Chapter 2. This Is Where I Intend to Build a Glorious Temple [*]

Before making one of the most decisive pronouncements of his career, the young Apollo had experienced what it was to wander, for even before his birth, his doubly pregnant mother was forced to undertake a long march. [1] The story of this great god starts from humble beginnings. Apollo was born furtively, far from the fine dwellings of Olympus. He first saw the light of day in a remote corner of the Aegean Sea. His first steps were taken among people doomed to live “witless and helpless,” that is to say, mortals (Homeric Hymn to Apollo 191–192).

Apollo belonged to the race of Zeus. He knew it and let others know it. But in the first place, he was the son of Leto, Leto the fugitive, a pregnant mistress cast out to roam the highways and byways. Apollo’s mother was also of high lineage: she was the daughter of Phoebe, and the granddaughter of Sky and Earth, chosen by Zeus to give birth to the fairest and most powerful of his sons. For the time being, however, Leto was hounded by the jealousy of Hera (89–114), Zeus’ legitimate wife, and his third, following Metis and Themis. Leto travelled at night, like a she-wolf (some said she even took this form [2] ), beseeching in turn the plains, the mountains, and the islands to give her asylum, a home for her son, and to allow her to found a rich sanctuary (30–50). But all of them “greatly trembled and feared” (47). None had the {45|46} courage to take her in; the richest lands and the best-established sires were the first to decline the honor of welcoming the future Apollo. Only one island, the smallest and poorest of all, heeded Leto’s prayer and declared itself ready to become the land of Apollo (51–88).

That island was Delos, a rock lost amid the waves, a refuge for seals and octopuses. According to Callimachus, it was a kind of floating island, [3] but one that took root once it became the home and seat of the new god. Before committing itself, Delos hesitated for a moment: what if Apollo scorned it, dispatched it with a great kick to the bottom of the sea? Leto reassured the island and swore a great oath by the gods: this was where Apollo would make his home forever (66–73). [4]

There were nine days and nine nights of pain, amid a great gathering of goddesses, including some of the most noble; then Eilithyia, long detained by Hera, at last arrived, and the child burst forth into the light (89–126). Themis hastened to present the newborn infant with nectar and ambrosia (124–125). Already Leto’s son was feeling constrained in his swaddling bands, and now he asked for his lyre and his bow: “‘The lyre and the curved bow shall ever be dear to me, and I will declare to men the unfailing will of Zeus’” (131–132). Even as he let fly his first words, Apollo “began to walk (epibasken) upon the wide-pathed earth” (133). Then followed another long march that was eventually to lead the god to the chosen site where he would build “a glorious temple” (247–248). The Apollonian way of “creating a territory” was to be revealed by the actions and adventures that took place in the course of the journey from Delos to Delphi. [5]

Right from the start of the Hymn that associates the glory of Delos and the magnificence of the sanctuary in Delphi, Apollo cuts an impressive figure as a god on the move. His step rings out in the first two lines: “I will remember and not be unmindful of Apollo who shoots afar, for whom the gods tremble in the {46|47} house of Zeus as they hear him approach (ionta)” (1–2). [6] In the version of the story presented in the Homeric Hymn, Apollo the Archer impetuously claims precedence over Apollo the Lyre Player. The first sight of him as he arrives at Olympus is of a god brandishing (titainei) a curved bow (4). [7] This Apollo is characterized by strength, power, and even brutality. The assembled gods scatter before him, and his mother hastens to calm him down with soothing words, leading him to his seat and urging him toward his father (6–9). A little further on in the Hymn, Apollo’s second manifestation contrasts sharply with the first. The adolescent Apollo, with shoulder-length locks, [8] takes his first steps on the island of Delos, which is “laden with gold” in its joy at having been chosen as the home of the son of Zeus and Leto. The gaze of Phoebus, still called the Archer, now takes in Delos in all its festivity (147–176) and is delighted at the sight of the Ionians gathered there. The island is giddy with singing, dancing, and games: such is the grace of the Ionians’ performance that they could be mistaken for immortals who never age (150–151). Imperceptibly, amid this mixture of a vision and a manifestation, the gap between mortals and immortals shrinks away. To Apollo’s eyes, the festive crowd singing the god’s praises seems like a gathering of the gods on Olympus, engaged in the Muses’ songs and dances. [9] The god of the bow suddenly becomes Apollo the Lyre Player, as he heads for rocky Pytho, carried away by the music. As “swift as thought” (182–206), Apollo now speeds from earth to Olympus, to the house of his father, where he joins the other gods gathered there. This time, there is no fear or consternation: “The undying gods think only of the lyre and song” (188). To the sound of the lyre, the striding Apollo becomes a dancer “with a high, prancing step” (201). The Muses, the daughters of Memory, raise their lovely voices to hymn the joys of the Olympian gods and remind their listeners of the fate of those doomed to die (187–193). Up there on Olympus, fleeting resemblances melt away as snow in the sunshine: among themselves the gods are all too aware of the trials that beset those half-alive beings who are so inadequate that they can devise neither a remedy for death nor a way {47|48} of avoiding old age. There would come a time when a “distant” Apollo would take care to draw attention to the abyss separating the race of men from the Olympian gods. But for the time being this was simply an interlude under the signs of the bow and the lyre, the two instruments of power that the son of Leto claimed as his own.

