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

by Karl Otfried Müller

8. The worship of Apollo also penetrated to several parts of European Greece, where it was established by Cretan adventurers on capes and headlands—particularly at Trœzen, Tænarum, Megara, and Thoricus.

Trœzen, as has been above remarked,[986] shared with Athens both the race of her inhabitants and her worship, together with the connexion between Athens and Crete; the meaning of which will be explained hereafter.[987] Hence we may conjecture the Cretan origin of the nine families, which were in existence at a late date at Trœzen, and in early times performed the rites of atonement and purification (of which Orestes was said to have been the first subject) near a laurel-tree in front of the temple of Apollo, and a sacred stone in front of the temple of the Lycean Artemis.[988]

The expiatory establishment[989] on the promontory of Tænarum was also said to have been founded by Tettix, a Cretan,[990] who is merely a personified symbol of Apollo, like Lycus, Corax, Cycnus, &c, in other places. Callondas is said to have purified the soul of the murdered Archilochus at this gate of the infernal regions. Considering the proximity of Delium in Laconia[991] and of the little island of Minoa to this temple, we may conclude that the origin of the above sanctuary was connected with these places.

In front of the harbour of Megara was another island called Minoa, and numerous legends had been there preserved in which the Cretans of Minoa (though probably only by a corruption of the original tradition) were represented as enemies and plunderers. Megara had two citadels: the Carian with the temple of Demeter, and a more modern one towards the sea, surmounted by temples of Apollo. This is said to have been built by Alcathous the son of Pelops, while Apollo stood by and played upon his lyre. A sounding-block of stone was exhibited at the place where the god lay down his lyre.[992] The same fable is also alluded to by Theognis of Megara.[993] Here then there is a worship and temples of an earlier date than the Doric migration, and which certainly proceeded [pg 250] from Crete. On the former citadel stood a statue of Apollo Decatephorus,[994] “the receiver of tithes,” whose name is explained by the fable that the daughter of Alcathous was once sent as a tribute to Crete, like the Athenian youths and maidens. Thus a fact which will be soon proved with respect to Athens, is also true of Megara—viz., that these missions always conveyed a sacred tithe.[995]

9. The process of our investigation will shortly lead us to examine the Attic legends, consisting of a confused mass of tradition, with which the worship of all the gods, including that of Apollo, was in that country perplexed.

To commence then with the legends which are connected with the temple of Apollo at Thoricus. Thoricus, situated on the south-eastern coast of Attica, was one of the ancient twelve towns of that country, [pg 251] and always remained a place of consequence, of which there are still extant considerable remains. Favoured by its situation, it soon became a commercial station; Cretan vessels were accustomed in ancient times to anchor in its harbour.[996] The fable of Cephalus and Procris appears, from some poetical and mythological accounts, to have been connected with Crete and the worship of Apollo.[997] We know for certain that the Cephalidæ, who existed at a still later period in Attica,[998] preserved some hereditary rites of Apollo: for when in the tenth generation Chalcinus and Dætus, the descendants of the hero, returned to the country which their ancestor had quitted in consequence of murder, they immediately built a temple to that god on the road to Eleusis.[999]

10. But the fable of Cephalus was also connected with another great temple of Apollo, which in the west of Greece looked down from the chalky cliffs of the promontory of Leucatas over the Ionian sea, and of which there are ruins still extant.[1000] Now Cephalus, the hero of Thoricus, is said to have gained these regions in company with Amphitryon:[1001] he is also said to have first made the celebrated leap from the rock of Leucatas.[1002] This leap, doubtless, had originally a religious meaning, and was an expiatory [pg 252] rite. At the Athenian festival of Thargelia, a festival sacred to Apollo, criminals, crowned as victims, were led to the edge of a rock, and thrown down to the bottom; and the same ceremony appears to have been performed on certain sacred occasions at Leucatas.[1003] Here, however, the fall of the criminal was broken by tying feathers, and even birds, to his body; below, he was taken up, and conveyed to a distance, that he might carry away with him every particle of guilt. This was without doubt the original meaning of the leap of Cephalus, who was stained with the guilt of homicide, and on that very account a fugitive from his country. According to a legend noticed in an ancient epic poem, his purification took place at Thebes;[1004] whereas the Leucadian tradition doubtless represented his leap from the rock as the act of atonement.

In later times, indeed, the object of this leap was totally altered; it was supposed to be a specific for disappointed love.[1005] This singular application of the ancient custom gave a romantic colour to the legend connected with it. Cephalus and Procris were also represented in after-times as tormented by love and jealousy. Probably the story partly obtained this form in Cyprus, the island of Aphrodite, whither the fable of Cephalus[1006] was early carried by Attic settlers. But in whatever manner it was perverted, we cannot doubt that the leap of Cephalus from the [pg 253] Leucadian rock was a part of the expiatory worship of Apollo.

These considerations refer to the Cretan rites solemnized at Thoricus. In Athens itself, the traditions of Crete and Delphi being found united together, it is necessary that we should first return to the latter place, and follow the Pythian worship through Bœotia.

11. This indeed is neither the time nor place to relate how the Pythian worship, in spite of the opposition of hostile races, traced the route of the procession through the passes of Parnassus. The fact is indeed evident from an almost unbroken chain of temples and oracles, the links of which, viz., Thurium, Tilphossium, the temple of Galaxius, the oracle of Eutresis, the Ismenium, Tenerium, Ptoum, and Tegyra, are all connected either by tradition or religious rites with Delphi. Delium is probably the only place on the eastern coast founded from Delos. Pindar represents the establishment of several such temples under the form of a migration of the god himself.[1007]