BOOK II. RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE DORIANS.
§ 1. Apollo and Artemis the principal deities of the Doric race. § 2. Traces of the worship of Apollo in Tempe. § 3. Route of the Theoria from Tempe to Delphi. § 4. Establishment of the worship of Apollo at Delphi; § 5. Crete; § 6. And Delos. § 7. Early history of Crissa. § 8. Doric population of Delphi. § 9. Opposition to the worship of the Delphian Apollo.
1. In turning from the history of the external affairs of the Dorians to the consideration of their intellectual existence, our first step must be to enquire into their religion; and for this purpose we will proceed to analyse and resolve it into the various worships and ceremonies of which it was composed, and to trace the origin and connexion of these as they successively arose.
Now it may with safety be asserted, that the principal deities of the Dorians were Apollo and Artemis, since their worship is found to have predominated in all the settlements of that race; and conversely the Doric origin can be either proximately or remotely traced wherever there were any considerable institutions dedicated to the worship of Apollo; insomuch that the adoration of this god may be shown from the most ancient testimonies of mythology to have gradually advanced with the extension of the Doric nation. Yet we are not to understand that the worship of Apollo and the Doric race were so exactly co-extensive that the presence of the latter always proves either the previous or actual existence of the former. Indeed it is certain that in ancient as well as in modern times the worship of particular gods was not only propagated by migration and conquest, but that religious belief was also extended by peaceful intercourse, and, as it were, by moral contact.
In order to rest the claims of the Doric race to the worship of Apollo on a secure foundation, it is necessary first to give a direct contradiction to all those statements which assert its connexion with any race not of Hellenic descent. In the first place, then, Apollo was not a national deity of the aboriginal _Pelasgic_ nations of Greece.(858) Had this been the case, he would certainly have enjoyed frequent and distinguished honours in those countries where the numbers of that race remained undiminished; for example, in Arcadia. Now there were very few temples of Apollo in Arcadia; and moreover, the founding of most of these was either connected with a foreign hero, or else attributed to some external influence.(859) Secondly, it has been supposed that the worship of this god was introduced from the _East_ (an opinion founded chiefly on the establishments of his religion in Lycia); but we shall presently show that its institution in this quarter was in fact derived from the Dorians. To this we may add, that amongst none of the _half-Grecian_ nations, for example, the Leleges, Carians, Ætolians, Phrygians, and Thracians, the worship of this god can be proved to have been national. The same may be affirmed of the _Italian_ nations. Apollo never occurs in the ancient _Etruscan_ religion. Nor was _Rome_ acquainted with this worship, until it was introduced by the Sibylline oracles; a sacred spot was then allotted on the Flaminian meadow; and the temple erected there (324 A.U.C.) was, up to the time of Cicero, the only one in Rome.(860) Nay, that the Italians adopted Apollo altogether as a foreign deity is proved by the circumstance of their not having united him with their native Jupiter, or Mercury, as they did the Grecian Zeus, Hermes, &c. In our inquiries therefore into the origin of the worship of Apollo, we are limited to the races of purely Greek offspring. It remains only to be shown why we have selected the _Dorians_ in particular from all these different tribes. And we merely make this preliminary remark, that the mythical genealogy, in which Dorus is called the son of Apollo,(861) was a simple expression for this fact.