The god then returned to Delos, from which he set out to accomplish a project that he was soon to announce explicitly, a project that involved building, establishing, and founding. The time had come to seek the right spot (215). A first quick look round (19–24): [10] Delos afforded a panoramic view. [11] At a glance Apollo could see all the provinces of his empire, Lycia, “lovely Maeonia and Miletus, charming city by the sea,” [12] with “a bird’s-eye view” [13] that ranged from the topmost peaks, taking in the mountain ranges, down to the valleys and the rivers flowing to the sea. Then he strode off, at a steady pace, exploring regions as yet unknown, crossing plains, hugging the coast, climbing hills: place names crowd one upon another in this wild landscape with overlapping paths. [14]

On the way to Crisa, three sites marked out the route of the god known throughout the Greek world as the god of paths, aguieus. [15] Leaving his birthplace, Apollo made his way over an as yet untouched space, crossing vast expanses, discovering blank, empty landscapes. First he came to Euboea, the Lelantine plain, a dreary wasteland: whoever would want to build a temple here (219–221)? Apollo rejected it and pressed on in the direction of Teumessus, making for Mycalessus. In fact, the seemingly featureless Euboean landscape did contain a site upon which an important Apollonian sanctuary had stood ever since the eighth century—over a century before the earliest possible date for this Hymn. This was the Daphnêphorion, the “temple of laurel,” discovered in Eretria by Swiss archaeologists. [16] As he marched on to the place where he would eventually carry out his intention of “building a glorious temple,” there {48|49} were no paths for Apollo to follow. The Lelantine plain was as empty of traces of human occupation as was the site of Thebes, the second vista to meet the eyes of Leto’s son. [17]

Here, a great forest covered the site of what would one day be Thebes of the Seven Gates, “for as yet no man lived in holy Thebes, nor were there tracks or ways about Thebes’ wheat-bearing plain: nothing but dense woods (hulê)” (225–228). [18] Apollo was the first to open up a path through this virgin forest, for these were primeval woods in which no human being had ever set foot, a wild forest nothing like the space of a “sacred wood” (alsos), a clump of trees or a grove [19] carved out and arranged in the manner of just such a sanctuary as Apollo, at various stages on his journey, declared he would himself be “constructing” (teukhein). [20] The second blank space encountered by Apollo was thus that of Thebes before Thebes existed, where there was as yet no sign of the great gods who were one day to live there: no sign of Cadmus’ grandson, Dionysus, or of the Apollo Ismenios who was to produce oracular signals of fire. [21]

At the time when Apollo was making his way from Euboea toward Onchestus, Thebes was still buried under a thick forest, buried there so deeply that, for the Greek memory, the very idea of the foundation of a city was always to be evoked by the name of Thebes, the Thebes of the twin brothers, Amphion and Zethus, who built its ramparts. [22] For the Town of the Seven Gates was, after all, the city where—according to Homer’s epic, echoing even more ancient Theban tales [23] —the autochthonous Spartoi, strange seedlings born from the earth, had mingled with the town’s true founders. {49|50}

