But the gods grew jealous of the homage shewn to Apollo, and recalling him
from earth, replaced him in his seat at Olympus.
The fable of Apollo is, perhaps, that which is most spread over the faith
of antiquity. Paeans were the hymns chanted in his honour, and this was the
war cry he shouted in his onset against the serpent Python. On his altars
are immolated a bull or a white lamb--to him is offered the crow, supposed
to read the future, the eagle who can gaze on the sun, the cock whose cry
welcomes his return, and the grasshopper, who sings during his empire.
This God is represented in the figure of a young man without beard, with
curling locks of hair, his brow wreathed with laurels, and his head
surrounded with beams of light. In his right hand {46} he holds a bow and
arrows; in the left, a lyre with seven chords, emblem of the seven planets
to which he grants his celestial harmony. Sometimes he carries a buckler,
and is accompanied by the three Graces, who are the animating deities of
genius and the fine arts, and at his feet is placed a swan.
[Illustration]
He had temples and statues in every country, particularly in Egypt, Greece,
and Italy; the most famous was that of Delos, where they celebrated the
Pythian games, that of Soractes, where the priests worshipped by treading
with their naked feet on burning coals, though without feeling pain, and
that of Delphi, in which the youth of the place offered to the gods their
locks of hair, possibly because this offering was most difficult to the
vanity of youth. Apollo made known his oracles through the medium of a
sibyl. This was a female, named also a Pythoness, on account of her seat
being formed of massive gold resembling the skin of the serpent Python. The
history of the tripod will be found to afford much interest. The fishermen
who had found it in their nets, sought the oracle to consult its responses.
This was to offer it to the wisest man in Greece. They presented it to
Thales, who had told them that the most difficult of all human knowledge
was the art of knowing ourselves. Thales offered the tripod to Bias. When
the enemy was reducing his native city to ashes, he withdrew, leaving
behind him his wealth, saying, "I carry all that is worthy within myself."
After frequent adventures, and passing into the possession of many, the
tripod finally returned to Thales, and was deposited in the temple; where,
as we have seen, it served the sibyl for a seat. {47} This story shows us
at a glance, the principles and the conduct of the greatest philosophers of
Greece. These sages who considered philosophy to consist in the science of
practising virtue, and living happily, endeavoured to show by the
adventures of the tripod that, though the way was sometimes different, the
end was the same.
The sibyl delivered the answer of the god to such as came to consult the
oracle, and while the divine inspiration was on her, her eyes sparkled, her
hair stood on end, and a shivering ran through her body. In this convulsive
state, she spoke the oracles of the deity, often with loud howlings and
cries, and her articulations were taken down by the priest, and set in
order. Sometimes the spirit of inspiration was more gentle, and not always
violent, yet Plutarch mentions one of the priestesses who was thrown into
such excessive fury, that not only those who consulted the oracle, but also
the priests who conducted her to the sacred tripod, and attended her during
her inspiration, were terrified and forsook the temple; and so violent was
the fit, that she continued for some days in the most agonizing situation,
and at last died.
It was always required that those who consulted this oracle should make
presents to Apollo, and from thence arose the opulence, splendour, and
magnificence, of the temple of Delphi.
There were other temples of Apollo more celebrated, such as that at
Palmyra, which was constructed of the most gigantic proportions; and for
which nothing was spared to give it a magnificence hitherto unknown.
Augustus, who pretended to be the son of Apollo, built a temple to him on
Mount Palatine. Delian feasts were those which the Athenian, and the other
Greek states celebrated every four years at Delos.
The history of the Muses is so closely allied to that of Apollo that we
shall present some of their adventures in this part of our work.
The first is the struggle which the Muses maintained against the nine
daughters of Pierus, King of Macedon, who dared to dispute with them the
palm of singing; being overcome, they were turned into magpies, and since
their transformation, they have preserved the talent so dear to beauty, of
being able in many words to express very little.
[Illustration]
One day when the Muses were distant from their place of abode, a storm
surprised them, and they took shelter in the palace of Pyrenaeus: but
scarcely had they entered, when the tyrant shut the {48} gates, and sought
to offer them insult. They immediately spread their wings and flew away.
The king wishing to fly after them, essayed the daring adventure, and
throwing himself from the top of the tower as if he had wings, was killed
in the attempt. Notwithstanding the high reputation of the Muses, it is
pretended by some, that Rheseus was the son of Terpsichore, Linus of Clio,
and Orpheus of Calliope. Arion and Pindar were also stated to be the
children of the Muses, to whom the Romans built a temple and consecrated a
fountain.
[Illustration]
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