[129] Diogenes Laertius, Vit. Philos. ii. 44, iii. 2; Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. viii. 1. 2; J. T. Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus: Inscriptions from the great Theatre, pp. 4, 16. Apollo’s birthday (the 7th of Thargelion) was probably the festival known in the Delian calendar as the Apollonia, not the Delia as was formerly supposed. The Delia seems to have fallen in early spring, not in early summer. See C. Robert in Hermes, xxi. (1886) pp. 161–169; Aug. Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen (Leipsic, 1898), p. 451. On this harvest-festival at Delos see W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, pp. 232 sqq., who, however, took the festival to be the Delia.
[130] Hesiod, Works and Days, 383 sq.; L. Ideler, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, i. 242.
[131] Folk-lore, i. (1890) p. 518. As to the season of the ripening of the corn in Greece both in ancient and modern times, see G. Busolt’s discussion of the evidence, Griechische Geschichte, iii. 2 (Gotha, 1904), pp. 909 sqq., note.
[132] Philostratus, Heroica, xx. 24.
[133] Bulletin de Correspondance hellénique, xviii. (1894) pp. 87–93; id. xx. (1896) pp. 639–641; E. Curtius in Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1895, pp. 109 sq.; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,² Nos. 611, 665, 718.
[134] Strabo, ix. 2. 11, p. 404.
[135] Plutarch, Aristides, 20. Probably the custom of sending out new fire from Delos and Delphi was common, though the existing evidence of it is scanty. The same remark applies to the practice of bringing tithes of the harvest to these sanctuaries.
[136] Herodotus, iv. 33; Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, 278 sqq. Herodotus does not tell us in what the sacred offerings consisted; Pausanias says (i. 31. 2) that no one knew what they were. But from the evidence of Callimachus, compared with that of Pliny (Nat. Hist. iv. 91) and Mela (iii. 37), it appears that they were believed to be the first-fruits of the corn.
[137] H. Stein on Herodotus, iv. 33; O. Crusius in W. H. Roscher’s Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, i. 2813, 2831; Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie, i. 298 sq.; Wernicke, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der class. Altertumswissenschaft, ii. coll. 1355, 1356, 1357, 1358, 1359, 1380, 1383, 1393, 1402. The names of the maidens were variously given as Hyperoche and Laodice (Herodotus, iv. 33), or Hekaerge and Opis, (Pausanias, i. 43. 4, v. 7. 8; Servius on Virgil, Aen. xi. 532), or Upis, Loxo, and Hekaerge (Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, 292). Herodotus further mentions (iv. 35) another pair of Hyperborean maidens, Arge and Opis by name, who came with Apollo and Artemis to Delos, and were buried behind the sanctuary of Artemis in the island. They are clearly the equivalents of the Hekaerge and Opis or Upis of the other writers. For Hekaerge as an epithet of Artemis see Servius, loc. cit.; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. v. 8. 49, p. 674, ed. Potter, quoting Apollodorus of Corcyra: μέλπετε ὧ παῖδες ἑκάεργον καὶ ἑκαέργαν. For Opis or Upis as a name of Artemis see Macrobius, Saturn. v. 22. 3–6; Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, 204; Palaephatus, De incredib. 32.
[138] Pseudo-Plato, Axiochus, p. 371A; Servius on Virgil, Aen. xi. 532: “Alii putant Opim et Hecaergon nutritores Apollinis et Dianae fuisse; hinc itaque Opim ipsam Dianam cognominatam, quod supra dictum est, Apollinem vero Hecaergon.”