§ 1. Diffusion of the worship of Apollo in Peloponnesus by the Dorians. § 2. His Introduction by the Dorians at the Olympic festival. § 3. Influence of the Delphian oracle of Apollo. Subjects of the oracle. § 4. Migrations caused by the oracle. § 5. Connexion of the temple of Delphi with the Amphictyons of Thermopylæ. § 6. Worship of Apollo in Asia Minor and the islands. § 7. In Italy and Sicily, in Apollonia and Cyrene.
1. We now come to the _third_ epoch of the propagation of the worship of Apollo. The first embraced the earliest migrations of the Doric nation, when the great temples at Delphi, Cnosus, and Delos were founded from Tempe. The second period is that of the maritime supremacy of Minos, when the coasts of Asia and Greece were covered with groves and expiatory altars of this god. The third comprehends the chief migration of the Dorians, and others occasioned by it. Through these means Apollo became the principal deity in Peloponnesus, where, in early times, we find few traces of his existence. That the Carnean Apollo of the Lacedæmonians, and the Apollo Nomius of the Arcadians, form no exceptions to our assertion, will be proved in a subsequent inquiry into the nature and origin of these worships.(1065)
After the Doric conquest of Peloponnesus, the chief temples were every where consecrated to Apollo. We have already spoken of the sanctuary of Apollo Pythaëus, in which the Argive confederacy held their meetings;(1066) nor was the temple of Apollo Lyceus in the market-place less celebrated.(1067) The Spartans also worshipped this deity under the former name,(1068) and the inhabitants of Sicyon under the latter.(1069) Hecatus, it is pretended, was a soothsayer, who came with the sons of Aristodemus to Sparta; and his descendant, in the second Messenian war, held the same office:(1070) the name of this family refers to the worship of Apollo Hecatus (the far-darting god). At Sparta Apollo was the national deity; the kings sacrificed to him on the first and seventh days of every month;(1071) the influence of the capital city had also caused its general extension throughout the country.(1072) Corinth,(1073) Epidaurus,(1074) Ægina,(1075) and Trœzen(1076) followed the same example.