The Carnean festival took place, as it appears, in the following month to the Hyacinthian, equally in honour of Apollo of Amyclæ. But the Doric religion seems here to have preponderated, and to have supplanted the elementary symbols so evident in the Hyacinthia. The Carnea was, as far as we know, altogether a warlike festival, similar to the Attic Boëdromia. It lasted nine days, during which time nine tents were pitched near the city, in each of which nine men lived, for the time of the festival, in the manner of a military camp. There is no reference to an elementary religion except some obscure ceremonies of the priest Agetes and the Carneatæ.(1488) This leads us to suppose that at the union of the Amyclæan worship, introduced by the Ægidæ, with the Doric worship of Apollo at Sparta, the Hyacinthia preserved more of the peculiarities of the former, the Carnea of the latter, although the sacred rites of both were completely united. At the same time we do not deny the difficulty of inquiring into the origin and primitive form of ceremonies the history of which is so complicated; and this alone must excuse the shortness of our account respecting these two festivals.
16. Finally, the manner in which Apollo is represented in _sculpture_, particularly by the ancient artists, may assist our investigation into the ideas and sentiments on which his worship was founded. Apollo was a subject peculiarly adapted for sculpture. Since his connexion with elementary religion was slight, and there was nothing mystic in his character, the sculptors were soon able to fix upon a regular cast of features, to distinguish him from other deities: for Apollo, not only in poetry, but in the fables most nearly connected with his worship, is generally represented as a human god, and in all his actions and sufferings more nearly connected with the heroes than any other divinity. But before this perfection and conventional uniformity of the art, the early sculptors were much assisted in characterizing the statues of Apollo by his numerous and significant symbols, such as the bow, the cithara, the laurel, &c.: and thus they were able, in some measure, to give an idea of the power and properties of Apollo, though merely in stiff and rude images of wood and stone.