1. We now come to the third epoch of the propagation of the worship of Apollo. The first embraced the earliest migrations of the Doric nation, when the great temples at Delphi, Cnosus, and Delos were founded from Tempe. The second period is that of [pg 267] the maritime supremacy of Minos, when the coasts of Asia and Greece were covered with groves and expiatory altars of this god. The third comprehends the chief migration of the Dorians, and others occasioned by it. Through these means Apollo became the principal deity in Peloponnesus, where, in early times, we find few traces of his existence. That the Carnean Apollo of the Lacedæmonians, and the Apollo Nomius of the Arcadians, form no exceptions to our assertion, will be proved in a subsequent inquiry into the nature and origin of these worships.1065
After the Doric conquest of Peloponnesus, the chief temples were every where consecrated to Apollo. We have already spoken of the sanctuary of Apollo Pythaëus, in which the Argive confederacy held their meetings;1066 nor was the temple of Apollo Lyceus in the market-place less celebrated.1067 The Spartans also worshipped this deity under the former name,1068 and the inhabitants of Sicyon under the latter.1069 Hecatus, it [pg 268] is pretended, was a soothsayer, who came with the sons of Aristodemus to Sparta; and his descendant, in the second Messenian war, held the same office:1070 the name of this family refers to the worship of Apollo Hecatus (the far-darting god). At Sparta Apollo was the national deity; the kings sacrificed to him on the first and seventh days of every month;1071 the influence of the capital city had also caused its general extension throughout the country.1072 Corinth,1073 Epidaurus,1074 Ægina,1075 and Trœzen1076 followed the same example.
The name of the Delphian god had now attained throughout Peloponnesus the universal respect which it so long enjoyed: it had even led the way to the settlement [pg 269] and conquest of that peninsula, and hence Apollo was called by the Dorians their leader and founder.1077 It was not till a later period that the kings of Messenia (who upon the whole adhered less strictly to the Doric customs than the Spartans) entered into a connexion with the sanctuary at Delos, which had then already fallen into the power of the Ionians. About the fifth Olympiad (760 B.C.) Eumelus, the Corinthian poet, composed an ode for a Messenian chorus to that holy island.1078 On the other hand, it was owing to the Dorians (particularly to the Spartans) that the Pythian sanctuary remained independent, in the hands of the Delphians; to preserve it in this state was one of the duties which they inherited from their fathers;1079 and they protected it more than once, particularly against the Athenians.
2. The political power of the Dorians over the whole of Peloponnesus necessarily ensured the preponderance of their religious institutions; nevertheless we find that the Achæans and Arcadians possessed few temples of Apollo, and those not the principal ones in their cities.1080 The worship of Apollo was however, through Spartan influence, held in great respect at Tegea (the customs of which town had indeed become almost entirely Doric), where there was also a tribe called Apolloneatis.1081 The country moreover being intersected in every direction by roads to Olympia and Delphi (to which place Peloponnesus despatched her [pg 270] hecatombs in the beginning of the spring),1082 must have been by this very circumstance induced to establish temples in honour of Apollo, an instance of which appears in that at Onceum.
The principal deity of the Doric name soon obtained a conspicuous place in the national festival, held equally sacred by all Peloponnesians; I mean that of Olympia. The establishment of this festival is probably of early date; perhaps it took place during the time when the dominion of the Pelopidæ spread from Pisa and Olympia over most parts of the peninsula. Hence the Elean Ætolians, when they seized upon the presidency of these games, were, by the command of the oracle, at the same time obliged to take one of the Pelopidæ from the Achæan town of Helice for their prince.1083 Moreover, the ancient rivalry between the Olympian and Isthmian worship, which occasioned the prohibition against any Elean contending at the Isthmus,1084 can hardly have arisen at any other time than when (previously to the Doric usurpation) the Olympian Zeus was the chief god of the Achæans,1085 the Isthmian Poseidon of the Ionians.
