.
The custom of a woman giving utterance to the decrees of the god
originated partly from the peculiar estimation in which women were held by
the Dorians, and partly from the natural tendency of the female sex (so
often remarked by the ancients) to fits of ecstasy. Prophetesses were
elsewhere also frequently connected with temples of Apollo; as, for
instance, Manto, during the fabulous age, with the Ismenian and Clarian
temples, and Cassandra with that of Thymbra, whose nature was nearly
allied to that of the sibyls, who likewise were always connected with
temples of the same god. As to the manner in which the responses of the
Pythian priestess were delivered, Heracleitus of Ephesus says, that “_the
god, whose oracle is at Delphi, neither utters nor conceals any thing, but
gives signs_;”(1400) which at least serves to contradict the common idea
of the designed ambiguity of this oracle.
This temple must however have lost much of its dignity, when it
condescended, for the sake of rich offerings from the Lydian monarch, to
answer enigmatically the insidious questions which Crœsus put to the
Grecian oracles. In earlier times a Greek would not have dared, without
the greatest faith in its responses, to approach the temple, which had
regulated almost the whole political state of Greece, conducted its
colonies, instituted the sacred armistices, and established by its
authority the legislation of Lycurgus. For in general the god had not to
announce what _would_, but what _should_ take place; and he frequently
declared events not as to happen independently of his injunction, but as
the consequence of his answers. All Dorians were in a certain state of
dependence on the Pythian temple; and as long as that race possessed the
ascendency in Greece, the hearth in the centre of the earth (μεσόμφαλος
ἑστία), with its eternal fire, at Pytho,(1401) was considered as the
Prytaneum and religious centre of the whole of Greece.(1402)
9. In ancient Greece, however, prophecy was by no means derived altogether
from Apollo, but merely that species of it which proceeded from a
rapturous and entranced state of the soul. Nevertheless, the enthusiastic
and imaginative frame of mind, in which cool grottos, with their flowing
waters and hollow echoes, seemed to transport the votary into a former
world, was derived from the Nymphs: and the Bacidæ, who were considered as
under the influence of the Nymphs (νυμφόπληκτοι), have no more to do with
Apollo than the σεληνιακοὶ, among whom Musæus is reckoned.
Of the various modes of divination from omens,(1403) only two or three
were referred to this god, and that rather accidentally than in accordance
with any fixed principle:(1404) for example, divination from
lightning,(1405) from birds,(1406) from sacrifices,(1407) and from the
drawing of lots, which, however, was either disdained by him, as below his
dignity, or transferred to Hermes.(1408)
Connecting the idea of Apollo, which we have now acquired, with our
preceding inquiries, we find the whole combine in an easy and natural
manner. Apollo, as a divine hero, overcomes every obstacle to the order
and laws of heaven; and those are heavenly regulations and laws which he
proclaims as the prophet of Zeus. By these, also, tranquillity,
brightness, and harmony, are every where established, and every thing
destructive of them is removed. The belief in a fixed system of laws, of
which Apollo was the executor, formed the foundation of all prophecy in
his worship.
10. We have next to consider for what reason and to what extent _music_
was included among the solemnities (τιμαὶ) in honour of Apollo. On this
point, however, we must guard against inferring too much from the poets.
By the ancients he was represented as playing on the cithara (φόρμιγξ),
frequently in the midst of a chorus of Muses, singing and dancing;(1409)
whose place in the Hymn to the Pythian Apollo is filled by ten goddesses,
among whom “_Ares and Hermes vault and spring_” (perhaps like Cretan
tumblers or κυβιστητῆρες), “_whilst Apollo, in a beautifully woven
garment, plays, and at the same time dances with quick motion of the
feet_;” for Apollo was not considered as merely a god of music; thus
Pindar addresses him as the god of dance.(1410) But we are not warranted
from this _poetical_ fiction to infer a _religious_ union of the Muses and
Apollo, nor can such a connexion be any where traced; indeed the worship
of these goddesses was, both in origin and locality,(1411) entirely
different from that of Apollo. Besides, amongst the early writers, Apollo
is never considered as the patron of poets, or invoked, as the Muses are,
to grant poetical inspiration: players on the cithara alone were under his
protection. The cithara was his attribute, both in many ancient
statues(1412) and also on the coins of Delphi; it is his ancient and
appropriate instrument; the deeper-toned lyre, with its arched
sounding-board, Apollo received from Hermes:(1413) the instances in which
he is represented as bearing it are very rare.
