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SEASIDE ALTARS OF APOLLO DELPHINIOS, EMBEDDED HYMNS, AND THE TRIPARTITE STRUCTURE OF THE HOMERIC HYMN TO APOLLO

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2018

Christopher A. Faraone
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Extract

Although recent and ongoing excavations of the sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios in Miletus have prompted archaeologists to discuss anew the aetiological references to the same god and his altar at the end of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, these discussions have yet to make any impact on literary scholars working on the poem itself. Indeed, we now know that in archaic Miletus an altar of Apollo Delphinios was erected, as in the hymn, directly upon a sandy beach beside a harbour and was probably the focus, as in the hymn, of some kind of sacrificial ritual, before the annual procession to another famous Panhellenic oracle of Apollo at Didyma. These new revelations provide an incentive for returning to the somewhat puzzling details in the scene on the beach at Crisa in the Homeric Hymn, with its agrarian offering and meal (both of roasted barley) followed by a paeanic procession of musician and singers. I will argue that the Milesian parallels allow us to see more clearly that, like the Delian episode at the start of the Homeric Hymn, the events at Crisa seem to reflect a shorter hexametrical hymn originally composed for a seaside sanctuary at Crisa and then later adapted, again like the Delian section, by a poet intent on praising Apollo as a Panhellenic deity, whose most important place of worship was Delphi. Such an argument leads, finally, to a positive assessment of the recent suggestion that the Homeric Hymn to Apollo does not have a bipartite structure (Delian–Delphic), as is usually assumed or argued, but rather a tripartite one (Delian–Delphic–Crisaean) that organizes the poem into three hymnic movements: birth, oracle, priesthood.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 65 , Issue 1 , April 2018 , pp. 15 - 33
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2018 

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Footnotes

Translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated.

References

1 See e.g. Herda, A., ‘Apollon Delphinios, das Prytaneion und die Agora von Milet’, AA 1 (2005), 286–90Google Scholar; Herda, A., ‘Apollon Delphinios – Apollon Didymeus: Zwei Gesichter eines milesischen Gottes und ihr Bezug zur Kolonisation Milets in archaischer Zeit’, in Bol, R., Höckmann, U., and Schollmeyer, P. (eds.), Kult(ur)kontakte. Apollon in Milet/Didyma, Histria, Myus, Naukratis und auf Zypern (Rahden, Germany, 2008), 51–60 Google Scholar; and Herda, A., ‘How to Run a State Cult: The Organization of the Cult of Apollo Delphinios in Miletos’, in Haysom, M. and Wallensten, J. (eds.), Current Approaches to Religion in Ancient Greece (Stockholm, 2011), 75–7Google Scholar.

2 Unremarked, for example, by Richardson, N., Three Homeric Hymns. To Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite (Cambridge, 2010)Google Scholar, or in any of the essays collected in Faulkner, A. (ed.), The Homeric Hymns. Interpretative Essays (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar.

3 As recently argued by Richardson (n. 2), 9–13.

4 The detailed account of the procession takes up most of the so-called Molpoi Inscription, for which see Fontenrose, J. E., Didyma. Apollo's Oracle, Cult, and Companions (Berkeley, CA, 1988), 74–5Google Scholar; and Gorman, V. B., Miletos, the Ornament of Ionia. A History of the City to 400 B.C. (Ann Arbor, MI, 2001), 176–86Google Scholar, the latter for full text, English translation, and discussion. Herda, A., Der Apollon-Delphinios-Kult in Milet und die Neujahrsprozession nach Didyma. Ein neuer Kommentar der sogenannten Molpoi-Satzung (Mainz, 2006)Google Scholar, provides the most recent and detailed archaeological commentary. His interpretation of the procession has generally been praised, although his idea that the procession took place during a new year festival has not persuaded many: see, e.g., Parker, R., ‘Review: The Molpoi’, CR 58 (2008), 178–80Google Scholar; and Chaniotis, A., ‘The Molpoi Inscription: Ritual Prescription or Riddle?’, Kernos 23 (2010), 375–9Google Scholar.