But it was not till the Dorians, for the purpose of assembling all the Peloponnesians, at least every four years, under the protection of their god, had taken possession of the temple at Olympia; nor till Iphitus the Ætolian, and Lycurgus the Dorian, had renewed these contests, or given them a greater degree of importance, that Apollo and Zeus are found in connexion with each other, and even contending in the course at [pg 271] Olympia. And as a further instance of change, the sacred armistice of Olympia went by the local name of Therma;1086 and hence Apollo, as the patron and guardian deity of the institution, was called Thermius, and worshipped under that title in the grove of Altis.1087 At this time Hercules (whose worship, once entirely unknown in Elis, was introduced by Iphitus)1088 is also reported to have brought the wild olive-tree from the Hyperboreans to the Alpheus, and planted the sacred grove of Altis with it.1089 The important influence of the Delphian oracle on the Olympian games also occasioned the time of their celebration to be regulated by the Pythian cycle of eight years.1090 For whereas the whole cycle of eight years consisted of ninety-nine lunar months, at the expiration of which time the revolutions of the moon and sun again nearly coincided; this period was at Olympia divided into two unequal parts of fifty and forty-nine months, so that the festival took place sometimes in the month of Apollonius, sometimes in Parthenius.
[pg 272]The introduction of the worship of Apollo must have had no less influence on the families of the soothsayers, who ministered at the altars of the Olympic deities. These were the Clytiadæ, Iamidæ, and Telliadæ;1091 of which the Clytiadæ considered themselves as belonging to a clan, which produced very many soothsayers, viz., the Melampodidæ.1092 This explains the fable that Melampus received the gift of prophecy from Apollo on the banks of the Alpheus,1093 in the place where it was exercised by his descendants the Clytiadæ.
3. The Doric migration gave rise to many others, which spread the worship of Apollo in various directions; no longer, however, as a peculiar deity of the Dorians and Cretans, but, in a more extended sense, as the national god of the Greeks. This was chiefly occasioned by the influence of Delphi, which seems to have given the chief stimulus to that great migration. In fact, it became from this time invested with a power which hardly belonged to any subsequent institution. Apollo is represented as governing nations with an arbitrary power, compelling them, however unwilling, to undertake distant expeditions, and pointing out the settlements which they are to occupy. In order to convey a more distinct idea of this singular phenomenon, it is necessary that the condition of the immediate subjects of the Pythian temple should be more closely examined.
When the district of the Cirrhæans had, by the Amphictyonic war, become forfeited to the temple of [pg 273] Delphi, the sacred lands belonging to it formed a very considerable territory. Two inscriptions contain surveys of the Hieromnemons respecting its boundaries: one relating to those towards Anticirrha in the east, the other to those in the direction of Amphissa to the west.1094 Now it certainly appears that in ancient times, when Cirrha was in existence, none of these lands belonged to the temple, which must therefore have possessed little or no territory. But in spite of the generally received accounts of the Amphictyonic war, it can be satisfactorily proved, that in earlier times Cirrha and the temple, with its appendages, formed one state.1095 Their territory indeed consisted for the most part of rock, mountain, and narrow glens;1096 yet towards the south it embraced the spacious plain of Crissa, and in the north at least the luxuriant vineyards of Parnassus. By whom then was this territory cultivated? certainly neither by the Doric nobles nor the Cretan colonists, who in the Homeric hymn are derided by the god for thinking of the labours of agriculture, and commanded to employ themselves merely in sacrificing victims.1097 Thus it is evident, that there were subjects of the temple, who, besides the humble employment of cultivating the soil, were also obliged to tend the herds belonging to the temple. These were the servants of the temple whom we so frequently find mentioned.1098 The same class also existed in Crete, as we have before proved from the tribute sent by Athens; and Crete, in its turn, as well as Eretria and [pg 274] Magnesia,1099 sent such “human firstlings” to the temple of Pytho. Mention is also made of a town in Crete composed of a thousand men, all sacred slaves.1100 Now these slaves of Delphi may have been procured in different ways, either as tribute (and that either of a city or of individuals), as voluntary bondsmen, or by purchase:1101 the latter mode was probably of rare occurrence in early times. There still remain a considerable number of Delphian monuments, in which private individuals present or sell to the god those slaves whom they wish to favour.1102 The condition of these vassals corresponds to that of the Doric bondsmen;1103 but their servitude was probably of a milder nature; for we find it frequently stated that the sacred slaves lived inviolate under the protection of the god, although (at least in early times) they were entirely dependent on the sacred council of the temple. Originally, a great part consisted of prisoners taken in war. We collect from ancient epic poems that [pg 275] Manto the daughter of Tiresias was, after the war of the Epigoni, sent to the Pythian god as a share of the spoil1104 (ἀκροθίνιον): one individual, as is usual in the language of mythology, standing for many. The Gephyræans also are said to have been at that time decimated, sent from Thebes to Delphi, and thus to have arrived at Athens.1105 After the Persian war, an idea was actually entertained of reviving this punishment against the Thebans, whose enemies considered them, at a still later period, as in the eye of justice decimated, and given as slaves to Apollo.1106