11. But for what reason is Apollo described as playing upon the cithara?
for no other, assuredly, than that the music of the cithara was from times
of remote antiquity connected with his worship; and that, because it
appears best fitted to express a tranquil and simple harmony; the worship
of Apollo, as we have frequently remarked, always endeavouring to produce
a solemn quiet and stillness of the soul. Pindar beautifully says of this
god that he “_invented the citharis and bestows the muse on whom he wills,
in order to introduce peaceful law into the heart_.”(1414) To this also
refer the golden κηληδόνες, which, according to the account of the same
poet,(1415) were suspended from the roof of the brazen temple at Delphi;
and they were without doubt intended as emblems of the mild and soothing
influence of the god. This was naturally the chief object of music when
used in purifications, and as an incantation (ἐπῳδὴ); when passions were
to be overcome, and pain soothed; and in ancient times this was one of its
most important applications.(1416) Chrysothemis, an ancient Pythian
minstrel of mythology, was hence called the son of Carmanor, the expiatory
priest of Tarrha;(1417) as also Thaletas, the Cretan poet, purified Sparta
by music, when attacked with the plague.(1418) The Pythagoreans, who paid
an especial honour to Apollo, went still further, and employed music as a
charm to soothe the passions, attune the spirit to harmony, and cure both
body and mind. Hence they much preferred the cithara to the flute,(1419)
as, according to Grecian ideas, there was something in the sound of the
flute wild, and at the same time gloomy; this, too, is the reason why
Apollo disliked the music of that instrument.(1420) This also explains his
contest with Marsyas, the Phrygian Silenus and flute-player, whose tough
skin, having been stript off by the conqueror, always moved (according to
the report of the inhabitants of Celænæ), with joy, as was believed, at
the sound of flutes.(1421)
The flute was not an instrument of much antiquity among the Greeks; Homer
only mentions it as used by the Trojans.(1422) In the time of Hesiod it
had been introduced at the _comus_, the band of noisy revellers.(1423) But
the cithara alone for a long time kept its place as the instrument for the
chorus: even in the time of Alcman flute-players came mostly from Asia
Minor; and their names (Sambas, Adon, Telos(1424)) frequently had, from
this circumstance, a barbarous sound. This kind of music was principally
adopted in places where Dionysus was worshipped; for instance, in Bœotia.
It was of course also much used in the rites of the Phrygian Magna Mater,
and of the Phrygian Pan:(1425) hence Pindar, who inherited the character
of a flute-player from his father, dedicated a shrine to the mother of the
gods, and to Pan.(1426) When, however, it had become common throughout
Greece, it could not be excluded from a place so celebrated for music as
Delphi, and Apollo’s ear became less fastidious. Alcman and Corinna,
indeed, were too partial to that art (the former as being a Lydian, the
latter a Bœotian), when they represented Apollo himself playing on the
flute.(1427) This instrument, however, had at that time been adopted even
in the sacred exhibition of the Delphian worship: a dirge on the death of
the Python(1428) (nominally the production of Olympus a Phrygian musician,
contemporary with, or somewhat later than, Terpander),(1429) was played on
the flute in the Lydian strain, and probably formed a part of that
dramatic representation. Moreover, this instrument was used to accompany
Prosodia (songs which were sung on the way to a temple) in the procession
to Tempe, and in the Pentathlon at the gymnastic contests.(1430) A
peculiar species of flute, from being used in pæans, obtained the name of
the _Pythian_:(1431) yet the music of the flute, combined with singing
(αὐλῳδία), in lyric and elegiac measures, was excluded from the Pythian
games, after it had once been heard, as making too gloomy an
impression:(1432) for all sadness, and therefore all plaintive strains,
were every where excluded from the worship of Apollo; and the music in his
temples was always intended to have an enlivening and tranquillizing
effect upon the mind.