5 Herda (n. 4).

6 Ibid .

7 Fontenrose (n. 4), 60–1.

8 For the older scholarly view, see e.g. Farnell, L. R., The Cults of the Greek States, Volume 4 (Oxford, 1907), 145–8Google Scholar; and for the new, Graf, F., ‘Apollon Delphinios’, MH 36 (1979), 2–22 Google Scholar, and Gorman (n. 4), 169–71. The folk etymology for ‘Delphinios’ presented by the Homeric poet is, in short, as erroneous as the one given for ‘Pythian’ earlier in the poem (372–74), for which see Allen, T. W., Halliday, W. R., and Sikes, E. E., The Homeric Hymns (London, 1936), 251–2Google Scholar, for discussion.

9 The base of this altar is only 2 square metres in area.

10 Herda (n. 1 [2005]).

11 See e.g. Niemeier, B. and Niemeier, W. D., ‘The Minoans at Miletus’, in Betancourt, P., Karageorghis, V., Laffineur, R., and Niemeier, W. D. (eds.), Meletemata. Studies in Aegean Archaeology Presented to M.H. Wiener (Liège, 1999)Google Scholar; and Greaves, A. M., Miletos. A History (London, 2002), 65–9Google Scholar.

12 Scholion to Dionysus Periegetes 825.

13 Müllenhoff, M., Herda, A., and Brückner, H., ‘Geoarchaeology in the City of Thales: Deciphering Palaeogeographic Changes in the Agora Area of Miletus’, in Mattern, T. and Vött, A. (eds.), Mensch und Umwelt im Spiegel der Zeit. Aspekte geoarcheologischer Forschungen im östlichen Mittelmeergebiet (Wiesbaden, 2009)Google Scholar; and Brückner, H., Herda, A., Müllenhoff, M., Rabbel, W., and Stümpel, H., ‘On the Lion Harbour and Other Harbours in Miletos: Recent Historical, Archaeological, Sedimentological, and Geophysical Research’, in Frederiksen, R. and Handberg, S. (eds.), Proceedings of the Danish Institute at Athens 4 (Athens, 2014), 57–63 Google Scholar.

14 Gorman (n. 4), 169–71.

15 Callim. Branchos fr. 229, lines 12–13.

16 There is a textual problem at this point in the Hymn, where the Cretan singers are described; for full discussion, see below in the final section of this article.

17 Faraone, C. A., ‘An Athenian Tradition of Dactylic Paeans to Apollo and Asclepius: Choral Degeneration or a Flexible System of Non-Strophic Dactyls?’, Mnemnosyne 64 (2011), 206–31Google Scholar.

18 Hom. Il. 2.520.

19 Clay, J. S., The Politics of Olympus. Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns (Princeton, NJ, 1989), 87Google Scholar, disagrees, but can only cite Robertson, N., ‘The Myth of the Second Sacred War’, CQ 72 (1978), 49Google Scholar, for support. Here, once again, the newly underscored parallels with Miletos are instructive.

20 The remnants of Crisa eventually merged with or became the small city of Cirrha. Pausanias (10.37.6), for example, explains that in his day Crisa and Cirrha were essentially the older and newer names for the same small city.

21 Stationary paeans sung around altars and processional ones are both attested in the Greek world. See Rutherford, I., ‘Paeanic Ambiguity: A Study of the Representation of the Paian in Greek Literature’, QUCC 44 (1993), 77–92 Google Scholar.

22 Richardson (n. 2), 9–13. Along similar lines see Wade-Gery, H. T., ‘Kynaithos’, in Studies in Greek Poetry and Life. Essays Presented to Gilbert Murray (Oxford, 1936), 68–9Google Scholar, who likewise isolated nearly the same lines as an originally independent composition which he called the ‘Dolphin Song’.