4. When the Pythian god was either unwilling or unable to retain within his territory the crowds who had been collected in this manner, he sent them out as colonists; without, however, entirely giving up all claim to their obedience. The early Grecian history affords several examples of this proceeding: the earliest is a Doric tradition respecting the Dryopes, which differs in some respect from their own account. Hercules, here represented as a Doric hero, had subjugated the Dryopes, and brought them to Delphi as an offering to Apollo, by whom he was commanded to settle them on the southern coast of Argolis.1107 That this nation, probably of Pelasgic origin, did not in early times worship the Doric god, is evident from the tradition that Leogoras the Dryopian violated the temple of Apollo.1108 But it is equally certain that they were henceforth compelled to serve Apollo as their [pg 276] chief deity, especially in his character of Apollo Pythaëus at Argos.1109 A part of this nation however remained at Delphi, where it is frequently mentioned in later times under the name of Craugallidæ, who, together with the Cirrhæans, appear as enemies to the temple;1110 from which circumstance it may be inferred that most of these Cirrhæans were revolted subjects of the temple.
The migration of the Magnesians approaches rather nearer to the historical age. This race, dwelling under mount Pelion, felt itself, about the time of the Thessalian migration, so pressed for want of territory, that it had recourse to the Delphian oracle, by whose advice it decimated its numbers; that is, it sent off a tenth part of the young male population, who (like a ver sacrum in Italy)1111 renounced their native land.1112 These young colonists were mostly despatched to the worshippers of Apollo in Crete, where they founded the town of Magnesia, which Plato speaks of as a place that had been destroyed, and considers as a prototype of his ideal state, Apollo having been its only [pg 277] legislator.1113 The intercourse of Crete with the coast of Asia Minor soon carried over these sojourners to the banks of the Mæander and the Lethæus, at the confluence of which rivers they had been settled some time before the Ionic migration;1114 being, as was afterwards declared by a Panhellenic decree, the first Greeks who settled in Asia Minor.1115 Still, although thus separated from their mother country, they maintained, as sacred colonists (ἱεροὶ ἄποικοι), a perpetual connexion with Delphi, and were bound, in ancient times, to provide all travellers with food and lodging.1116 The Delphians could expect a similar reception at Delos:1117 and indeed an extended exercise of the duties of hospitality formed one of the principal objects of this worship. Pausanias1118 gives an account of this very important worship of Apollo in Magnesia as follows:1119 “At Hylæ, a place in the territory of the Magnesians,1120 is a cavern consecrated to Apollo; [pg 278] not, indeed, remarkable for its size; but it contains a statue of Apollo of great antiquity, and which confers strength for every kind of work. Certain devotees throw themselves, by the assistance of this image, from steep and lofty precipices; or tearing large trees up by the roots, walk with their burden down the steepest paths.” We would attempt to trace more minutely the connexion of Magnesia with Crete and Delphi, had not all clue to history been necessarily broken off by the conquest of this proud and prosperous city by the Ephesians, and its complete destruction by the Treres, a Cimmerian tribe, in the time of the Lydian monarch Ardys.1121
We have only time to notice some few other events of a similar nature. Thus the Ænianes came to the oracle about the same time, and on a similar emergency as the Magnesians; dwelt for some years in the territory of Cirrha, and were afterwards sent to the banks of the Inachus in southern Thessaly.1122 An example of historical authority is furnished by the Chalcideans in Eubœa, the youthful part of whose population was despatched by Apollo to Rhegium in Italy;1123 hence this town also celebrated the worship of the god with expiatory rites and festivals,1124 to which the Messenians of Sicily sent choruses of thirty-five boys across the straits.1125
[pg 279]5. These events, which from their connected form cannot be poetical fictions, give some idea of the extensive influence of the temple of Delphi, the power of which was probably at its highest pitch in the time immediately succeeding the Doric migrations. Hence also this was the epoch of the greatest influence of the Amphictyons of Thermopylæ;1126 which confederation of Thessalian tribes, and of tribes derived from Thessaly, united the worship of the Doric temple of Apollo with that of Demeter at Thermopylæ, and thus an Hellenic and ancient Pelasgic worship were combined together,1127 probably not without a view of forming a more intimate union between the different races of Greece. The assembling in the spring of the year at Delphi was probably copied from the meeting of the neighbouring towns, in the spring festival, at Tempe, at which business of a political kind was sometimes transacted.1128 The power, however, of the Amphictyons of Thermopylæ was at no time actually political, and, with a very few exceptions, all their regulations and undertakings concerned the protection of the two temples in their rights and possessions, the rights of other temples in Greece, and the maintenance of some principles of international law (νόμοι Ἀμφικτυονικοὶ), founded upon religious notions.