12. From this view of the subject we may explain the singular story of the
contest of Apollo with Linus, and of the defeat and consequent death of
the latter.(1433) For this purpose it will be necessary to state shortly
my ideas respecting the real character of Linus. Linus, then, the subject
of the song called by his name, was originally a god of an elementary
religion (in which there were numerous symbols to signify the death of all
animated life): he was nearly connected with Narcissus (_i.e._, _the
Torpid_), whose tomb was shown at Thebes and Argos, at which last place
matrons and maidens bewailed him in the month Arneius, as a boy brought up
among lambs and torn in pieces by dogs.(1434) The song of lamentation for
the untimely death of Linus, the much-loved boy,(1435) was sung to the
harp in a low and subdued voice, and listened to with pleasure in the
times of Homer and Hesiod,(1436) although then, perhaps, the air was not
always very melancholy. But in after times this was its predominant
character, as is proved by the names Αἴλινος and Οἰτόλινος.(1437) It was a
great favourite with the husbandmen,(1438) who were generally aboriginal
inhabitants. In this point there was a resemblance between the usages of
ancient Greece and Asia Minor, where religious dirges of this description,
different, indeed, in different districts, but having every where the same
mournful tune, were customary.(1439) Such were, for instance, the lament
of the tribe of Doliones;(1440) the Hylas, sung at fountains in the
country of the Mysians and Bithynians(1441) (probably the same as the
Mysian song);(1442) the song of the beautiful Bormus, whose watery death
was deplored by the husbandmen of Mariandyne on the flute in the middle of
summer;(1443) of Lityerses, whom the Phrygians bewailed yearly during the
time of harvest at Celænæ, the native place of Marsyas;(1444) and which,
with the melancholy Carian strain, was played to the Phrygian flute.(1445)
Besides these there were the Gingras, or song of Adonis, and the Maneros,
the rustic song of Pelusium in Egypt, which Herodotus compares with the
Linus.(1446) And even at Cyprus the contest of the two opposite kinds of
music was in some measure renewed; there being a tradition that Cinyras,
the priest of Aphrodite, and composer of the mournful strains in honour of
Adonis, had, like Marsyas and Linus, been overcome and put to death by
Apollo.(1447)
Thus we behold Apollo the representative of the severe, even, and simple
music of the Greeks, in contest with that impassioned spirit, alternating
between the extremes of fury and apathy, which the professors of an
elementary religion sought to represent even in their music; and
consequently this fable also harmonizes with the fundamental principles of
the religion of Apollo.
13. Having now ascertained the general character of the music employed in
the worship of Apollo, we shall endeavour to obtain a more accurate
knowledge of its varieties.
One of the most ancient species of composition (in which Chrysothemis the
Cretan and Philammon were said to have contended at Delphi) was a hymn to
Apollo;(1448) which we must suppose to have been composed in the ancient
Doric dialect, and sung simply to the cithara. In reference to its musical
execution, this hymn was also called a _nome_,(1449) the invention of
which was ascribed to Apollo himself.(1450) At Delos also there were
nomes, which were sung at the cyclic choral dances, and were attributed to
Olen, another representative of the ancient poetry of hymns.(1451) The
general character of these was composure and regularity;(1452) the measure
was anciently (as we know from certain testimony) only hexameter:(1453)
which agrees well with the fact that the origin of the hexameter was
derived from Pytho.(1454) In the account that Philammon, the ancient
composer of hymns, had placed choruses of young women round the altar, who
sang the birth of Latona and her children in lyric measures (ἐν
μέλεσι),(1455) the nomes of Philammon,(1456) as improved by Terpander the
ancient lyric poet, appear to be confounded with the original ones; since
these, after the fashion of the most ancient composers, contained only
hexameters.(1457) The ancient religious poets mentioned in these accounts,
Chrysothemis, Philammon, and Olen, may be looked on as Dorians with the
same certainty as the founders of the temples of Tarrha, Delphi, and
Patara, to which they particularly belonged.(1458) The language also of
the poems ascribed to them must have been Doric; though indeed the fact of
a poetical use of this dialect before the historic times will not agree
with the predominant, though perhaps not well-grounded notions respecting
the progress of poetry in Greece.
