DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0025
APOLLO'S CONQUEST OF DELPHI 9
sacred domains of Delphi to the new god and master, but
retained her sanctuary, and was venerated as before.
In the Hymn to Apollo the god gives his oracular answers
from a laurel-tree (396). On this point Euripides says that
a laurel-tree stood by the side of the cavern of Ge, before
Apollo took possession of the place.1 Hence the legend
of Daphnis as the first prophetess and of Apollo's pursuit
of Daphne, the personification of the laurel-tree, who
during her flight prayed to her mother, Ge, and disappeared
in a cleft of the earth, from which a laurel-tree shot up.
This is how the later poets explained away the conflict
for Delphi? But the laurel remained the tree of the Oracle
after Apollo's arrival, stood near the tripod, and was shaken
by the priestess before she gave her response.3 The laurel-
tree at Delphi is what the oak was at the sanctuary of Zeus
at Dodona—the primeval sacred symbol, the tree whose
boughs were filled with all the mystery of the place. Plutarch,
who was himself an official at Delphi, describes 1 how the
priestess, before she descended into the cavern, stupefied
herself with the fumes of the burnt laurel. In the same
manner many uncivilized peoples to-day employ cedar-
wood, and their ecstasy is described as corresponding with
that of the Pythia. Thus we understand the laurel's puri-
fying efficacy in the Delphian ritual; since it could
deliver the Pythia from the burden of earth and lift her
soul to divine frenzy, its magic efficacy was proved.
The transition from Ge to Themis, whom Aeschylus and
later Pausanias interpolate into the dynasty, is uninteresting.
Themis, the venerable goddess of law and order, was certainly
assimilated to Ge 5 by Attic cult in the first instance—
“ both are one form with many names,” says Aeschylus,6
and thus became an expression of the regular succession
of the seasons and the fixed law of order in the life of earth.
Poseidon's form is far more important in the Delphian
succession. As consort of Ge, he was worshipped in the
seismic centre about the Corinthian Gulf, already men-
tioned, especially in Aegae and Helice, not as the sea-god,
1 Iph. Taur., 1246. 2 Ovid, Metam., i. 452.
3 Aristophanes, Plutus, 213, and Scholia.
4 De E apud Delphos, 2 ; De Pythiae oraculis, 6.
5 C.I.A., iii, 3, 350 ; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iii. 309.
6 Aesch., P.V., 209 : cp. Eum., 2.
sacred domains of Delphi to the new god and master, but
retained her sanctuary, and was venerated as before.
In the Hymn to Apollo the god gives his oracular answers
from a laurel-tree (396). On this point Euripides says that
a laurel-tree stood by the side of the cavern of Ge, before
Apollo took possession of the place.1 Hence the legend
of Daphnis as the first prophetess and of Apollo's pursuit
of Daphne, the personification of the laurel-tree, who
during her flight prayed to her mother, Ge, and disappeared
in a cleft of the earth, from which a laurel-tree shot up.
This is how the later poets explained away the conflict
for Delphi? But the laurel remained the tree of the Oracle
after Apollo's arrival, stood near the tripod, and was shaken
by the priestess before she gave her response.3 The laurel-
tree at Delphi is what the oak was at the sanctuary of Zeus
at Dodona—the primeval sacred symbol, the tree whose
boughs were filled with all the mystery of the place. Plutarch,
who was himself an official at Delphi, describes 1 how the
priestess, before she descended into the cavern, stupefied
herself with the fumes of the burnt laurel. In the same
manner many uncivilized peoples to-day employ cedar-
wood, and their ecstasy is described as corresponding with
that of the Pythia. Thus we understand the laurel's puri-
fying efficacy in the Delphian ritual; since it could
deliver the Pythia from the burden of earth and lift her
soul to divine frenzy, its magic efficacy was proved.
The transition from Ge to Themis, whom Aeschylus and
later Pausanias interpolate into the dynasty, is uninteresting.
Themis, the venerable goddess of law and order, was certainly
assimilated to Ge 5 by Attic cult in the first instance—
“ both are one form with many names,” says Aeschylus,6
and thus became an expression of the regular succession
of the seasons and the fixed law of order in the life of earth.
Poseidon's form is far more important in the Delphian
succession. As consort of Ge, he was worshipped in the
seismic centre about the Corinthian Gulf, already men-
tioned, especially in Aegae and Helice, not as the sea-god,
1 Iph. Taur., 1246. 2 Ovid, Metam., i. 452.
3 Aristophanes, Plutus, 213, and Scholia.
4 De E apud Delphos, 2 ; De Pythiae oraculis, 6.
5 C.I.A., iii, 3, 350 ; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iii. 309.
6 Aesch., P.V., 209 : cp. Eum., 2.