23 See e.g. Allen et al. (n. 8), 186–93; West, M. L., ‘Cynaethus' Hymn to Apollo’, CQ 25 (1975), 161–70Google Scholar; Burkert, W., ‘Kynaithos, Polycrates and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo ’, in Bowerstock, G. W., Burkert, W., and Putnam, M. C. J. (eds.), Arktouros. Hellenic Studies Presented to B. M. W. Knox (Berlin, 1979), 53–62 Google Scholar; Miller, A. M., From Delos to Delphi. A Literary Study of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (Leiden, 1986), 111–17Google Scholar; Clay (n. 19), 18–19; Richardson (n. 2), 13–15; M. Chappell, ‘The Homeric Hymn to Apollo: The Question of Unity’, in Faulkner (n. 2), 59–81.

24 Richardson (n. 2), 9–13, stresses the importance of the triple catalogues. The poem includes a fourth cult foundation at Telephousa, but this has seemed to many readers to be a doublet of the Pythian foundation; in both Apollo must kill a local serpent before he can built a cultic site. There is, moreover, no catalogue of places connected with this cult.

25 Regardless of how they view the origins of the poem and its internal structure, most scholars would nowadays agree that a Panhellenic Delphic agenda has shaped the extant poem that has come down to us. See e.g. Nagy, G., The Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore, MD, 1979), 6–8 Google Scholar; Clay (n. 19), 47–9 and 92–4; Stehle, E., Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece (Princeton, NJ, 1997), 177–96Google Scholar; Malkin, I., ‘La fondation d'une colonie apollinienne: Delphes et l'hymne homérique à Apollon’, in Jacquemin, A. (ed.), Delphes cent ans après la Grande Fouille. Essai de bilan (Paris, 2000), 73Google Scholar; and Chappell (n. 23), 64–7.

26 For a thoughtful review of the controversy, see Chappell (n. 23).

27 Faraone, C. A., ‘On the Eve of Epic: Did the Chryses Episode in Iliad 1 Begin Its Life as a Separate Homeric Hymn?’, in Kliger, I. and Maslov, B. (eds.), Persistent Forms. Explorations in Historical Poetics (New York, 2015), 397–428 Google Scholar. For the ‘hymnic long-alpha’ and other clues to the origins of the opening scenes of the Iliad, see also Katz, J. T., ‘The Hymnic Long Alpha: Μούσας ἀείδω and Related Incipits in Archaic Greek Poetry’, in Jamison, S. W., Melchert, H. C., and Vine, B. (eds.), Proceedings of the 24th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference (Bremen, 2013), 87–101 Google Scholar; and Katz, J. T., ‘Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά and the Form of the Homeric Word for “Goddess”’, in Gunkel, Dieter and Hackstein, Olav (eds.), Language and Meter (Leiden, 2018)Google Scholar.

28 On the important parallels between the two hymns, see e.g. Miller (n. 23), 94, n. 243; and Richardson (n. 2), 134–5.

29 For olbios as a term for an initiate in mystery religions, see Richardson, N. (ed.), The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar, ad Hymn. Hom. Dem. 480–2 and ‘Orphic Gold Tablets’. For the similar use of makar to describe an ecstatic Dionysiac worshipper, see Eur. Bacch. 72 ff., with the comments of Dodds, E. R., Euripides. Bacchae (Oxford, 1944)Google Scholar, ad loc.

30 Hymn. Hom. 7, a poem of some fifty lines, has (according to modern editors) only two cruces, both places where the manuscripts suggest that the name of a person once stood there: that of the impious captain at the start of line 44 (the text gives us Mêdêdên) and that of the pious helmsman at the start of 55, where we find Diekatôr. For various emendations, see Allen et al. (n. 8), ad locc.; and most recently D. Giordani, ‘Διόνυσος αἰολόμορφος: osservazioni a proposito dell'Inno Omerico VII’, in R. Di Donato (ed.), Comincio a cantare. Contributi allo studio degli Inni Omerici (Pisa, 2016), 42–3, who accepts an emendation at line 44 but would dagger the name at 55.

31 Paus. 1.38.3 and 2.14.2–3.

32 Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2.669–713, quoted and discussed by Allen et al. (n. 8), 262–3, and Richardson (n. 2), 135.

33 Schol. ad Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2.684–7 = FHG 19 F48.

34 FHG 19 F7 with the comments of Lachenaud, G., Scholies à Apollonios de Rhodes (Paris, 2010), 288Google Scholar, n. 177.