14. That the _pæan_ was a song of thanksgiving for deliverance has been
mentioned above. With respect, however, to the manner in which it was
performed, we learn from Homer that it was sung after the sacrificial
feast,(1459) when the goblets were carried round after the sacred
libation; and this was also the case at Sparta and Athens.(1460) It was
generally sung in a sitting posture, although in the Homeric Hymn to
Apollo that god is represented as accompanying the Cretans who sing in a
measured step.(1461) At Sparta it was danced in choruses.(1462) On the
whole it required a regular and sedate measure,(1463) even when it assumed
a more lively air, as for the nome, and the solemn σπονδειακὸν, sung at
libations.(1464)
But the most lively dance which accompanied the songs used in the worship
of Apollo, was that termed the _hyporcheme_.(1465) In this, besides the
chorus of singers who usually danced around the blazing altar, several
persons were appointed to accompany the action of the poem with an
appropriate pantomimic display (ὑπορχεῖσθαι). Homer himself bears witness
to the Cretan origin of this custom, since the Cnosian dance, represented
by Hephæstus on the shield of Achilles, appears from the description to
have been a kind of hyporcheme,(1466) and hence all dances of this
description were called Cretan.(1467) From that island they passed at an
early period over to Delos, where, even in Lucian’s time, the wanderings
of Latona and her island, with their final repose, were represented in the
above manner.(1468) At the same time also probably took place the custom
mentioned in the hymn to the Delian Apollo as characterizing the songs of
the young women of that island; viz., that they represented the voices and
gestures of every nation:(1469) perhaps they introduced the peculiar
dances of the various countries which Latona visited in her wanderings.
The ludicrous, and at the same time complicated dance (γέρανος) which
Theseus is said first to have danced with his crew round the altar at
Delos,(1470) was probably of the same description. All that can be clearly
ascertained respecting the rhythm of these compositions is that the
hexameter was altogether unfitted to their playful and joyous
character.(1471) But both the hyporcheme and pæan were first indebted for
their systematic improvement to the Doric musicians, Xenodamus of Sparta,
and Thaletas of Elyrus in Crete (about 620 B.C.),(1472) who first brought
the Cretic or Pæonic metre into general use; which names point out beyond
doubt its Cretan origin, and its use in pæans.(1473) Cretics form a quick
and lively, though a pleasing and by no means inharmonious(1474) rhythm,
being particularly adapted to rapid motion. Thus a joyous and agreeable
harmony was added, at the festivals of Apollo, to the serious and solemn
music, although the softness and insipidity of several Ionian and Asiatic
tunes were, without doubt, always rejected.
