Chapter IV.
§ 1. Connexion of the fable of the Hyperboreans with the worship of Apollo. § 2. Its connexion with the temples at Delphi; § 3. and Delos. § 4. Original locality of the Hyperboreans. § 5. Localities subsequently assigned by Poets and Geographers. § 6. The Hyperboreans considered a sacred people.
1. Wearisome as it is to follow up the chain of remote events which gave rise to the wide diffusion of the worship of Apollo, nevertheless the fable of the Hyperboreans, by referring a number of particular circumstances to one head, is very well qualified to arrest and fix our attention.
We assert, then, the connexion of this tradition with the original worship of Apollo. No argument to the contrary can be drawn from its not being mentioned either in the Iliad or Odyssey; these poems not affording any opportunity for its introduction. Moreover, the Hyperboreans were spoken of in the poem of the Epigoni, and by Hesiod.[1149] The fable, indeed, may not have come till late within the province of poetical mythology; as a local tradition, it must have arisen whilst that primitive connexion between the temples of Tempe, Delphi, and Delos (which was afterwards entirely dissolved) still existed in full vigour.
2. According to a Doric hymn of Bœo, a poetess of Delphi, quoted by Pausanias,[1150] Pagasus, and the godlike Agyieus, the sons of the Hyperboreans, founded the celebrated oracle at Delphi. Agyieus is merely another name for Apollo himself. Pagasus refers to the Pagasæan temple on the sacred road.[1151] [pg 285] With them came Olen, the first prophet and bard of Apollo. Two other Hyperborean heroes, Hyperochus and Laodicus, assisted in the slaughter of the Gauls at Delphi;[1152] and, in accordance with similar traditions, Mnaseas of Patara called all the inhabitants of Delphi descendants of the Hyperboreans.[1153]
Alcæus,[1154] in a hymn to Apollo, related how “Zeus adorned the new-born god with a golden fillet and lyre, and sent him, in a chariot drawn by swans, to Delphi, in order to introduce justice and law amongst the Greeks. Apollo, however, ordered the swans first to fly to the Hyperboreans. The Delphians, missing the god, instituted a pæan and song, ranged choruses of young men around the tripod, and invoked him to come from the Hyperboreans. The god remained an entire year with that nation, and at the appointed time, when the tripods of Delphi were destined to sound, he ordered the swans to resume their flight. The return of Apollo takes place exactly in the middle of summer; nightingales, swallows, and grasshoppers sing in honour of the god; and even Castalia and Cephisus[1155] heave their waves to salute him.”
If Alcæus consecrated this pæan, as Pindar did his [pg 286] pæan, to the worship of the Delphian god, he would hardly have dared to do more than embellish the local traditions. Supposing, however, that this was not the case, he would still have taken the principal event (viz., the arrival of Apollo from the Hyperboreans) rather from a fable universally acknowledged, than the unauthorized fictions of poetry. The whole account, and even the time, are clearly drawn from the mysteries of the worship. According to the tradition of Delphi, Apollo, at the expiration of the great period, visited the beloved nation of the Hyperboreans, and danced and played with them from the vernal equinox to the early setting of the Pleiades; and when the first corn was cut in Greece, he returned to Delphi, as I suppose, with the full ripe ears, the offerings of the Hyperboreans.[1156] Even the story of the swans was no addition of Alcæus; for the painted vases in the south of Italy (the extremity of the Grecian world) represent the same fiction as the Lesbian poet; nay, so exactly do they correspond, that we do not indeed recognise Alcæus, but the traditions upon which the account was founded, as they were perhaps related at Metapontum and Croton. The boy Apollo, the sceptre and goblet in one hand, and full ears of barley in the other (which allude to the offerings of the Hyperboreans, and the “golden summer”), is seated, with a mild aspect, on a car, the axles of which are bound with swans' feathers. Hyperborean women, with torches, and pitchers for sacred libations, conduct him.[1157] The [pg 287] swans, with which Apollo here comes, occur elsewhere in the legends of Delphi, which refer to the Hyperboreans. The most ancient temple of Delphi, according to the assertion of the priests, was merely a low hut, built with branches of the sacred laurel of Tempe; the second was a tent, which either the Hyperboreans or Pteras of Crete formed of swans' feathers and wax.[1158] The Peneus flowed by the altar of Tempe; the notes of the swans on the banks of this river are mentioned in a short hymn attributed to Homer.[1159] And allowing that these birds were here particularly numerous, it is evident that their brilliant colour and majestic motion peculiarly adapted them for symbols of Apollo.
3. We find the same tradition, with merely a few local alterations, at Delos.[1160] Latona, in the first place, is said to have arrived in that island from the country of the Hyperboreans as a she-wolf, having completed the whole journey, pursued by Here, in twelve days and nights.[1161] Afterwards the young [pg 288] virgins, Arge and Opis, came with Apollo and Artemis; a lofty tomb was erected to their memory at Delos, upon which sacrifices were offered; an ancient hymn, which was attributed to the ancient minstrel Olen, celebrated their appearance.[1162] Afterwards the Hyperboreans sent two other virgins, Hyperoche and Laodice, the same names as occur above, and with them five men, who are called perpherees[1163] (from their bringing the sacred gifts enveloped in wheaten straw): this exactly corresponds with “the golden summer” of the Delphians. The perpherees received great honours at Delos; and the Delian maidens before marriage laid on the tomb of the two Hyperborean virgins a spindle, the young men a branch, both entwined with locks of hair. The offering, however, of the Hyperborean women was, it was said, really intended for Ilithyia, the protectress of women in labour, in order to fulfil a vow made to that goddess for the birth of Apollo and Artemis. Now these missions, according to Delian traditions, always continued to be carried on. The Hyperboreans were supposed to pass them on to their neighbours the Scythians; from them they were transmitted through a chain of nations on the coast of the Adriatic, by Dodona,[1164] through Thessaly, [pg 289] Eubœa, and the island of Tenos, and came accompanied with flutes and pipes,[1165] to Delos.[1166] This story cannot have been a mere poetical fiction; it doubtless originated in the active connexion kept up by means of sacred missions with the ancient settlements of the worship of Apollo in the north of Thessaly.[1167] In Delos also, as at Delphi, there was a story of the god resting for some time amongst the Hyperboreans; though the scene was generally changed to Lycia.[1168] A painted vase exhibits the god with a lyre in his hand, alighting near the palm-tree of Delos: a young woman, representing a whole chorus, receives him, playing upon a stringed instrument.[1169]