sanctuary and in his own prescribed manner, rendered the same service.
The two legends of Delphi and Delos, above noticed, form of course a very insignificant fraction of the narratives which once existed respecting the great and venerated Apollo. They serve only as specimens, and as very early specimens,[1] to illustrate what these divine mythes were, and what was the turn of Grecian faith and imagination. The constantly recurring festivals of the gods caused an incessant demand for new mythes respecting them, or at least for varieties and reproductions of the old mythes. Even during the third century of the Christian aera, in the time of the rhêtôr Menander, when the old forms of Paganism were waning and when the stock of mythes in existence was extremely abundant, we see this demand in great force; but it was incomparably more operative in those earlier times when the creative vein of the Grecian mind yet retained its pristine and unfaded richness. Each god had many different surnames, temples, groves, and solemnities; with each of which was connected more or less of mythical narrative, originally hatched in the prolific and spontaneous fancy of a believing neighborhood, to be afterwards expanded, adorned and diffused by the song of the poet. The earliest subject of competition[2] at the great Pythian festival was the singing of a hymn in honor of Apollo: other agones were subsequently added, but the ode or hymn constitu-
- ↑ The legend which Ephorus followed about the establishment of the Delphian temple was something radically different from the Homeric Hymn (Ephori Fragm. 70, ed. Didot): his narrative went far to politicize and rationalize the story. The progeny of Apollo was very numerous, and of the most diverse attributes; he was father of the Korybantes (Pherekydes, Fragm. 6, ed. Didot), as well as of Asklêpios and Aristæus (Schol. Apollon. Rhod. ii. 500; Apollodôr. iii. 10, 3).
- ↑ Strabo, ix. p. 421. Menander the Rhetor (Ap. Walz. Coll. Rhett. t. ix. p. 136) gives an elaborate classification of hymns to the gods, distinguishing them into nine classes,—κλητικοὶ, ἀποπεμπτικοὶ, φυσικοί, μυθικοὶ, γενεαλογικοὶ, πεπλασμένοι, εὐκτικοὶ, ἀπευκτικοὶ, μικτοὶ:—the second class had reference to the temporary absences or departure of a god to some distant place, which were often admitted in the ancient religion. Sappho and Alkman in their kletic hymns invoked the gods from many different places,—τὴν μὲν γὰρ Ἀρτέμιν ἐκ μυρίων μὲν ὅρεων, μυρίων δὲ πόλεων, ἔτι δὲ ποτάμων, ἀνακαλεῖ,—also Aphroditê and Apollo, etc. All these songs were full of adventures and details respecting the gods.—in other words of hgendary matter.