Thus, if we except the purifying and propitiatory rites, the festivals of
Apollo bore the character of a serene and joyful mind, every other
attribute of the deity being lost in those of victory and mercy. Hence in
his statues at Delphi(1475) and Delos(1476) he was represented as bearing
in his hand the Graces, who gave additional splendour and elegance to his
festivals by the dance, music, and banquet.(1477)
15. We have as yet omitted the mention of two great national festivals
celebrated at Amyclæ by the Spartans in honour of the chief deity of their
race,(1478) viz., the _Hyacinthia_ and the _Carnea_, from a belief that
they do not properly belong to Apollo. That the worship of the Carnean
Apollo, in which both were included, was derived from Thebes, whence it
was brought over by the Ægidæ to Amyclæ, has been proved in a former
work;(1479) our present object is to show, from the symbols and rites of
this worship, that it was originally derived more from the ancient
religion of Demeter than from that of Apollo. The youth Hyacinthus, whom
the Carnean Apollo accidentally struck with a quoit,(1480) evidently took
his name from the flower (a dark-coloured species of iris), which in the
ancient symbolical language was an emblem of death; and the fable of his
death is clearly a relic of an ancient elementary religion. Now the
hyacinth most frequently occurs, in this sense, in the worship of Demeter;
thus, for example, it was under the name Κοσμοσάνδαλος sacred to Demeter
Chthonia at Hermione.(1481) We find further proof of this in the ancient
sculptures with which the grave, and at the same time the altar of
Hyacinthus, was adorned: the artists indeed appear to have completely
comprehended the spirit of the worship. We find Demeter, Cora, Pluto, and
the Cadmean Dionysus, with Ino and Semele, and Hyacinthus himself,
together with a sister named Polybœa.(1482) Polybœa is hardly, if at all,
distinct from Cora,(1483) whom Lasus of Hermione called Melibœa. To this
may be added the sacrifices to the dead, and lamentations customary on the
first day(1484) (which were forbidden at all other festivals of Apollo);
nightly processions,(1485) and several other detached traces of the
symbols of Demeter and Dionysus,(1486) which, by an attentive observer,
may be easily distinguished from those of Apollo. The time of the festival
was also different: it took place on the longest day of the Spartan month
Hecatombeus, which corresponds to the Attic Hecatombæon,(1487) at the time
when Hylas was invoked on the mountains of Bithynia, and the tender
productions of nature droop their languid heads.
The Carnean festival took place, as it appears, in the following month to
the Hyacinthian, equally in honour of Apollo of Amyclæ. But the Doric
religion seems here to have preponderated, and to have supplanted the
elementary symbols so evident in the Hyacinthia. The Carnea was, as far as
we know, altogether a warlike festival, similar to the Attic Boëdromia. It
lasted nine days, during which time nine tents were pitched near the city,
in each of which nine men lived, for the time of the festival, in the
manner of a military camp. There is no reference to an elementary religion
except some obscure ceremonies of the priest Agetes and the
Carneatæ.(1488) This leads us to suppose that at the union of the Amyclæan
worship, introduced by the Ægidæ, with the Doric worship of Apollo at
Sparta, the Hyacinthia preserved more of the peculiarities of the former,
the Carnea of the latter, although the sacred rites of both were
completely united. At the same time we do not deny the difficulty of
inquiring into the origin and primitive form of ceremonies the history of
which is so complicated; and this alone must excuse the shortness of our
account respecting these two festivals.
16. Finally, the manner in which Apollo is represented in _sculpture_,
particularly by the ancient artists, may assist our investigation into the
ideas and sentiments on which his worship was founded. Apollo was a
subject peculiarly adapted for sculpture. Since his connexion with
elementary religion was slight, and there was nothing mystic in his
character, the sculptors were soon able to fix upon a regular cast of
features, to distinguish him from other deities: for Apollo, not only in
poetry, but in the fables most nearly connected with his worship, is
generally represented as a human god, and in all his actions and
sufferings more nearly connected with the heroes than any other divinity.
But before this perfection and conventional uniformity of the art, the
early sculptors were much assisted in characterizing the statues of Apollo
by his numerous and significant symbols, such as the bow, the cithara, the
laurel, &c.: and thus they were able, in some measure, to give an idea of
the power and properties of Apollo, though merely in stiff and rude images
of wood and stone.
17. The simple Cippus of Apollo Agyieus did not represent any particular
attribute, but was merely intended as a memorial of the presence of the
protecting god.(1489) In endeavouring more fully to express his character,
the symbols of power would naturally come next. His attributes of
vengeance doubtless preceded those of mercy, although both, in fact,
harmonized together: it must, however, have been long, before the
surpassing beauty of the god (celebrated even in the Theogony of Hesiod)
could be the subject of sculpture. The attribute, then, of strength, as
also that of omniscience, the ancient Lacedæmonians wished to represent by
the Apollo with four hands and four ears at Amyclæ.(1490) But the chief
statue on the above spot was an image, which, besides the bow, bore a
helmet and lance: of the same nature was also the statue on mount Thornax,
the face of which had been gilded by the Lacedæmonians.(1491) The
Megarians also consecrated at Delphi a statue of Apollo bearing a
lance;(1492) and at Tenedos he was armed with the double hatchet,(1493)
like the Labrandenian Zeus of the Carians.(1494) In a very ancient
bas-relief, discovered by Dodwell on the mouth of a well at Corinth, and
which we shall hereafter examine further, Apollo holds the cithara in his
hand;(1495) his whole form too, as in all the ancient sculptures, is
stouter and more manly than usual.
