Chapter V.
§ 1. The Apollo of Tempe, Delphi, Delos, Crete, Lycia, Troy, Athens, and Peloponnesus, the same deity. § 2. Apollo Nomius of Arcadia rightly distinguished from the preceding. § 3. Apollo the father of Æsculapius likewise a distinct deity. § 4 and 5. Apollo not originally an elementary deity, or god of the sun. § 6. Origin of this idea. § 7. Rites of Apollo unlike those of the elementary deities.
1. Having treated of the extension and propagation of the worship of Apollo, and some of the most remarkable legends and fables connected with it, we next turn our attention to the nature and character of the religion itself.
In the first place, then, we shall remind the reader of a position sufficiently established by the foregoing inquiries; that the Apollo of Tempe, Delphi, Delos, [pg 295] Crete, Lycia, Troy, Athens, and Peloponnesus, is the same god, and not, as was very frequently the case in the religions of Greece, a combination of several deities under one name. This conclusion we supported as well by historical accounts respecting the foundation of his numerous temples, as by the evidence derived from a recurrence of the same names, rites, and symbols; such, for example, as the titles of Lycius and Lycia, Delphinius and Pythius; the oracles and sibyls; the purifications and expiations; the custom of leaping from rocks; decimations; the golden summer, and bloodless oblations; the laurel-berries; the legend of the Hyperboreans, and the cycle of eight years. Hence the theologians mentioned by Cicero[1188] were wrong in endeavouring without any authority to distinguish between the Athenian, Cretan, and Hyperborean Apollo.
2. It appears, however, that they were warranted in distinguishing from the rest the Apollo Nomius of Arcadia; although in their etymology of the name,[1189] which made him a divine lawgiver, they by no means followed the most authentic sources of religious history. The correct account is without doubt that given by Pindar,[1190] who calls Aristæus, conjointly with Zeus and Apollo, a protector of flocks, and guardian of huntsmen. In fact, Aristæus and his son Actæon were ancient deities of the early Pelasgic inhabitants of Greece.[1191] That god also protected agriculture and pasturing, warded off the scorching heat of summer, charmed by incantations the mild Etesian winds, and [pg 296] loved hunting and the care of bees. His chief haunts were the plains under mount Pelion and Iolcus—from which place his worship was introduced into Cyrene—the fertile valley of Thebes, Parrhasia in Arcadia,[1192] and the Parrhasian island of Ceos;[1193] at Cyrene, Apollo and Cyrene were called his parents.[1194] The genealogy attributed to Aristæus varied considerably in different places; through the prevalence of Greek worship in Arcadia he was considered identical with Apollo. It was remembered that the Delphian god had also tended the herds of Admetus; and perhaps the national worship of Aristæus at Pheræ had partly contributed to the formation of this fable.[1195] Deities, whose worship at an early period fell into disuse, were adapted and modified in various ways to suit the ruling powers: and even if a complete and consistent system of mythology was eradicated and destroyed as a whole, yet particular portions of it would combine themselves with the prevailing religion, and thus obtain a new existence. Thus also the ancient elementary deity, which had received the name of Apollo Nomius, was called the son of the ancient Silenus,[1196] because his attributes seemed to resemble those of the attendants of Bacchus.[1197] I shall take occasion hereafter to explain [pg 297] the connexion between the Carnean Apollo and this deity.[1198]
3. It should also be observed that Apollo and Æsculapius were connected in fable and mythology; and this at an early period, for Hesiod called Æsculapius the son of Apollo;[1199] but, as it appears, only in mythology, and not in any religious worship. Thus neither at Tricca, Lebadea, Epidaurus, nor Cos, were Apollo Pæan and Æsculapius intimately connected; nor do we ever find that they had altars, festivals, or sacrifices in common, except perhaps in a temple at the modern town of Megalopolis.[1200] This practical difference may be accounted for by the national origin of the two worships. For Phlegyas, the ancestor of Æsculapius, and the sons of Æsculapius mentioned in the Homeric Catalogue, belonged to races which were hostile both to the Dorians and the temple of Delphi; and the dispersion of the schools of the Asclepiadæ through Greece had nothing in common with the foundation of the temples of Apollo.
4. Having made these distinctions, we now return to the principal position established by the preceding inquiries; viz., that it was the Dorians among whom the religion of Apollo was the most ancient, important, and truly national worship.
The Dorians being an active and heroic people, it is natural that their peculiar religious feelings should have had a like tendency. Hence, as they displayed a perpetual aversion to the innocent employments of husbandry, and a love for active and military exertion, their national god was exactly the reverse of the elementary deities worshipped by the agricultural races.
But this inference seems to be invalidated by an opinion entertained by many at least of the later Greeks, and by most modern writers on mythology, that Apollo was an elementary deity, the deified personification of the sun. On the whole of this difficult and doubtful subject it is not my intention now to enter; but I shall be satisfied with laying before the reader the principal arguments on both sides, and afterwards stating my own views on the subject.