6. The Dorian colonies introduced Apollo into Asia Minor as the principal deity of their national and federal festival on the promontory of Triopium,1129 where [pg 280] they probably first planted his worship, without, however, excluding the more ancient Pelasgic rites of Demeter and the infernal gods, which, although of a different nature, were united in the ceremonies at Triopium with those of Apollo.1130 In the same manner the twelve towns of the Æolians, with whom Apollo was by no means so nearly connected, celebrated in his honour, as it seems, their federal festival in the grove of Gryneum near Myrina.1131 And though when the Ionians crossed over from Athens to Asia Minor they remained so constant to the worship of Poseidon that they consecrated to him their national festival at Mycale, and also built in the island of Tenos a splendid temple of Poseidon and Amphitrite, honoured with festivals and sacred embassies;1132 yet the Cretan worship was so prevalent at Delos, when first overrun by the Ionians, that this island was itself the religious metropolis of the Cyclades,1133 at whose festivals and contests the higher classes of the islanders attended with their families, even in ancient times; which naturally gave rise to the establishment of temples to [pg 281] Apollo, the principal deity, in the rest of the Cyclades; as Cythnus,1134 Siphnus,1135 Ceos,1136 Naxos,1137 &c.
7. The principal places to be mentioned in Italy besides Rhegium are Croton and Metapontum. The former was an Achæan and Lacedæmonian colony; in the founding of which, according to tradition, the oracle had an important share;1138 the memory of which is preserved by temples of Apollo Pythius, Hyperboreus,1139 and Alæus,1140 within, and close to the town. Croton was peculiarly subject to the influence of Apollo, whose worship operated to an unusual extent on the character and customs of its inhabitants. On the founding of Metapontum our information is scanty. The inhabitants generally supposed themselves to be of Achæan origin; yet Ephorus has preserved a remarkable, though confused tradition, that Daulius the tyrant of Crissa was the founder of that town.1141 It [pg 282] seems, then, that inhabitants of Daulis, in the narrow valley of Parnassus, and Crissæans, from the coast, had passed over to Italy in very early times. The inhabitants of Metapontum, as ancient subjects of Apollo, sent him golden ears of corn (χρυσοῦν θέρος) as a tithe of their harvest; we find on their coins the full ears of barley, which were paid as tribute, and on the reverse the god himself, armed with his helmet, arrow and bow, as a conqueror, and holding a branch of laurel; exactly coinciding with the symbols used in the temple of Delphi.1142 Thus historical tradition and religious symbols both point to the same conclusion.1143
During the period of which we are treating, the regulation of colonies by the Delphian oracle was the chief instrument which extended the worship of Apollo on the coast of the Mediterranean. In honour of this deity the Chalcideans who founded Naxos, the first Greek colony in Sicily (Olymp. 5. 2. 759 B.C.), erected on the coast an altar of Apollo Archegetas, upon which the Sicilian Theori always sacrificed when they sailed to the temple of Apollo in their mother-country.1144
[pg 283]Apollonia, the Corinthian settlement on the Ionian sea, was also supposed to have been founded by Apollo;1145 hence the above-mentioned custom of sending “the golden summer” to Delphi prevailed in this town.1146 We have in a former work1147 shown that the worship at Thera and Cyrene was paid to the deity of the Theban Ægidæ, viz., the Carnean Apollo; who, however, at the founding of the colony (Olymp. 37), was already considered as the same with the Dorian god; hence the fountain of Apollo at Cyrene, its colony of Apollonia, &c. Mythology, which often first clothes the events of history in a fabulous garb, and then refers them to an early and unknown time, expressed the founding of Cyrene, under the guidance of the temple of Apollo, in the following elegant personification—That Cyrene, a Thessalian nymph, the favourite of Apollo, was carried by her divine lover to Africa, in his chariot drawn by swans.1148
We shall abstain from bringing down the colonization of this religion to a later period, since in after-times the lively principle which at first actuated the worshippers of Apollo was lost; and, instead of considering their actions as the effect of supernatural compulsion, men were rather disposed to regulate their conduct according to the dictates of reason and free-will.