18. On inquiring concerning the artists of the most ancient symbolical
statues of Apollo, we find that the Cretans were the first sculptors, as
well as musicians, of that worship. From Crete, an ancient wooden statue
of Apollo, of the rudest style of workmanship, was brought to
Delphi:(1496) from hence, too (about Olymp. 50, 580 B.C.), there came
Dipœnus and Scyllis the Dædalidæ, who made for the Sicyonians statues of
Apollo, Artemis, Hercules, and Athene, of which we will speak hereafter.
The Pythian oracle greatly interested itself in the labours of these
artists; for when the envy of the native artists had driven them from
Sicyon, it compelled the inhabitants to recall them. The managers of the
temple of Delphi appear indeed to have been, from very early times, great
patrons of the art of sculpture, particularly in brass. The subterranean
temple at Pytho (the existence of which has been doubted, but, in my
opinion, without sufficient grounds) was covered with brass, as were
several treasuries of the ancient princes of Greece. The temples and
courts were fitted with numerous tripods; caldrons, goblets, and arms of
brass were there arranged promiscuously, from periods of the highest
antiquity. There was also a knife used in sacrifice called the _Delphian
knife_,(1497) nor do the singing golden Κηληδόνες, which Pindar represents
as suspended from the roof of the brazen temple, seem to be a mere
poetical fiction.
But the Cretan school of sculpture produced Tectæus and Angelion, who
erected the celebrated, and probably colossal statue of Apollo at Delos,
which (as was before mentioned) held the Graces in one hand and a bow in
the other. With the same school also, though in a more distant degree, was
connected Canachus of Sicyon, who, about the seventy-third Olympiad, made
a famous bronze statue for the Didymæum,(1498) and one of wood for the
Ismenium. From the accounts and various imitations of this work of art we
are enabled to form some idea of its character. The god was represented
with a manly form, his breast broad and prominent, the trunk square, the
legs almost like pillars, and in a firm position, the left leg being a
little advanced. The hair, encircled with a fillet, lay in slender twisted
curls over the forehead; over each shoulder were three platted tresses,
and behind the hair fell in a broad cluster down the back. The countenance
nearly resembled those in the marbles of Ægina. In the right hand, which
was stretched straight forward, was a fawn (an obscure symbol which we
shall not here attempt to explain); the left, not quite so much elevated,
grasped a bow. The whole must have had an awful and imposing appearance,
conveying the idea of sublimity and dignity far more than of grace or
loveliness.(1499) We cannot suppose the style of the colossal statue of
Apollo to have been very different which, several Olympiads later, was
modelled in brass by Calamis for Apollonia on the Pontus, and which was
afterwards brought to Rome by Lucullus:(1500) nor that of Apollo
Alexicacus, erected at Athens by the same artist at the beginning of the
Peloponnesian war.(1501) The Apollo which Onatas of Ægina, the
contemporary of Calamis, executed for the inhabitants of Pergamus, was a
colossal statue displaying great beauty of form, and, as it appears, of a
more youthful appearance than was common for statues of Apollo at that
time.(1502) In this, Apollo was represented as καλλίτεκνος, as the
beautiful son of Latona; under which name he was worshipped at
Pergamus.(1503) It is not improbable that the union of strength and beauty
so conspicuously exhibited in the ideal forms of the two children of
Latona was suggested by the peculiar character of the Doric education; and
that the artist represented the god as an Ephebus, whose skill in the
chorus and on the field of battle was exactly equal.
