Further to the east was the oracle of Apollo Thyrxeus, near the Cyanean islands;(932) to the west lay Telmissus, with its interpreters of dreams, who attributed their origin to Apollo.(933) Not only the towns just mentioned, but almost every other on the coast of Lycia, honoured the god, from whom even the name of the country was derived.(934)
Amongst these settlements we must probably also reckon that on the promontory of Corycus in Cilicia, since we find in its vicinity the temple of Zeus Sarpedon. The name of the place, if compared with that of the Corycian grotto on Parnassus, is of itself sufficient evidence that the worship of Apollo prevailed there, which is still further proved by the tradition that stags swam over from thence to Curium in Cyprus.(935) Here also stood an altar of Apollo, of particular sanctity, which no one was allowed to touch on pain of being thrown from the rocks of the neighbouring promontory. In this punishment we shall presently recognise one form of the expiatory rites, which every where accompanied the worship of Apollo.
3. No place contained so many temples of Apollo within so small a space as the coast of Troy; Cilia, in the recess of the Adramyttian gulf; Chryse, in the territory of the Hypoplacian Thebes;(936) the Smintheum, in its immediate neighbourhood;(937) the island of Tenedos (whose religious ceremonies were by some unaccountable means transplanted to Corinth and Syracuse),(938) are all mentioned in a few verses of the Iliad.(939) No less celebrated was Thymbra, situated at the confluence of the Thymbrius and Scamander, where Cassandra was reported to have been brought up in the temple of Apollo, and thus to have learnt the art of prophecy.(940) On the Trojan citadel of Pergamus itself was a temple of Apollo, with Artemis and Latona; and hence Homer represents these three deities as protecting the falling city.(941) It is however important to remark, that the inhabitants of Zelea, a town on the northern foot of mount Ida, and the native place of the archer Pandarus, the son of Lycaon, worshipped Apollo under the title of Lycius, or Lycegenes; and that Zelea was also called Lycia;(942) for these facts show that there was a real connexion between the name of Lycia and the worship of Apollo, and that it was the worship of Apollo which gave the name to this district of Troy, as it had done to the country of the Solymi. In Chryse also Apollo was called Lycæus.(943) The origin of this worship can neither be attributed to the native Trojan and Dardan race, nor yet to the later Æolians, although these for the most part adopted it into their religious ceremonies.(944) It is however certain, from an ancient tradition, that the Cretans also colonized this coast; though we are not aware what was the precise account of Callinus, the ancient elegiac poet,(945) who preserved it. It was however the popular belief that Apollo Smintheus, and indeed the whole Trojan nation, were derived from Crete.(946) The last notion, that all the Trojans were of Cretan origin, is in the highest degree improbable; but it will hardly be denied that there came to Troy a Cretan colony in connexion with Apollo Smintheus. Indeed the Cretans who inhabited the district of Troy must often have been mentioned in ancient traditions, as a strange account of their strict administration of justice has been preserved.(947) Could we but obtain a more authentic source of traditions relating to the religious worship than the deceitful accounts of poets, we might perhaps discover in it many confirmations of the historical traces to which we have just adverted. Even now we may perceive that the servitude of Apollo under Laomedon(948) is the same fable as that of Admetus at Pheræ, the locality alone being changed.