But it was not till the Dorians, for the purpose of assembling all the Peloponnesians, at least every four years, under the protection of their god, had taken possession of the temple at Olympia; nor till Iphitus the Ætolian, and Lycurgus the Dorian, had renewed these contests, or given them a greater degree of importance, that Apollo and Zeus are found in connexion with each other, and even contending in the course at Olympia. And as a further instance of change, the sacred armistice of Olympia went by the local name of Therma;(1086) and hence Apollo, as the patron and guardian deity of the institution, was called Thermius, and worshipped under that title in the grove of Altis.(1087) At this time Hercules (whose worship, once entirely unknown in Elis, was introduced by Iphitus)(1088) is also reported to have brought the wild olive-tree from the Hyperboreans to the Alpheus, and planted the sacred grove of Altis with it.(1089) The important influence of the Delphian oracle on the Olympian games also occasioned the time of their celebration to be regulated by the Pythian cycle of eight years.(1090) For whereas the whole cycle of eight years consisted of ninety-nine lunar months, at the expiration of which time the revolutions of the moon and sun again nearly coincided; this period was at Olympia divided into two unequal parts of fifty and forty-nine months, so that the festival took place sometimes in the month of Apollonius, sometimes in Parthenius.
The introduction of the worship of Apollo must have had no less influence on the families of the soothsayers, who ministered at the altars of the Olympic deities. These were the Clytiadæ, Iamidæ, and Telliadæ;(1091) of which the Clytiadæ considered themselves as belonging to a clan, which produced very many soothsayers, viz., the Melampodidæ.(1092) This explains the fable that Melampus received the gift of prophecy from Apollo on the banks of the Alpheus,(1093) in the place where it was exercised by his descendants the Clytiadæ.
3. The Doric migration gave rise to many others, which spread the worship of Apollo in various directions; no longer, however, as a peculiar deity of the Dorians and Cretans, but, in a more extended sense, as the national god of the Greeks. This was chiefly occasioned by the influence of Delphi, which seems to have given the chief stimulus to that great migration. In fact, it became from this time invested with a power which hardly belonged to any subsequent institution. Apollo is represented as governing nations with an arbitrary power, compelling them, however unwilling, to undertake distant expeditions, and pointing out the settlements which they are to occupy. In order to convey a more distinct idea of this singular phenomenon, it is necessary that the condition of the immediate subjects of the Pythian temple should be more closely examined.