1. Wearisome as it is to follow up the chain of remote events which gave rise to the wide diffusion of the worship of Apollo, nevertheless the fable of the Hyperboreans, by referring a number of particular circumstances to one head, is very well qualified to arrest and fix our attention.
We assert, then, the connexion of this tradition with the original worship of Apollo. No argument to the contrary can be drawn from its not being mentioned either in the Iliad or Odyssey; these poems not affording any opportunity for its introduction. Moreover, the Hyperboreans were spoken of in the poem of the Epigoni, and by Hesiod.1149 The fable, indeed, may not have come till late within the province of poetical mythology; as a local tradition, it must have arisen whilst that primitive connexion between the temples of Tempe, Delphi, and Delos (which was afterwards entirely dissolved) still existed in full vigour.
2. According to a Doric hymn of Bœo, a poetess of Delphi, quoted by Pausanias,1150 Pagasus, and the godlike Agyieus, the sons of the Hyperboreans, founded the celebrated oracle at Delphi. Agyieus is merely another name for Apollo himself. Pagasus refers to the Pagasæan temple on the sacred road.1151 [pg 285] With them came Olen, the first prophet and bard of Apollo. Two other Hyperborean heroes, Hyperochus and Laodicus, assisted in the slaughter of the Gauls at Delphi;1152 and, in accordance with similar traditions, Mnaseas of Patara called all the inhabitants of Delphi descendants of the Hyperboreans.1153
Alcæus,1154 in a hymn to Apollo, related how “Zeus adorned the new-born god with a golden fillet and lyre, and sent him, in a chariot drawn by swans, to Delphi, in order to introduce justice and law amongst the Greeks. Apollo, however, ordered the swans first to fly to the Hyperboreans. The Delphians, missing the god, instituted a pæan and song, ranged choruses of young men around the tripod, and invoked him to come from the Hyperboreans. The god remained an entire year with that nation, and at the appointed time, when the tripods of Delphi were destined to sound, he ordered the swans to resume their flight. The return of Apollo takes place exactly in the middle of summer; nightingales, swallows, and grasshoppers sing in honour of the god; and even Castalia and Cephisus1155 heave their waves to salute him.”
If Alcæus consecrated this pæan, as Pindar did his [pg 286] pæan, to the worship of the Delphian god, he would hardly have dared to do more than embellish the local traditions. Supposing, however, that this was not the case, he would still have taken the principal event (viz., the arrival of Apollo from the Hyperboreans) rather from a fable universally acknowledged, than the unauthorized fictions of poetry. The whole account, and even the time, are clearly drawn from the mysteries of the worship. According to the tradition of Delphi, Apollo, at the expiration of the great period, visited the beloved nation of the Hyperboreans, and danced and played with them from the vernal equinox to the early setting of the Pleiades; and when the first corn was cut in Greece, he returned to Delphi, as I suppose, with the full ripe ears, the offerings of the Hyperboreans.1156 Even the story of the swans was no addition of Alcæus; for the painted vases in the south of Italy (the extremity of the Grecian world) represent the same fiction as the Lesbian poet; nay, so exactly do they correspond, that we do not indeed recognise Alcæus, but the traditions upon which the account was founded, as they were perhaps related at Metapontum and Croton. The boy Apollo, the sceptre and goblet in one hand, and full ears of barley in the other (which allude to the offerings of the Hyperboreans, and the “golden summer”), is seated, with a mild aspect, on a car, the axles of which are bound with swans' feathers. Hyperborean women, with torches, and pitchers for sacred libations, conduct him.1157 The [pg 287] swans, with which Apollo here comes, occur elsewhere in the legends of Delphi, which refer to the Hyperboreans. The most ancient temple of Delphi, according to the assertion of the priests, was merely a low hut, built with branches of the sacred laurel of Tempe; the second was a tent, which either the Hyperboreans or Pteras of Crete formed of swans' feathers and wax.1158 The Peneus flowed by the altar of Tempe; the notes of the swans on the banks of this river are mentioned in a short hymn attributed to Homer.1159 And allowing that these birds were here particularly numerous, it is evident that their brilliant colour and majestic motion peculiarly adapted them for symbols of Apollo.
