Nine days and nine nights Latona writhed in hopeless pains of childbirth, surrounded by the benevolent Titanidæ, Dione, Rhea, Themis, and Amphitrite, who finally (according to the hymn of Homer) prevailed upon Eileithyia by the promise of a golden necklace. Then the pains seized Latona; she cast her arms around the palm-tree, and brought forth her divine son. The explanations of the bribe offered to Eileithyia are all too far-fetched: probably pregnant women at Delos consecrated their necklaces to that goddess.
5. The exact spot where the birth of Apollo took place was shown in Delos, since the least circumstance connected with so important an event could not fail to excite interest. It must be looked for in the place where the torrent Inopus flows from mount Cynthus.[1310] Here there was a circular pool (the λίμνη τροχόεσσα), the form of which is often carefully mentioned.[1311] By its side grew two sacred trees, the palm and the olive, which are not elsewhere reckoned among those sacred to Apollo; as in Greece Proper the first does not grow at all, and the second not without great care. The Delian temple alone could boast of the palm, the use [pg 323] of palm-branches at the games having also originated in Delos.[1312]
This island acquired so much sanctity by the birth of Apollo, that no living being was permitted either to be born or die within its boundary.[1313] Every pregnant woman was obliged to go over to the neighbouring island of Rheneia, in order to be delivered. One of the ideas of the Greeks respecting religious purity (which may in general be traced to the worship of Apollo) was, that all intercourse with pregnant women polluted in the same manner as the touch of a corpse. The prohibition against keeping dogs had the same origin.[1314] On the whole, the Delian traditions are not to be considered as of very great antiquity or credit; they contain, indeed, hardly any original source of information respecting Apollo, being generally composed of descriptions of the sanctity of the island itself; several legends, as that of its having once floated on the ocean, &c., appear to have been the invention of the Ionians; this race, even in fiction, allowing itself far greater latitude than the Dorians.
6. Apollo, according to the Attic legend, passed to Delphi from Delos through Attica and Bœotia; the Homeric Hymn to Apollo makes him come from the northern districts, but likewise through Bœotia: according to other traditions he came from the Hyperboreans. According to another, Latona was carrying the two babes, Apollo and Artemis, in her arms, when [pg 324] assailed by the Python,[1315] the mother seeking refuge on a sacred stone near the plane-tree at Delphi:[1316] in another, Apollo was a child at the time of this event;[1317] and, accordingly, a Delphian boy, both whose parents were alive, represented the actions of the deity at the great festival. The destruction of the Python, however, always formed the chief event of the sacred fable. It was by this feat that Apollo gained possession of the oracular chasm, from which the goddess Earth had once spoken. It was not, however, without some resistance that she gave way to the claims of the youthful god, whom, according to Pindar, she even attempted to hurl down to Tartarus.[1318] The serpent Python is represented as the guardian of the ancient oracle of the Earth,[1319] and a son of the Earth itself, sprung from the warm clay that remained after the general deluge, and dwelling in a dark defile near a fountain, which was said to be supplied from the Styx.[1320] The serpent, as usual, represents an earthly being, by which is personified the rough and shapeless offspring of nature. It was supposed to be connected with the nature of water and the sea; and hence was called Delphin, or [pg 325] Delphine,[1321] like the fish of the same name, which was particularly sacred to Apollo, and in all probability was also conceived to have been subdued by him. After this, the serpent that watched the oracle remained, although conquered, as a memorial of the ancient struggle, and of the victory of the god, and was placed near the rocky chasm at the foot of the tripod, in the inner sanctuary.[1322]
7. The battle with the Python being finished,[1323] Apollo himself breaks the laurel, to weave a crown of victory.[1324] Here too he was said first to have sung the pæan, as a strain of triumph. In the dramatic exhibition, by which the Delphians represented the adventures of Apollo, the Pythian strain (νόμος Πύθιος) was here introduced. This air, which was originally nothing more than a simple melody, soon received all the embellishment of art; and, being raised by [pg 326] Timosthenes to the dignity of a great musical composition,[1325] was (contrary to the ancient custom) performed with flutes, lyres, and trumpets, without the accompaniment of the voice. The accounts concerning this festival are indeed copious, but unluckily of too late a date to give us an idea of its ancient and genuine character. In Plutarch's time[1326] it was not a hollow serpent's den, but an imitation of a princely house (καλιὰς), that was erected in a court (ἅλως), at every octennial festival.[1327] Into this building the women of a Delphian family[1328] led the boy by a secret passage (δολωνεία) with lighted torches, and fled away through the door, overturning the table, and setting fire to the house.
