[32] Modern writers have adopted the view that Dionysos was buried under the Omphalos: e.g. Enmann, Kypros u. Ursp. Aphrod., S. Petersb., 1886, p. 47 ff. But closer examination shows that all that we have good authority for is that the ὀμφαλός was Pythonis tumulus (Varro, LL. vii, 17, p. 124 Sp.), τάφος τοῦ Πύθωνος (Hesych. s. Τοξίου βουνός). Dionysos, on the other hand, was buried at Delphi, παρὰ τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα τὸν χρυσοῦν (Philochoros ap. Sync. 307, 4 ff. Di.; Eus. Arm. = Hier. Chr., pp. 44–5 Sch.; Malal., p. 45, 7 Di., from Africanus acc. to Gelzer, Afric. i, 132 f.), i.e. he was buried in the ἄδυτον (cf. Paus. 10, 24, 5), or, what comes to the same thing, παρὰ τὸ χρηστήριον (Plu., Is. et O. 35, 365 A.), παρὰ τὸν τρίποδα (Call. ap. Tz. Lyc. 208; cf. E.M. Δελφοί). The tripod stood in the Adyton (D.S. 16, 26; Str. 419; cf. Hdt. vii, 140). Whether the ὀμφαλός also stood in the Adyton (or whether as some think, in the Cella of the Temple) cannot be made out for certain though it seems probable. No one, however, made the grave of Dionysos under the Omphalos except Tat., Gr. viii, p. 40 Ott. [p. 9, 16 ff. Schw.]: ὁ ὀμφαλὸς τάφος ἐστὶ Διονύσου, and the statement of this very careless pamphleteer cannot stand against the witness of Varro, etc. It is plain that Tatian confused the two “graves”, as Hyg. 140 and Serv. (A. iii, 92; iii, 360; vi, 347) did, reversing the process and making the tripod into the grave of the Python. The real tradition knew, besides the grave of Dionysos near the tripod, the grave of Python in the Omphalos of his mother Gaia. This was never seriously denied; doubt might rather have been believed to linger over the question, who then was preserved in the tripod? Porph., VP. 18, p. 25, 6 ff. N., says that it was Apollo himself, or possibly an Apollo the son of Silenos. This absurdity seems to go back to Euhemeros (cf. Minuc. xxi, 1; worthless is Fulgentius Expos., 2, p. 769 Stav. = p. 112, 3 ff. Helm), and may be merely a frivolous jest. (Too much respect is paid to this tradition by K. O. Müller, Introd. to Scient. Myth., p. 246.) [111]
[33] That the snake killed by Apollo was the guardian of the old μαντεῖον χθόνιον we have on unimpeachable authority (testim. collected by Th. Schreiber, Apollo Pythoktonos, p. 3): esp. Eur., IT. 1245 ff. Call., fr. 364; ποιηταί acc. to Paus. 10, 6, 6, who say that (τὸν Πύθωνα) ἐπὶ τῷ μαντείῳ φύλακα ὑπὸ Γῆς τετάχθαι κτλ. That the struggle was for the oracle is shown briefly and plainly by [Apollod.] 1, 4, 1, 3: ὡς δὲ ὁ φρουρῶν τὸ μαντεῖον Πύθων ὄφις ἐκώλυεν αὐτὸν (Ἀπόλλωνα) παρελθεῖν ἐπὶ τὸ χάσμα (the oracular cleft), τοῦτον ἀνελών τὸ μαντεῖον παραλαμβάνει. The snake form is proper to earth-spirits, and, as earth-spirits always have mantic power, to oracle-spirits. Trophonios appeared as a snake and so did Asklepios. There can be no doubt that the Delphian δράκων is the embodiment of the pre-Apolline oracle-daimon. Thus Hesych. says exactly Πύθων δαιμόνιον μαντικόν (elaborated in Hyg. 140). Cf. Act. 1616.—Supporters of the doctrine of the Greek “religion of Nature” find even in the legend of Apollo’s fight with the snake an allegorical version of a physical fact tending to become an ethical one. I cannot regard such an allegory as primitive.