Already Onchestus could be glimpsed (230–238), another site made famous by the Iliad and the list of emblazoned shields. [24] Poseidon’s sacred wood of Onchestus rose above the southern bank of Lake Copais. [25] Unlike the two previous sites, this third one was beautifully laid out. It was a “sacred wood,” manifestly the domain of the god of chariots and horses. [26] This was where Poseidon had set up headquarters to test how “newly broken colts” would react when, upon entering the wood, their drivers leaped down from the chariot, leaving the horses on their own to cope with the terror of the place and the chassis rattling behind them. For each of these Poseidonian animals, never harnessed to a noisy chariot before, this was a moment of truth. Left to its own devices, the horse would either pass calmly through Poseidon’s domain or else, disoriented by the absence of the driver and by the din made by the vehicle, the colt would be seized with panic and would smash the chariot against the trees. It would thus appear that, at the point when Apollo arrived at Onchestus on his way from Euboea, Poseidon was already ensconced there, busy exercizing a power that related to mankind and the human ability “to control a horse-drawn chariot.” In the shadow of the Lord of Onchestus, whose path was again to cross Apollo’s on more than one occasion, it is perhaps possible to detect the horse breeders of the land of Boeotia, a society evoked here as discreetly as were the Ionians dancing in their festive garments in the paved courts of Delos. On this long walk of Apollo’s, Poseidon was the only god, the sole Olympian that he was to encounter: his own uncle, with whom he would be sharing a number of fine, major foundations after first living alongside him at Delphi. As Gaiêokhos, “the Lord who holds and possesses the earth,” Poseidon seems to have been marked out for the role of a god of foundations, the one who is already there when any plan to build and lay foundations is first devised. {50|51}

Pushing on “further still” (239), leaving the wood of Onchestus behind, Apollo then came to the stream of Cephissus and the fields of Haliartus and was soon treading the turf of Telphusa (244). It was a peaceful, delightful place and Apollo decided to stop there. He spoke of the site, addressing the spirit of the place and announcing: “This is where I intend to build a glorious temple” (247–248). No sooner said than done; Phoebus began to lay out the foundations of the temple (diethêke themeilia) (254). They were to be vast and very long. But Telphusa’s voice interrupted this operation. It informed him of the hidden drawbacks to the site: the constant trampling of horses, the din of chariots and the busy crowd around them. Telphusa was twice as noisy as any Onchestus, the voice warned. In reality, as we discover—although Apollo at this point had no inkling of it—Telphusa wanted to keep all the glory of the site for herself, so she filled the ears of the builder-god with praises of another place, nearby, at the foot of the gorges of Parnassus: Crisa (255–276). [27]

Again Apollo moved on, travelling “yet further” (277). His first step brought him to the land of the Phlegyae, the first human settlement he had come across in the entire journey (278). The Phlegyae, “burning” with pride and presumption, were the very incarnation of the hubris that appeared to be the rule for mortals, as Apollo was to remark at the end of this Hymn (541). In them, hubris was so great that it was one day to cause every last one of them to perish in a mad attempt to loot the sanctuary of Apollo. [28] With one last stride, Apollo reached the foot of snowy Parnassus (281–282). The site seemed perfect, midway between the sea and the mountains, on a foothill facing south, with a deep valley below and steep rocks rising behind it.

“This is where I intend to build a glorious temple.” [29] The builder-god repeated the same words as before, but now they were intended for no recipient, as if this place were totally empty and belonged to nobody. Again foundations were laid down and construction began (294–295). Two architect brothers emerged from the shadows, Agamedes and Trophonius, and built {51|52} “a footing of stone” (296). [30] The building site hummed with activity, with a countless swarm of men working for Apollo as stonemasons (298). [31] The sanctuary of Delphi, founded at Apollo’s journey’s end, welcomed its founder and sanctioned the oracular powers that he would exercise: “In my oracles, I shall also reveal the infallible designs of Zeus” (292–293). The establishment of Apollonian prophecy in Delphi was all part of the plan to found and build a sanctuary there, as the young Apollo had announced while still in Delos (52). [32]