8. Although the destruction of the Python is characterized as a triumph of the higher and divine power of the deity, yet the victorious god was considered as polluted by the blood of the monster, and obliged to undergo a series of afflictions and woes. Tradition represented him as going immediately after the battle by the sacred road to Tempe; which the boy, who personified Apollo, afterwards took as leader of the religious procession.[1329] The direction of this road has been accurately stated above. The chief circumstance in this wandering was the bondage θήτευσις [pg 327] of Apollo under Admetus the Pheræan, to which the god subjected himself in order to expiate his guilt. This too was represented by the boy, who probably imitated the manner in which the god, as a herdsman and slave, submitted to the most degrading services.[1330] Perhaps it was the piety of Admetus, celebrated in tradition, which entitled him to the privilege of possessing such a slave; yet it must be doubted, whether, conformably to the spirit of the ancient mythology, an ideal being, and not a mortal hero, was not originally intended to be represented under this name. Ἄδμητος is an usual name for the god of the infernal regions; to whom, according to the original idea, Apollo became enslaved. The worship of this deity is connected with that of Hecate, who was called θεὰ Φεραία, and the daughter of Admetus.[1331] Cannot we, in the rescuing of Alcestis from the infernal regions by Apollo[1332] and Hercules, find some clue which may lead us to suppose that the fable of Admetus refers to a worship of the infernal deities? An ancient dirge, called the song of Admetus, was chanted in Greece, having, as was pretended, been first sung by Admetus at the death of his wife, originally perhaps addressed to Αἵδες [pg 328] ἄδμητος.[1333] How well does it suit the sublime character of the religious poetry in question, that the god, who had been polluted by the combat with the impure being, should be obliged, in order to complete his penance, to descend into the infernal regions. In confirmation of this, there have been preserved some obscure traditions, which represent Apollo as actually dying, that is, descending into the infernal regions.[1334] However, after eight years, the appointed time of bondage, the god wanders to the ancient altar of Tempe, where, sprinkling with laurel-branches, and other expiatory rites, symbolically restore his purity,[1335] After this, the purified deity returns by the same road to Deipnias, near Larissa, and there breaks his long fast.
9. These Delphian traditions in very early times became the theme of epic poetry, in which however another cause was assigned for the slavery of Apollo; it was represented as a punishment inflicted by Zeus for slaying the Cyclops, who forged the lightning with which Zeus struck his son Æsculapius, because, not satisfied with recovering the sick, he even recalled the dead to life.[1336] Yet some of the poets also state that [pg 329] Pheræ was the place of his servitude, alluding to the Pythian road, and mention a great year (μὲγαν ἐνιαυτὸν) as the time of his bondage;[1337] by which they mean the Delphian period. We may perhaps find a trace of a more ancient tradition in the story of amber being a petrified tear, which Apollo shed during the time of his slavery in his ancient abode amongst the Hyperboreans, in the land of the Celts.[1338]
The combat with Tityus is nearly allied to that with the Python. This earth-born monster, dwelling at Panopea, a town situated on the sacred road, and hostile to the Delphians, laid hands upon Latona when passing through that place: but her children soon overcome the ravisher, and send him to the shades below; where a vulture incessantly preys upon his liver,[1339] the seat of inordinate desire.
10. The hostile part of nature now lying vanquished, and quiet having gained the victory over disturbance, Apollo begins to exercise the other office for which he was sent into the world. He mounts the tripod of the Delphian oracle, no longer to give utterance to the dark responses of the earth, but to [pg 330] proclaim the “unerring decree of Zeus.”[1340] For it is evident that, in the language of this religion, fate was considered as the will of Zeus (Διὸς νοὸς, Διὸς αἴσα), who was at Delphi called Μοιραγέτης, “leader of fate;” whilst the epic poets, from their custom of making each god a separate individual, generally (though the glimmering of a more exalted idea may be sometimes traced) made Zeus, like all other individuals, subject to fate. The prophetic powers of Apollo will be more fully treated of in the following chapter.