But the figure which we are accustomed to consider as properly belonging
to Apollo did not originate even in the school of Polycletus and
Myron,(1504) but was the creation of a later period; since both the coins
of a date prior to the time of Alexander,(1505) and single heads, which
must be referred to the same period,(1506) do not indeed preserve the
features ascribed to the work of Canachus, but still are quite different
from the most celebrated of the statues now extant, having broader cheeks,
a shorter and thicker nose; in a word, the proportions are what the
ancients termed _quadrate_, or square. It was not till the times of
Scopas, Leochares, Praxiteles, and Timarchides, that the Apollo appeared
whom we may call the twin-brother of Venus, so similar are the forms of
both deities. The expression of inspiration and ecstasy, which several of
the best statues exhibit, may also be shown to have first originated in
the school of Scopas, since the earlier artists aimed rather at producing
the appearance of tranquillity and composure than of transient excitement;
and the exquisite taste with which these sculptors were able to express
inspiration without extravagance, deserves the highest praise. Without
detailing the particular productions of these and later artists, we shall
only show how they may be best classified. The Apollo Callinicus of
Belvedere stands by itself, swelling with the pride of victory:(1507) next
comes the Apollo resting from the fight, with the right arm bent over the
head, the left leaning on a pillar, holding the bow, which has evidently
been used, or a cithara: being evidently a statue of the _resting Apollo_
(Ἀπόλλων ἀναπαυόμενος); but from the circumstance that a statue of this
kind stood in the Lyceum at Athens(1508) it is usually called the “Apollo
of the Lyceum:” then follows the Apollo Citharœdus (playing on the harp),
either naked, in different positions, or covered with the Pythian stola,
and in an almost theatrical attitude.(1509) It would be foreign to our
subject to enter into details respecting this class of statues, and those
derived from them, as the Sauroctonus, Nomius, &c.
19. Finally, we would endeavour to trace the influence of the worship of
Apollo on the policy and philosophy of Greece, if the question did not
embrace so wide a field, lying, as it does in great measure, beyond the
confines of history. We may, however, select, from what has been already
said, as proofs of the influence of this worship on political concerns,
the armistice connected with the festivals of Apollo, the truce observed
in the sacred places and roads, the soothing influence of the
purifications for homicide, together with the idea of the punishing and
avenging god, and the great influence of the oracles in the regulation of
public affairs.(1510) It has, moreover, been frequently remarked how by
its sanctity, by the dignified and severe character of its music, by all
its symbols and rites, this worship endeavoured to lull the minds of
individuals into a state of composure and security, consistently, however,
with an occasional elevation to a state of ecstatic delight.
20. Lastly, the worship of Apollo was so nearly connected with a branch of
Grecian philosophy that the one frequently established and explained
scientifically that which the other left merely to the feeling; I mean the
_Pythagorean system_. Pythagoras possessed hereditary rites of Apollo; he
dwelt at Croton, where that god received such various honours;(1511) he
lived mostly among Dorians, who were everywhere partial to that worship;
and a Delphian priestess, by name Aristocleia, is mentioned among his
followers.(1512) Thus it is not without reason that the Pythagorean
philosophy has in modern times been considered as Doric: in its political
doctrines it followed Doric principles, and with the Doric religion it was
united both externally and internally: besides which, the attempt to
realize and disseminate national ideas and opinions may perhaps illustrate
the rapid growth of the power of the Pythagorean league. The recondite
principle of this philosophy always is, that the essence of things lies in
their due measure and proportion, their system and regularity; that
everything exists by harmony and symmetry alone; and that the world itself
is an union of all these proportions (κόσμος, or order). The same
abstraction from materiality also belonged to the religion of Apollo; for
this too suggests the idea of order, harmony, and regularity, and in these
it makes the nature and actions of the Deity to consist. Hence, too, music
was one chief ingredient of the Pythagorean philosophy, as well as a
necessary element of the worship of Apollo, as best expressing the harmony
on which both were founded. In both the soothing and appeasing of the
passions was aimed at and effected, that the mind might be quieted and
strengthened at the same time.(1513) But we must leave the full
investigation of this subject to those who have acquired a profounder
knowledge of the philosophy of Pythagoras.