The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2

by Karl Otfried Müller

9. I know not whether these accounts are sufficient to afford an intelligible description of a time when the worship of Apollo, being established at the foot of Olympus, Parnassus, and in the distant island of Crete, and producing a certain degree of communication between these points, had not as yet penetrated to any part of Greece which lay to the south of Œta and Parnassus.

It is evident, moreover, that the extension of this worship met with a long opposition. Apollo is in ancient traditions represented as himself protecting his own temple.[913] The Phlegyans to the east, and the Ætolians to the west, appear to have been particularly adverse to the worship of the Delphian Apollo. That there was a national opposition caused by the Phlegyans possessing the stronghold of Panopeus in the mountain-passes towards Bœotia, is shown by the legends, that Phorbas their leader wrestled there with Apollo; that Phlegyas burned the temple to the ground; and lastly, that Apollo exterminated their whole race with thunder and lightning.[914] The same people is here represented as waging war with the [pg 235] great deity of the Dorians, which, under the name of Lapithæ, opposed the Dorians themselves in Thessaly. And on the other side, Apollo was related in the Poems of Hesiod, and the Minyad, to have assisted the Locrian Curetes against the Ætolians, and slain their prince Meleager.[915]

Chapter II.

§ 1. Propagation of the worship of Apollo from Crete. § 2. in Lycia. § 3 and 4. in the Troad. § 5. in Thrace. § 6 and 7. on the Coast of Asia Minor. § 8. at Trœzen, Tænarum, Megara. § 9. Thoricus. § 10. and Leucatas. § 11 and 12. in Bœotia. § 13. 14. and 15. and in Attica.

1. But whilst the worship of Apollo was experiencing so much opposition in the north of Greece, the sea, with the neighbouring coasts and islands afforded ample opportunities for its propagation from the shores of Crete. This serves to account for the singular fact, that the most ancient temples of Apollo throughout the south of Greece, are found in maritime districts, and generally on promontories and headlands.

The colonies of Apollo branched out in various directions from the northern coast of Crete, carrying every where with them the expiatory and oracular ceremonies of his worship.[916] The remarkable regularity with which these settlements were established cannot, however, be regarded as the work of missions [pg 236] systematically carried on, or as part of the policy of Minos.[917] They are to be accounted for by the natural desire of the tribes of Crete, whilst migrating along the coast of the Ægean sea, to erect, wherever they touched, temples to that god, whose worship was blended with their spiritual existence.

We shall first advert to those settlements which (taking the coast of Crete as our centre) were founded in the direction of Lycia, Miletus, Claros, and the Troad; the first and last of which were the most ancient, the others being perhaps a century later.[918]

2. It is stated by Herodotus that Sarpedon migrated with some barbarous nations from Crete to Lycia or Milyas.[919] This unsupported and singular account is however probably not founded on tradition, the popular idea being that he was a brother of Minos the Cnosian, whom it represented as a prince of purely Hellenic blood. By these means the Cretan laws (that is, the Doric customs, which had been first fully developed in Crete), and also the Doric worship of Apollo, were spread over Lycia. For the situation of the chief temples is a sufficient proof that the settlers of Lycia came, not from the inland countries of Asia, but over the sea to the coast. Xanthus, a city renowned for the valour of its inhabitants,[920] and situated on the river of the same name, was a Cretan [pg 237] settlement.[921] It seems to have been a Lycian tradition, that Xanthus was the father of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon:[922] in this town was a temple sacred to Sarpedon;[923] but it is uncertain whether to the elder Sarpedon, the brother of Minos, or to the younger, a hero of the same family mentioned in Homer, whose corpse Apollo rescued from the Greeks, and conveyed to his native country.[924] Apollo was also worshipped under the title of Sarpedonius.[925] Sixty stadia below the town, and ten from the mouth of the river Xanthus, was a grove sacred to Latona, near an ancient temple of the Lycian Apollo.[926] To this spot the goddess had been conducted by wolves; here also she had bathed her new-born babes in the river,[927] and been hospitably received by an old woman in a wretched hovel.[928] These are the only remains of the national tradition, which in its general character was perhaps only another version of that prevalent at Delos. But the chief temple was one at Patara, in the southern extremity of Lycia,[929] the winter habitation of the god, where he also gave out oracles through the mouth of a priestess.[930] The oblations of cakes in the shape of lyres, bows and [pg 238] arrows, which were made to Apollo at Patara, remind us of similar customs at Delos, and furnish a fresh proof of the close connexion between the worships of these two countries.[931]

Further to the east was the oracle of Apollo Thyrxeus, near the Cyanean islands;[932] to the west lay Telmissus, with its interpreters of dreams, who attributed their origin to Apollo.[933] Not only the towns just mentioned, but almost every other on the coast of Lycia, honoured the god, from whom even the name of the country was derived.[934]