3. We find the same tradition, with merely a few local alterations, at Delos.1160 Latona, in the first place, is said to have arrived in that island from the country of the Hyperboreans as a she-wolf, having completed the whole journey, pursued by Here, in twelve days and nights.1161 Afterwards the young [pg 288] virgins, Arge and Opis, came with Apollo and Artemis; a lofty tomb was erected to their memory at Delos, upon which sacrifices were offered; an ancient hymn, which was attributed to the ancient minstrel Olen, celebrated their appearance.1162 Afterwards the Hyperboreans sent two other virgins, Hyperoche and Laodice, the same names as occur above, and with them five men, who are called perpherees1163 (from their bringing the sacred gifts enveloped in wheaten straw): this exactly corresponds with “the golden summer” of the Delphians. The perpherees received great honours at Delos; and the Delian maidens before marriage laid on the tomb of the two Hyperborean virgins a spindle, the young men a branch, both entwined with locks of hair. The offering, however, of the Hyperborean women was, it was said, really intended for Ilithyia, the protectress of women in labour, in order to fulfil a vow made to that goddess for the birth of Apollo and Artemis. Now these missions, according to Delian traditions, always continued to be carried on. The Hyperboreans were supposed to pass them on to their neighbours the Scythians; from them they were transmitted through a chain of nations on the coast of the Adriatic, by Dodona,1164 through Thessaly, [pg 289] Eubœa, and the island of Tenos, and came accompanied with flutes and pipes,1165 to Delos.1166 This story cannot have been a mere poetical fiction; it doubtless originated in the active connexion kept up by means of sacred missions with the ancient settlements of the worship of Apollo in the north of Thessaly.1167 In Delos also, as at Delphi, there was a story of the god resting for some time amongst the Hyperboreans; though the scene was generally changed to Lycia.1168 A painted vase exhibits the god with a lyre in his hand, alighting near the palm-tree of Delos: a young woman, representing a whole chorus, receives him, playing upon a stringed instrument.1169
As the temple at Olympia was connected with Delphi, we find also here some traditions respecting the country of the Hyperboreans, as the native land of the wild olive-tree which flourished in the grove of Zeus.
4. Thus much concerning the places where the fable of the Hyperboreans really existed; we must next notice the situation generally assigned to that sacred nation. In this the name is our chief guide. In the first place it indicates a northern nation; [pg 290] which idea is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that the worship of Apollo came from the most northern part of Greece, from the district of Tempe;1170 and although the actual distance was not great, yet the imagination might have been moved by this circumstance to conceive Apollo as coming from the most remote regions of the north. But, in the second place, the Hyperboreans are said to dwell beyond Boreas; so that this happy nation never felt the cold north wind: in the same manner that Homer represents the summit of Olympus as rising above the storms, nor ever covered with snow, but surrounded by an atmosphere of cloudless and undisturbed serenity.
5. This is nearly the whole of our information on the origin of this fabulous people. Poets, however, and geographers, dissatisfied with such accounts, attempted to assign to it a fixed habitation in the catalogue of nations: and for this purpose connected multifarious and foreign accounts of the northern regions of the world with the religious fable of the Hyperboreans, and moulded the whole into an imaginary picture of a supposed real people.