As a finder and a cutter of paths, Apollo behaved as a master of the roads, an aguieus, and as one who also possessed the art of clearing land. He had found his way through the great primeval forest covering the site of the future Thebes, where “there were no tracks or paths” (225–228). The Athenian tradition was also to associate land clearance with Apollo. The shortest route for Apollo to reach Delphi was bound to pass through Athens, as Aeschylus maintained in the prologue to the Eumenides: Challenging the tradition of the Homeric Hymn, the Athenians unequivocally laid claim to precedence: they were already there when Apollo was born in Delos. To commemorate their pioneering role either in the founding of the sanctuary or in the first link established between the oracle and a Greek city, the proud children of Hephaestus placed men carrying two-headed axes at the head of the official procession sent from Athens to Delphi. [34] {52|53} The “Pythais”—decreed by the appearance of a sudden flash of lightning in the sky—set out from the courtyard of the sanctuary of Pythian Apollo on the bank of the Ilissus and proceeded to Delphi by way of Eleusis and the Cithaeron road. [35] This, it was claimed, was the route earlier followed by the future Pythian god. The two-headed axes carried by Apollo’s first companions testified to the violence of the effort required to tame the wild space, civilize it, and lay foundations there.

There is one verb of action that links together all the feats performed by Apollo since he took his very first steps: ktizein. [36] This is the major term used for “foundation,” particularly the foundation of new cities, throughout the colonization of the western territories and the shores of the Black Sea, from the eighth century BCE onward. Ktizein operates on a double register: on the one hand it means to clear land, cultivate, tame; on the other, to construct, build, found. According to the Mycenean Linear В tablets, the predominant sense of terms derived from the radical kti- was ‘to clear, to prepare the ground, to sow, to plant’. The next documentation that we possess, from the eighth century, consisting of the Homeric poems, also testifies both to the sense of ‘to found, to construct’ and to that of ‘to clear land, to cultivate’. [37]

Land that is cleared and set in order becomes a domesticated precinct or a plantation: a well-tended (euktimenos) orchard, or a vineyard with neat rows of vines. [38] The same goes for any island or territory as soon as tilled fields transform the landscape, replacing the wild, uncultivated expanses where carnivorous beasts roam. [39] In contrast to the Cyclopes, who are godless, lawless brutes, wherever “eaters of bread” (the human race) settle, they immediately proceed to adapt the place for cultivation. What seems to be a natural impulse prompts them to clear the land, adapt it, and there create fields, orchards, houses, streets, and towns. All these activities are associated with ktizein, with whatever is well established, carefully designed, or handsomely constructed. [40] No distinction is made between town planning and the organization of fields and vineyards. Both are part of the same process, a process in which mythological and epic narratives were to distinguish a succession of stages. {53|54}

In epic memory, two great cities in particular were associated with the actions involved in the foundation of a town and territory: Thebes and Troy. Thebes of the Seven Gates, the city which, in the Hymn to Apollo, has not yet risen from the ground, played a pioneering role: the twins Amphion and Zethus “prepared the site (hedos ktizein), laid out the foundations and built the ramparts (purgos).” [41] The construction of the gates, the walls, and the main precinct followed hard upon the preparation of the site and the clearance of the territory around it. It was the Dioscuri of Thebes who, with considerable boldness, thus showed the way to build a city at the dawn of this age of civilization. [42] On the Trojan side, the task was divided between three master builders. Dardanus, descended from Zeus, founded (ktizein) Dardania; Ilus, the eponymous founder of Ilium, built the town (polin polizein), [43] while Poseidon, along with Apollo, under the reign of the unjust Laomedon, surrounded the city with a huge wall designed to render it impregnable. [44]

Every “founded” or “well-founded” (euktimenos) city was also a cleared territory, a land put under cultivation, a domesticated, civilized space transformed from its initially wild state. In his Inquiries, better known as Histories, Herodotus of Halicarnassus tells his Athenian audience, which was passionately keen on autochthony, many tales of the adventures of founding expeditions, of those who boldly, and in some cases rashly, went off to colonize, crossing unknown lands and seas, in order to found new cities that were destined to become great and powerful, in some cases too powerful. [45] For four centuries, the verb ktizein was to cover the whole gamut of civilizing activities, from the first efforts to clear a path, through to the city founder’s construction of architectural monuments.