35 Scholars generally ignore this awkward point in the poem. For example, all that Clay (n. 19), 82, has to say is: ‘Returning to the ship “quick as thought” Apollo puts aside his wondrous disguises and appears anthropomorphically as a kouros.’ Allen et al. (n. 8), ad loc., and Richardson (n. 2), ad loc., simply cite a handful of parallels from other theophanic scenes, but do not explain why there are more than one in the Hymn to Apollo.

36 Clay (n. 19), 85–6; Richardson (n. 2), 144.

37 Johnston, S. I., ‘Delphi and the Dead’, in Johnston, S. I. and Struck, P. (eds.), Mantikê (Leiden, 2005), 283–306 Google Scholar.

38 Clay (n. 19), 84–5.

39 See the comments by West, S., Hainsworth, J. B., and Heubeck, A. (eds.), A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey. Introduction and Books I–III (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar, on Od. 1.349.

40 Following Richardson (n. 2), loc. cit., against the traditional support of Allen et al. (n. 8), loc. cit., and others for the manuscript reading ‘Delpheios’.

41 Richardson (n. 2), ad 500. This formula is used at least once to refer to food more generally: see e.g. Hom. Od. 24.489.

42 Quoted and discussed ad loc. by Allen et al. (n. 8), 262–3, and Richardson (n. 2), who also note Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2.659, where the Argonauts erect a seaside altar, after an epiphany of Apollo.

43 This is a difficult passage which is missing a main verb: either ‘Apollo ordered’ the Cretans to do this or (less likely) ‘the poet [i.e. Homer] says’; none of the several emendations are satisfactory. Furthermore, we expect that the Cretans, rather than their descendants were the ones who settled Crisa at the direction of Apollo, presumably from an oracle on Crete itself.

44 Translation slightly adapted from Cherniss, H. and Helmbold, W.C., Plutarch's Moralia. Vol. 12. 920A–999B (London, 1957)Google Scholar.

45 Malkin (n. 25), 76–7.

46 Aeneas: Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.55.4; Cadmus: Parke, H. W. and Wormell, D. E. W., The Delphic Oracle (Oxford, 1956)Google Scholar, ii, no. 374.4–15.

47 Malkin (n. 25), 77.

48 Richardson (n .2), locc. cit.

49 See e.g. the remarks of Miller (n. 23), 98: ‘lines 502–512 are a thoroughly conventional patchwork of formulaic lines and phrases from the storehouse of epic diction’.

50 Huxley, G., ‘Cretan Paiawones ’, GRBS 16 (1975), 119–24Google Scholar.

51 The final lines of the narrative (538–44) are a bit corrupt, but in them Apollo seems to warn the Cretans not to speak or act insolently in times to come, lest they be subjugated to others, a warning that some commentators take to refer to the First Sacred War (c.590 bce), in which the Amphictyonic League conquered the people of Crisa and began to administer the sanctuary (see n. 54 below).

52 This suggestion, I should stress again, does not rule out a Unitarian interpretation of the poem; see, for instance, Miller (n. 23), 116: ‘such unity…does not preclude the possibility that two or more different poets created the original materials, out of which the extant whole was composed’ (my emphasis).

53 Burkert (n. 23); Janko, R., Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns. Diachronic Development in Epic Diction (Cambridge, 1982), 120–1Google Scholar and 126–32; and Richardson (n. 2), 14–15 and 151–2, generally support an early sixth-century bce date, after the First Sacred War, but see Clay (n. 19), 87–92 (the Sacred War is a ‘red herring’). Most recently Chappell, M., ‘Delphi and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo ’, CQ 56 (2006), 331–4Google Scholar, reviews the voluminous scholarship and argues against an early sixth-century date for the poem, but allows that some parts of the end of the poem might be later additions that do date to this period.

54 Wade-Gery (n. 22), West (n. 23), Burkert (n. 23), and Janko (n. 53), 112–15. See Chappell (n. 23), 72–3, for recent discussion.