Among these stories the most remarkable is that which connects the Hyperboreans with the Scythians. Herodotus found them mentioned in the Arimaspea of Aristeas the Proconnesian, in which poem his ideas of the worship of Apollo were interspersed with obscure accounts of the northern regions.1171 He came, led by the spirit of Apollo, through Scythia to the [pg 291] Issedones,1172 the one-eyed Arimaspians, the Griffins that kept watch over the gold, and thus at last reached the Hyperboreans who inhabited the shores on the further side of the ocean. Now Aristeas must have collected the tradition concerning these nations and monsters from the same sources as Herodotus; viz., from the Greeks dwelling on the Pontus and Borysthenes, and through these from the Scythians.
In the list of the fabulous nations of the north, the ancient Damastes exactly agrees with the Arimaspea of Aristeas.1173 Beyond the Scythians he places the Issedones, then the Arimaspians, then the Rhipæan mountains, from which the north wind blows, and on the other side of these, on the sea-coast, the Hyperboreans.1174 Without doubt this geographer placed the Issedones in the districts to the north of the Euxine sea, and rather to the east of Greece.1175 And indeed neither Issedones, Arimaspians, nor Griffins could be placed in any other region than that which lies to the north of the Euxine sea, as all this tract had become known to the Greeks by means of the Scythians, who dwelt in these parts; it was only in this district that the Greeks heard of Arimaspians. The case is entirely different with respect to the Hyperboreans and Rhipæans. Of the former the Scythians, as Herodotus tells us, knew nothing; and the latter are a mere political fiction of Greece, since they derived their names from hurricanes (ῥιπαὶ), issuing from a cavern, which they warded off [pg 292] from the Hyperboreans, and sent to more southern nations. For this reason the Hyperboreans could also be placed in another part, remote from Scythia; still however they kept their original position in the north. Thus Pindar,1176 and also Æschylus in the Prometheus Unbound,1177 place the Hyperboreans at the source of the Ister. Now, if, with Herodotus, the Ister is conceived to be a river which runs through all Europe from its western extremity, the Hyperboreans, in spite of their name, must be placed in the regions of the west.1178 But there was in ancient times also an idea that the Ister was a vast stream descending from the extreme north;1179 and this notion was evidently entertained by the two poets just mentioned; thus Æschylus, in the Prometheus Unbound, represented Hercules as penetrating to the place where Boreas rushes from the mountains; and with this the Rhipæan mountains, the Hyperboreans, and the Ister were doubtless mentioned. Sophocles also placed the “ancient garden of Phœbus” i.e., the country of the Hyperboreans, at the extremity of the earth, and near the dwelling of Boreas.1180 This natural conception of the Hyperboreans, and agreeing so well with the origin of the legend, is universal among the early poets; it is only in the works [pg 293] of later writers that we find certain traces of a translation of the Hyperboreans to Italy and other western countries, and of a confusion of the Rhipæans with the Alps and Pyrenees.
6. We see then that notwithstanding the arbitrary license assumed by poets, the religious ideas respecting the Hyperboreans were every where preserved without the slightest variation. They were represented as a pious nation, abstaining from the flesh of animals, and living in perpetual serenity, in the service of their god, for a thousand years.1181 “The muse,” says Pindar, “is not estranged from their manners. The choruses of virgins and sweet melody of the lyre or pipe resound on every side; and, twining their hair with the glittering laurel, they feast joyfully. Neither disease nor old age is the lot of this sacred race; while they live apart from toil and battles, undisturbed by the revengeful Nemesis.”1182
Respecting their festivals, which were supposed to take place in the open air,1183 it was related by Hecatæus the younger, of Abdera, that these were celebrated by three gigantic Boreadæ, whose songs and dances were accompanied by innumerable flocks of swans.1184 But the strangest account is that of Pindar, that whole hecatombs of asses were sacrificed at these festivals:1185 [pg 294] this however is borrowed from the real worship, from one of the sacred rites of Delphi, where asses were sacrificed at the Pythian festival.1186 Lastly, the account given of the death of the Hyperboreans strongly reminds us of the rites of the Thargelia, and the leap at Leucate; we are told that, tired of a long existence, they leapt, crowned with garlands, from a rock into the sea.1187