The expiatory establishment(989) on the promontory of TÆNARUM was also said to have been founded by Tettix, a Cretan,(990) who is merely a personified symbol of Apollo, like Lycus, Corax, Cycnus, &c, in other places. Callondas is said to have purified the soul of the murdered Archilochus at this gate of the infernal regions. Considering the proximity of Delium in Laconia(991) and of the little island of Minoa to this temple, we may conclude that the origin of the above sanctuary was connected with these places.
In front of the harbour of MEGARA was another island called Minoa, and numerous legends had been there preserved in which the Cretans of Minoa (though probably only by a corruption of the original tradition) were represented as enemies and plunderers. Megara had two citadels: the Carian with the temple of Demeter, and a more modern one towards the sea, surmounted by temples of Apollo. This is said to have been built by Alcathous the son of Pelops, while Apollo stood by and played upon his lyre. A sounding-block of stone was exhibited at the place where the god lay down his lyre.(992) The same fable is also alluded to by Theognis of Megara.(993) Here then there is a worship and temples of an earlier date than the Doric migration, and which certainly proceeded from Crete. On the former citadel stood a statue of Apollo Decatephorus,(994) “the receiver of tithes,” whose name is explained by the fable that the daughter of Alcathous was once sent as a tribute to Crete, like the Athenian youths and maidens. Thus a fact which will be soon proved with respect to Athens, is also true of Megara—viz., that these missions always conveyed a sacred tithe.(995)
9. The process of our investigation will shortly lead us to examine the Attic legends, consisting of a confused mass of tradition, with which the worship of all the gods, including that of Apollo, was in that country perplexed.
To commence then with the legends which are connected with the temple of Apollo at THORICUS. Thoricus, situated on the south-eastern coast of Attica, was one of the ancient twelve towns of that country, and always remained a place of consequence, of which there are still extant considerable remains. Favoured by its situation, it soon became a commercial station; Cretan vessels were accustomed in ancient times to anchor in its harbour.(996) The fable of Cephalus and Procris appears, from some poetical and mythological accounts, to have been connected with Crete and the worship of Apollo.(997) We know for certain that the Cephalidæ, who existed at a still later period in Attica,(998) preserved some hereditary rites of Apollo: for when in the tenth generation Chalcinus and Dætus, the descendants of the hero, returned to the country which their ancestor had quitted in consequence of murder, they immediately built a temple to that god on the road to Eleusis.(999)