The following narrative describes the manner in which the Greeks practised the above law, and represented the crossing of the Red Sea.
“This[[108]] charming season (spring) brought with it festivals still more charming: I mean those which are celebrated every four years in Delos, in honour of Diana and Apollo. The worship of these two divinities has subsisted in that island for a long succession of ages. But as it latterly began to decline, the Athenians instituted, during the Peloponnesian war, games which drew thither a great concourse of people from various nations.
“The youth of Athens were eager to distinguish themselves in these, and the whole city was in motion. Preparations were likewise made for the solemn deputation which is annually sent to the temple of Delos, to present a tribute of gratitude for the victory which Theseus gained over the Minotaur. The voyage is made in the same ship which carried that hero to Crete; and already the priest of Apollo had crowned its stern with his sacred hands. The sea was covered with small vessels which were getting under sail for Delos.
“On the next day we coasted Scyros, and, leaving Tenos on the left, entered into the channel which separates Delos from the island of Rhenea. We immediately came in sight of the temple of Apollo, which we saluted with new transports of joy; and the city of Delos was almost entirely displayed to our view.
“With an eager eye we ran over the superb edifices, elegant porticoes, and forests of columns by which it is embellished; and this prospect, momentarily varying, suspended in us the desire to arrive at the land.
“When we had reached the shore, we ran to the temple, which is distant from it only about a hundred paces. It is more than a thousand years since Erisichthon, son of Cecrops,[[109]] laid the first foundation of this edifice, to which the different states of Greece continually add new embellishments. It was covered with festoons and garlands, which, by the contrast of their colours, gave a new lustre to the Parian marble of which it is built.
“Within we saw the statue of Apollo, less celebrated for the delicacy of the workmanship than its antiquity. The god is represented holding his bow in one hand; and to signify that music owes to him its origin and charms, with his left he supports the three Graces, who are represented, the first with a lyre, the second with flutes, and the third with a pipe.
“Near the statue is that altar which is esteemed one of the wonders of the world. It is not gold or marble which is admired in it; horns of animals, forcibly bent, and artfully interwoven, form a whole equally solid and regular. Some priests, whose employment it is to adorn it with flowers and boughs, made us observe the ingenious contexture of its parts.
“‘It was the god himself,’ exclaimed a young priest, ‘who in his childhood interwove them as you see. Those menacing horns, which you behold suspended on the wall, and those of which the altar is composed, are the spoils of the wild goats which fed on Mount Cynthus, and which fell beneath the shafts of Diana. Here the eye meets nothing but prodigies. This palm tree, which displays its branches over our heads, is the sacred tree that supported Latona when she brought forth the divinities we adore.
“‘The form of this altar has become celebrated by a problem in geometry, of which an exact solution will perhaps never be given. The plague laid waste our island, and Greece was ravaged by war. The oracle, being consulted by our ancestors, declared that these calamities would cease if they could make this altar double the size it is of at present. They imagined it would be sufficient to make it twice as large every way; but they found, with surprise, that they were constructing an enormous mass that would contain the altar in question eight times. After other attempts, equally fruitless, they sent to consult Plato, then just returned from Egypt; who told their messengers, that the god, by this oracle, sported with the ignorance of the Greeks, and exhorted them to cultivate the accurate sciences, rather than to be continually occupied in dissensions and wars. At the same time he proposed a simple and mechanical method of resolving the problem; but the plague had ceased when his answer arrived.’