These ideas, which seem to be expressed with tolerable distinctness, in the most ancient epithets and symbols connected with the worship of Apollo, as well as in the images and fictions of poets down to the time of Euripides, we will first examine with reference to the mythical history and adventures of Apollo, and secondly we will endeavour to point out the influence which these notions exercised upon the worship itself.
Chapter VII.
§ 1. Zeus and Apollo originally the only two male deities of the Dorians. § 2. Birth of Apollo. § 3. Sanctity of the island of Delos. § 4. Pains of Latona. § 5. Spot of Apollo's birth. § 6. Battle with the Python. § 7. Apollo sings the Pythian strain. § 8. Bondage of Apollo. § 9. Combat with Tityus. § 10. Apollo's assumption of the oracular power.
1. Our present investigation renders it necessary to ascend to a period in which the primitive religion of the Dorians exhibited a distinct and original character, before it had been combined with the worship of other deities. At that time this nation had only two male deities, Zeus and Apollo: for the existence of the latter everywhere supposes that of the former, and both were intimately connected in Crete, Delphi, and elsewhere; though the Doric Zeus did not receive great [pg 319] religious honours. In the temple of Delphi, Zeus and Apollo were represented as Moiragetæ, accompanied by two Fates.[1296] The supreme deity, however, when connected with Apollo, was neither born, nor visible on earth, and perhaps never considered as having any immediate influence upon men. But Apollo, who is often emphatically called the son of Zeus,[1297] acts as his intercessor, ambassador, and prophet with mankind.[1298] And whilst the father of the gods appears, indistinctly and at a distance, dwelling in ether, and enthroned in the highest heavens, Apollo is described as a divine hero, whose office is to ward off evils and dangers, establish rights of expiation, and announce the ordinances of Fate. It is our purpose to investigate these latter attributes, more especially in the mythology of Delos and Delphi.
2. The legend of the birth of Apollo at Delos was indeed recognised by the Ionians and Athenians, but neither by the Delphians, Bœotians, nor Peloponnesians;[1299] as is plain from the indifference which they [pg 320] generally showed for the temple in that island. We also know that the Bœotians represented Tegyra as the birthplace of Apollo.
Apollo, says Pindar, was born with time;[1300]—alluding to the many obstacles and delays experienced at his birth. These had been occasioned by the influence of an hostile power, the same which produced Typhaon from the depths of Tartarus,[1301] called by the poets Here.
This power refused its assistance at the birth of Apollo, and compelled Latona to wander in the pains of childbirth over earth and sea until she arrived at the rocky island of Delos.
3. Hence the island of Delos itself became one of the subjects of mythology. Pindar, in an ode to Delos, addresses it as “the daughter of the sea, the unshaken prodigy of the earth, which mortals call Delos, but the gods in Olympus the far-famed star of the dark earth;”[1302] and related how “the island, driven about by the winds and waves, as soon as Latona had placed her foot on its shore, became fast bound to the roots of the earth by four columns.”[1303] The fable of the floating island[1304] (which is, however, of a more recent date than the Homeric hymn to Apollo) indicated merely the restless condition which preceded the tranquillity and brightness introduced by the manifestation of the god. Henceforth Delos remained fixed and unshaken, immoveable, according to the belief of the Greeks, even by earthquakes; [pg 321] for which reason, the whole of Greece was alarmed when this phenomenon happened before the Persian war.[1305] By the words “the star of the dark earth,” Pindar alludes to the idea that Delos (as the name shows) was considered as a pure and bright island, whose shores, too holy for pollution, were ever kept free from corpses, the sight of which is odious to the god. Hence also the tradition that Asteria, whose name is derived from ἀστὴρ, the offspring of the Titans, had cast herself into the sea, and been petrified on the shore.
4. The birth of Apollo, being an epoch in mythology, was without doubt celebrated in ancient hymns, whose simplicity presented a striking contrast to the higher polish of the Homeric poems. A hymn of this description, ascribed to Olen, was addressed to Eileithyia, the worship of which goddess, together with other religious ceremonies, was brought over (as has been above remarked)[1306] from Cnosus to Delos, and from thence to Athens.[1307] In calling Eileithyia the mother of the god of love,[1308] Olen exceeded the regular bounds of tradition respecting Apollo, by confusing the worship of a strange god with that deity, and probably [pg 322] identified her with the ancient Aphrodite (Ἀφροδίτη ἀρχαία), whose altar Theseus is said to have erected at Delos.[1309] In either case, the establishment of this ancient Attic worship on the sacred island, and its connexion with the Delian rites, illustrate the mention of Eros in the Delian hymn.