The small Cycladic island of Delos was a religious center for the Ionians, including the Athenians and many Greeks who emigrated during the Dark Age to the coast of Asia Minor. Delos was celebrated as the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and while Artemis was probably the original mistress of the sanctuary there, Apollo came to dominate it in the Archaic period. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3.145-61) tells how the festival was celebrated with “boxing, dancing and song” and describes the Delian maidens who were famed for their choral songs in honor of the god. The Athenians, who controlled the sanctuary for much of its life, twice purified the tiny island by removing burials (except for those of the heroes) and decreeing that all inhabitants must leave if they were soon to give birth or die. An elaborate web of myth and ritual connected Delos with Athens and its hero Theseus. The Athenians believed that Theseus visited Delos after slaying the Kretan Minotaur, and with his companions performed a winding dance called the Crane, which imitated the tortuous paths of the Labyrinth. They danced around the famous Keraton, an altar constructed from the horns of goats, Apollo’s favored sacrificial animal.14
Apollo, Artemis, and Leto all possessed temples on the island. In Apollo’s Archaic temple stood a famous cult image, the work of the sixth-century sculptors Tektaios and Angelion. About twice life-size and covered with hammered sheets of gold, the god appeared in the frontal pose of a kouros, holding a bow in his left hand and small images of the three Charites in his right.15 Another feature of the Delian cult was the legend that the Hyperboreans, a mythical northern people whom Apollo visited every year, sent annual offerings of “sacred things” wrapped in wheat sheaves to his shrine. The mysterious offerings themselves seem to have some historical basis; in the Classical period they were conveyed by a long trade route until they reached Athens, where they were ceremoniously escorted to Delos. A Mycenaean tomb on the island was venerated as the gravesite of two Hyperborean
Maidens.16
The Athenians boasted of their descent from Ion, the son of Apollo and ancestor of the Ionian peoples; therefore they worshiped Apollo Patroos (Ancestor). The possession of domestic cults of Apollo Patroos and Zeus Herkeios became one of the criteria for holding office in Athens.17 Because of their ancient kinship, the Athenians and the Ionians of Asia Minor had similar ritual calendars, and many of their common cults and festivals can be dated to the time before the Ionian migration. One of the shared lonian-Attic festivals was the Thargelia, held at the onset of harvest time in May. The festival took place on the sixth and seventh of the month Thargelion, the birthdates of Artemis and Apollo respectively. At this time the Athenians sent sacred ambassadors (the(0roi) to Delos with sacrificial victims and choruses for the musical competitions. Athens had to be kept pure, so executions of criminals were postponed until the return of the ship from Delos (such a delay occurred when Sokrates was to be executed). They also purified the land of Attica through a ritual involving human scapegoats known as pharmakoi. Two men, chosen for their ugliness and poverty, were feasted at public expense, then beaten with fig branches and driven out of the city. They symbolically carried away all the ills and impurities that might result in harm to the city or its ripening crops. On the second day of the Athenian Thargelia, the city celebrated with a cereal offering to Apollo, a mixture of produce cooked and carried in procession to the suburban shrine of Apollo Pythios. The festival was also noted for extensive dithyrambic (choral) competitions, and victors dedicated tripods at the Pythion.18
World History
