From this ancient connexion of the religious expiations and criminal jurisdiction, we easily perceive why at Athens Apollo should have presided over all the courts of justice;(1382) and why he was also represented at Tenedos as armed with a double hatchet,(1383) the instrument used in that island for the execution of adulterers.(1384)
7. Apollo was likewise supposed to preside over purifications of houses, towns, and districts;(1385) and accordingly they were performed by Tiresias, the prophet of the Ismenium, at Thebes;(1386) as also in later times by Epimenides, in his character of a Cretan worshipper of Apollo, at Athens (after Olymp. 46. 1.), and at Delos at a still earlier period.(1387) This is the first purification of Delos of which we have any account; the second is that instituted by Pisistratus (about the 60th Olympiad); the third, that set on foot by Athens (Olymp. 88. 3. 426 B.C.), when the island was entirely freed from the corpses so odious to Apollo.(1388)
In all these rites we find frequent use of the _laurel_ (the δάφνη Ἀπολλωνιὰς),(1389) to which a power of warding off evil was ascribed, both when employed in sprinkling, and when merely carried round in procession.(1390) This tree also served several purposes in the delivery of oracles; a branch of it in ancient times distinguished the prophets,(1391) and even the god himself as such;(1392) hence his nurses were said by some to have been Κορυθάλεια,(1393) _i.e._ “_the laurel itself_;” and Ἀλήθεια, or “_the fulfilment of oracles_.”(1394) The reason why the laurel was supposed to have these powers is as obscure as the origin of the ancient symbolical language in general. Perhaps it was merely the appearance of the evergreen-tree, with its slender form and glittering leaves, that made it a symbol of Apollo. The laurel will bear a tolerably severe winter,(1395) and therefore nourished in the north of Greece; while the olive, the tree of Athene, belongs to its more southern regions. But, be this as it may, the situation of Tempe, where this shrub still grows with great luxuriance, certainly added much to the sanctity of the symbol:(1396) and for this reason the amour of the god with Daphne is often placed on the banks of the Peneus.(1397) Indeed Apollo was supposed to love all groves, particularly of forest-trees, laurels, wild-olives, &c. The freshening coolness and holy silence of such places were thought to be proper preparatives for entering the sanctuary.(1398)