The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2

by Karl Otfried Müller

Chapter II.

§ 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 [pg 236] 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 [pg 237] 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 [pg 238] 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 [pg 239] 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 [pg 240] 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 [pg 241] 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 [pg 243] 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 [pg 244] 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 [pg 245] 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 [pg 246] 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 [pg 247] 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 [pg 248] 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 [pg 250] 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, [pg 251] 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 [pg 252] 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 [pg 253] 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 [pg 254] 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 [pg 255] 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 [pg 256] 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 [pg 257] 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 [pg 258] 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 [pg 259] 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 [pg 260] 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 [pg 261] 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 [pg 263] 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 [pg 264] 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 [pg 266] 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]