5. In the first place, then, the accounts above given of Apollo returning from the Hyperboreans with the ripe ears of corn, and the tribute of the golden ears, certainly suggest the idea of a guardian of agriculture.[1201] On the coins of Metapontum we frequently see these ears of corn, with the grasshopper, or mouse both in the act of creeping, upon the reverse. The same explanation is applicable to both symbols. The mouse and grasshopper are animals hurtful to the corn, which the god was supplicated to protect from their attacks. In like manner the Cretan Apollo Σμίνθειος was doubtless a destroyer of field mice (σμίνθοι);[1202] and his statue was represented with one foot upon a mouse.[1203]
Again, in Rhodes he was called ἐρυθίβιος, “the averter of mildew;”[1204] which attribute was peculiarly suitable to him, as being one of the Triopian deities, one of whom was Demeter, the destroyer of Erysichthon. These are probably the chief reasons which can be adduced in favour of the position that Apollo was an elementary deity; reasons which are founded on the symbols and ceremonies of the real worship, and not on the opinions of later philosophers. But, first, the argument that Apollo was an elementary god, because he was a patron and protector of agriculture, is inconclusive; for he performs this office in his character of guardian and averter of misfortune generally. The case indeed would be otherwise, had Apollo been supposed either to call forth the seed from the earth or bring it to maturity; no trace however of these functions being attributed to him ever occurs. It is therefore unnecessary on this account to identify him with the sun. And it may be remarked likewise, that the chief festivals of Apollo were not connected with any remarkable epochs of the sun's course, but rather with the rising of the stars, particularly of the pleiads, and with the phases of the moon. Thus the new moon was sacred to Apollo, who hence received the name of Νεομήνιος;[1205] and so likewise the first quarter, or the seventh day; and, finally, the full moon (διχομηνία), particularly in the island of Zacynthus.[1206] From these circumstances, however, no one will infer that Apollo was a god of the moon.
We do not, however, deny that Apollo and the god of the sun admitted in particular points of a comparison [pg 300] and parallel with each other; the source of external light might be a symbol of the “bright and pure” god; and indeed the Platonists favoured this supposition,[1207] which is not, however, supported by any historical authority. The worship of the sun was practised in the Acropolis of Corinth, at Rhodes, Athens, and in earlier times also at Calauria and Tænarum; but in none of these places was it connected with the rites of Apollo.[1208]
6. This naturally leads us to inquire how any ideal connexion between Apollo and the sun, if it really existed, should have been entirely overlooked for so many centuries; how was it that these deities were not identified till the Grecian mythology had ceased to have any influence upon the ideas and feelings of mankind? Even when the Egyptian interpreters identified Horus with Apollo, they were in all probability guided only by the resemblance between the destroyer of the Python and the vanquisher of Baby (Typhon in Greek).[1209] The Persian magi, however, in discovering a connexion between the worship of Apollo and their religion (on which account Xerxes preserved from injury the island where Apollo and Artemis were born),[1210] were influenced by a well-grounded comparison, which we shall find occasion to confirm in a subsequent chapter;[1211] yet, in all probability, it was not the sun, but Ormuzd, whom they supposed to be Apollo. It was [pg 301] not until the philosophers of the Ionic school identified the deities of the popular creed partly with material powers and objects, and partly with the attributes of the universal intellect (νοῦς), that the doctrine was advanced of Apollo being the sun. From them Euripides, who called Zeus the air, and Vesta the earth, was naturally among the first to receive it. In the tragedy of Phaethon, the mother of the unfortunate youth complained against his father Helius as follows; “Rightly does he who knows the secret names of the gods call thee Apollo” (the destroyer);[1212] referring, without doubt, not to any doctrine connected with, or revealed in the mysteries, but to a philosophical interpretation. This opinion, thus adopted by Euripides, became still more general at Alexandria; and Callimachus blames those “who separate Apollo from the sun, and Artemis from the moon.”[1213] Soon afterwards it was said to have originated in very early times; and the author of the astronomical treatise attributed to Eratosthenes[1214] relates, that Orpheus the Thracian had from the top of a mountain, at break of day, prayed to the sun, whom he also called Apollo, as the greatest of all the deities.[1215] Nevertheless, this statement does not authorize us to infer, that in the ancient Orphic Hymns, previous to Herodotus, Apollo and the sun were identified. For this system of religious [pg 302] speculation was chiefly concerned about Bacchus; and in all the Orphic fragments of any antiquity Apollo is hardly ever noticed.[1216]
7. It seems, therefore, that whatever might have been the poetical attributes of Apollo in late times, in his religious character he was never an elementary deity, the essence of whose godhead is a personification of the creative powers of nature. None of the characteristic marks of such a religion are discoverable in his worship. So far from being a god of generation[1217] and production, he remains unmarried and youthful; for it is easy to see that his poetical amour with the nymph Daphne, and his sons, mentioned in poetry and prophecy, have no connexion with his worship. In his sacred rites and symbols there is no trace of the adoration of the generative powers, like those occurring in the ancient Arcadian worship of Hermes, the Argive fables of Here, or the Attic legends of Hephæstus and Athene. The worship of Apollo is even still more widely removed from the boisterous and frantic orgies so conspicuous in the Thracian rites of Dionysus. And although this latter worship flourished by the side of Helicon and Parnassus, near the Pythian temple, and both kinds of religious worship were practised in the immediate neighbourhood of each [pg 303] other,[1218] yet the religious feelings and rites which distinguished the services of the two gods always remained dissimilar.
In the subsequent discussion we shall accordingly take for granted the original diversity of Apollo and the sun; and though the rites of the worship of Apollo, as preserved and recorded in later times, are doubtless of greater antiquity than any written documents which either we or the Greeks possessed, it will be convenient first to state the clearer and more intelligible accounts of Homer on the subject of Apollo, his divine character and worship.