[108] Iliad, iv. 30-46.
[109] Iliad, i. 38, 451; Stephan. Byz. Ἵλιον, Τένεδος. See also Klausen, Æneas und die Penaten, b. i. p. 69. The worship of Apollo Sminthios and the festival of the Sminthia at Alexandria Troas lasted down to the time of Menander the rhêtôr, at the close of the third century after Christ.
[110] Plutarch. Defect. Oracul. c. 5, p. 412; c. 8, p. 414; Steph. Byz. v. Τεγύρα. The temple of the Ptôan Apollo had acquired celebrity before the days of the poet Asius. Pausan. ix. 23, 3.
[111] The legend which Ephorus followed about the establishment of the Delphian temple was something radically different from the Homeric Hymn (Ephori Fragm. 70, ed. Didot): his narrative went far to politicize and rationalize the story. The progeny of Apollo was very numerous, and of the most diverse attributes; he was father of the Korybantes (Pherekydes, Fragm. 6, ed. Didot), as well as of Asklêpios and Aristæus (Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. ii. 500; Apollodôr. iii. 10, 3).
[112] Strabo, ix. p. 421. Menander the Rhetor (Ap. Walz. Coll. Rhett. t. ix. p. 136) gives an elaborate classification of hymns to the gods, distinguishing them into nine classes,—κλητικοὶ, ἀποπεμπτικοὶ, φυσικοὶ, μυθικοὶ, γενεαλογικοὶ, πεπλασμένοι, εὐκτικοὶ, ἀπευκτικοὶ, μικτοί:—the second class had reference to the temporary absences or departure of a god to some distant place, which were often admitted in the ancient religion. Sappho and Alkman in their kletic hymns invoked the gods from many different places,—τὴν μὲν γὰρ Ἄρτεμιν ἐκ μυρίων μὲν ὄρεων, μυρίων δὲ πόλεων, ἔτι δὲ ποτάμων, ἀνακαλεῖ,—also Aphroditê and Apollo, etc. All these songs were full of adventures and details respecting the gods,—in other words of legendary matter.
[113] Pindar, Olymp. xiv.; Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, Appendix, § xx. p. 357.
[114] Alexander Ætolus, apud Macrobium, Saturn. v. 22.
[115] The birth of Apollo and Artemis from Zeus and Lêtô is among the oldest and most generally admitted facts in the Grecian divine legends. Yet Æschylus did not scruple to describe Artemis publicly as daughter of Dêmêtêr (Herodot. ii. 156; Pausan. viii. 37, 3). Herodotus thinks that he copied this innovation from the Egyptians, who affirmed that Apollo and Artemis were the sons of Dionysos and Isis.
The number and discrepancies of the mythes respecting each god are attested by the fruitless attempts of learned Greeks to escape the necessity of rejecting any of them by multiplying homonymous personages,—three persons named Zeus; five named Athênê; six named Apollo, etc. (Cicero. de Natur. Deor. iii. 21: Clemen. Alexand. Admon. ad Gent. p. 17).
[116] Hesiod, Theogon. 188, 934, 945; Homer, Iliad, v. 371; Odyss. viii. 268.