[34] An instructive parallel may be added. In [Clem.] Hom. 5, 22, p. 70, 32 Lag., there is mention of a grave of Plouton ἐν τῇ Ἀχερουσίᾳ λίμνῃ. This may be explained as follows. At Hermione Hades under the name of Klymenos was honoured together with Demeter Χθονία and Kore (CIG. 1197, 1199). Pausanias knew well that Klymenos was a titular name (ἐπίκλησις) of Hades (2, 35, 9), but his rejection of the opinion that Klymenos was a man from Argos who had come to Hermione (as founder of the Chthonic cult) shows that this was the general view. Behind the temple of Chthonia lay χωρία ἃ καλοῦσιν Ἑρμιονεῖς τὸ μὲν Κλυμένου, τὸ δὲ Πλούτωνος, τὸ τρίτον δὲ αὐτων λίμνην Ἀχερουσίαν. At this λίμνη Ἀχερουσία it is possible that a grave of Hades, transformed into the Hero Klymenos, may have been shown. This Clemens referred to, but instead of Klymenos or Hades used inaccurately the name more familiar to later times, Plouton.
[35] κὰδ δ’ ἐν Ἀθήνῃσ’ εἶσεν, ἑῷ ἐνὶ πίονι νηῷ. These words may be kept in mind in order to explain the mysterious narrative in Hesiod Th. 987 ff. of Phaethon whom Aphrodite ὦρτ’ ἀνερειψαμένη καί μιν ζαθέοις ἐνὶ νήοις νηοπόλον μύχιον ποιήσατο, δαίμονα δῖον. Aphr., in fact. “translated” Phaethon alive and made him immortal—within her own temple just as Athene had Erechtheus. Perhaps Phaethon was translated beneath the ground under the temple—the adj. μύχιον may mean this. θεοὶ μύχιοι are those that rule over the μυχός of a house, e.g. over the θάλαμος as the inmost chamber: thus Ἀφροδίτη μυχία (Ael., HA. x, 34). Λητὼ μυχία (Plu. ap. Eus., PE. iii, 1, 3, p. 84 c.). A goddess called simply Μυχία, ins. fr. Mytilene, GDI. 255. But μύχιοι could also mean dwellers in the depths of the earth (μυχῷ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης, Hes., Th. 119; more commonly in the plural μυχοὶ χθονός, see Markland on Eur., Sup. 545; cf. Ἄϊδος μυχός, AP. vii, 213, 6 (Archias); also μυχὸς εὐσεβέων, ἀθανάτων under the earth, Epigr. Gr. 241 a, 18; 658 a; Rh. Mus. 34, 192). Thus (of the Erinyes) Orph. H. 69, 3, μύχιαι, ὑπὸ κεύθεσιν οἰκί’ ἔχουσαι ἄντρῳ ἐν ἠερόεντι. Phot. 274, 18, μυχόπεδον· γῆς βάθος, Ἅιδης.
[36] That the μίν of line 550 refers to Erechtheus and not Athene is shown by the context: Schol. BL. states it expressly. Athene cannot have been intended to accept the offering of bulls and rams, for θήλεα τῇ Ἀθηνᾷ θύουσιν. And, in fact, cows, not bulls, were offered to Athene; cf. P. Stengel, quaest. sacr., p. 4–5, Berl. 1879.
[37] See Wachsmuth, Ber. sächs. Ges. Wiss., p. 399 ff., 1887. [112]
[38] Thus there was, at the temple of Palaimon on the Isthmus, an ἄδυτον καλούμενον, κάθοδος δὲ ἐς αὐτὸ ὑπόγεως, ἔνθα δὴ τὸν Παλαίμονα κεκρύφθαι (i.e. not dead and buried) φασίν. Paus. 2, 2, 1.
[39] χάσμα κρύπτει χθονός, Eur. Ion, 292.—Erechtheus ab Iove Neptuni rogatu fulmine est ictus, Hyg. 46. That is only another kind of translation.
[40] We need not here speak of the relationship between Erechtheus and Poseidon, with whom he was eventually merged.
[41] Clem. Al. Protr. iii, p. 39 P. (with Arnob. and the others who copy him); [Apollod.] 3, 14, 7, 1. Clemens (quoting Antiochos of Syracuse) mentions a grave of Kekrops on the citadel. It is uncertain what is the relation between this and the Κεκρόπιον known from insc. CIA. i, 322, and τὸ τοῦ Κέκροπος ἱερόν on the citadel (Decree honouring the Epheboi of the tribe Kekropis in the year 333: BCH. ’89, p. 257. l. 10).