It is well known how much this tradition was disfigured by the Athenians (originally perhaps in their popular legends, and afterwards by the poets), in what an odious light it was represented, and so mixed up with extraneous matter, that we should only render the problem too difficult if we attempted to investigate the whole of its component parts.
We may however affirm with certainty that the voyage of Theseus to Crete had originally no other meaning than the landings at Naxos[1045] and Delos, which were connected with it—viz., a propagation of religious worship.
The landing at Delos is a mythical type of the theorias, which the Athenians, in common with all the Ionian islands, had from early times sent to this place;[1046] moreover, the ship which conveyed Theseus home was always regarded as a sacred vessel. It was sent out at the Thargelia, after the priest, on the sixth day of Thargelion, had crowned the poop.[1047]
Amongst other Delian rites the worship of Eilithyia was also at that time brought over to Athens, probably from the island of Crete, where an ancient cavern of the goddess, near Amnisus, has been already mentioned.[1048] One point at which the procession from Attica to Crete touched was the borough town and harbour of Prasiæ, on the eastern coast of Attica, where, besides the temple of Apollo, was the tomb of Erysichthon, the Delian and Athenian hero; and tradition represented the gifts of the Hyperboreans to have been transported from this port to that sacred island.[1049]
Lastly, the origin of the Delphinian expiatory festival from Delphi and Crete is as evident as its introduction by the Ionian princes; for Ægeus dwelt in the Delphinium, and was there buried. To him was also ascribed the establishment of the Delphinian [pg 263] tribunal. Theseus, previously to his expedition to Crete, here placed the olive-branch, bound with wool, on the sixth day of Munychion,[1050] and purified himself from the murder of the Pallantidæ.[1051]
15. The political situation of the worship of Apollo at Athens still requires to be noticed. From our previous observations it is clear that the Ionians had adopted it from the Dorians; hence Ion himself is called the son of the Pythian god. The paternal deity of Athens was, as Demosthenes says, no other than the Pythian Apollo.[1052] We may then assert, without hesitation, that the Ionians were the only race who had gentilitious rites of Apollo, and that they alone could properly be called γενῆται Ἀπόλλωνος πατρῴου. Thus, when the archons at the scrutiny swore, that besides Zeus Herceus, the household god, they worshipped also Apollo πατρῷος;[1053] this form of oath originated at a time when the Eupatridæ, that is, the noble Ionic and Hellenic families, were alone eligible to the dignity of the archonship. Nor was it till, by the timocracy of Solon and democracy of Aristides, the richer class in general and the whole [pg 264] people were admitted to this office, that Apollo πατρῷος was considered as a deity common to all families.[1054] The democratical judges of Athens also yearly took an oath before this deity:[1055] this ceremony was at first perhaps only required of the criminal judges of aristocratical descent, viz., the Ephetæ. It is however clear that originally the religion of Apollo was adapted for the military caste alone, the ancient Hopletes; hence he was not a god of artisans and husbandmen, but of warriors. Hence also Ion or Xuthus adopted him as the Athenian god of war (πολέμαρχος) at the festival of Boedromia,[1056] the name of which is derived from the onset of armed troops in battle.
As originally the Eupatridæ alone cultivated the worship of Apollo, they alone possessed the ceremony of purification, which is here, as elsewhere, mixed up with the rites of the Cretan worship. According to Plutarch,[1057] Ion had instructed the Athenians in religion, i.e., in that of Apollo; and the same author relates,[1058] that Theseus established the Eupatridæ as administrators of the government, judges, and interpreters of the sacred rites (ἐξηγηταὶ ὁσίων καὶ ἱερῶν).
By this we are to understand that it was their duty to give information respecting every thing which regarded the jus sacrum; which in ancient times especially comprehended expiations and excommunications for homicide. The rites necessary at purification were also entirely in the hands of the Eupatridæ, (πάτρια);[1059] and this is the reason why in old times they took cognizance of every homicide, and in later times of manslaughter, the connexion of which duties with the worship of Apollo will be shown hereafter.[1060]
I have been induced to place these points in as strong a light as possible, from the democratical tendency of Athenian poetry, which endeavoured to obliterate all traces of the forcible occupation of Attica, and of the foreign extraction of the families of the Eupatridæ. On this account the vacant period between the times of the Erecthidæ and Ægidæ was notoriously supplied by arbitrary insertions, and the fable of Ion represented in a thousand various ways. This tendency is also recognised in the tragedy of Ion by Euripides, the artful and ingenious plan of which cannot be sufficiently admired. According to the ancient tradition, Ion was the son of the hero Xuthus, or of the Pythian Apollo (who were originally considered as identical), and probably of Creusa, a native of Attica, which was a mode of expressing his new settlement there. Euripides, on the other hand, separates Ion from Xuthus,[1061] who is always represented as somewhat rude and coarse, and [pg 266] even tyrannical,[1062] and so alters the whole story, that the hero does not appear as a newcomer, but as the legitimate offspring of the female line of the race of the Erecthidæ. By this device the poet preserved the idea that the Athenians were an aboriginal nation, on which they so prided themselves,[1063] and set aside, in a manner most agreeable to their feelings, the fable which contradicted this claim to antiquity. Ion himself in the tragedy gives utterance to some very popular sentiments; and of the power of aristocracy, once so firmly established, the last faint memorial is almost buried in oblivion.[1064]