In the Homeric Hymn in which we have been following his progress, Apollo the Clearer of Land eventually succeeds in founding a sanctuary on the site at Delphi. But nothing about this oracular sanctuary yet indicates the god’s future activity as a patron of foundations in general or the extreme {54|55} delight that he will take in founding a whole succession of cities. The notion of ktizein surfaces twice in the Hymn, both times in discreet fashion. It first appears in connection with Delos, the island that offers Leto hospitality. It is suggested when the birth of Apollo seems imminent and Delos has just heard Leto promise, by a great oath to the gods, that the island is to become the home, the “base” (51) where Zeus’ son means to set the foundations of a temple to which offerings will converge from all over the world. At this point, Delos is called “well founded” (euktimenê, 102), [46] since it is the base where it has been decided that Apollo will set up his home. The second allusion to the idea of ktizein is even more discreet. It is suggested by the quality of the material chosen for the construction of the first temple at Delphi: the masons at work on the building site use “chiseled” (ktistoi) stone, as befits a building of great worth (298). [47] Each of these stonemasons thus contributes to the excellence of this “foundation” and its construction.

At this point though, the clearer of land continues on his way, for at this early stage of his existence, Apollo is still engaged in his travels “over hill and dale.” As Aguieus in action, Apollo presides over aguia and the entire semantic field surrounding the verb agein ‘to lead, to guide’. Agos is the word for a leader, a chief, [48] and aguia, the past participle of agein, seems to mean ‘a path that goes somewhere’, a passageway, a way through, a route that leads from one point to another. [49] Apollo Aguieus, associated with the building of towns, would stand at the door of a house, a temple entrance, or a city gate. He would be represented there by an altar or a conical stone embodying the god, giving him a form. [50] As ancient glosses point out, the material object is the god himself, but fixed in a static position, at rest here within a space of movement. [51] {55|56}

The Iliad, which preceded the Homeric Hymn that tells the story of Delos and Delphi, describes Apollo operating in space in a more technological fashion than when he forges a path through the woods surrounding the future Thebes. Zeus’ plan requires that Apollo play a part in the war: the Trojans must keep up their pressure, the Achaeans must be assailed by fear of the enemy reaching the ramparts built around their camp. Apollo seeks out Hector, his protégé, who has just taken a nasty knock in a skirmish. He comes “up to him,” [52] promises to help him, inspires him with a great anger, and explains what he, Apollo, is now about to do: “I will go ahead of them, making the whole way smooth for their horses’ feet” (proparoithe kiôn … keleuthon pasan leianeô). [53] Stepping forward, Apollo then effortlessly flattens the embankment, toppling it into the moat and thereby creating a bridge over it, a long, wide causeway. [54] It is a divine kick that the island Delos has already had cause to evoke when welcoming Leto to its shores, in its fear that the proud Apollo might with a single kick dispatch such a humble island to the bottom of the sea (70–79). From the time of the Iliad on, Apollo is constantly demonstrating the force of his foot: he opens up before him a path as “wide as the space that a man covers with a spear-cast, when he is testing his strength.” [55] There was really no need to involve the axes of the Athenian land clearers. With a single kick, Apollo opens up a path, makes a road, scorning all obstacles: “He knocked down the Achaean wall like a boy at the seaside playing childish games with the sand, building a castle to amuse himself and then, with his hands and feet, destroying the whole work for fun.” [56]

In the Iliad, there are some walls that deserve to be destroyed, and Apollo flattens those of the Achaeans with all the greater assurance given that, when the Greeks dug the moat and built the ramparts, they forgot to offer the customary sacrifices to the appropriate gods. Poseidon had already lodged a complaint about this in terms so bitter that Zeus had felt obliged to promise his brother that one day soon the sea, with a single faultless wave, would obliterate all trace of the impious walls in question. [57] For now, though, Poseidon was biding his time. It was Apollo’s turn. {56|57}

The footfall of Apollo was certainly terrible. As he had approached the entrance to Olympus, it had made the gods there tremble (1–2). When the Argonauts, dropping with fatigue, landed “at break of day,” it was similarly Apollo’s step that made the island of Thynia shake. [58] In a single stride, Apollo could reach his goal as surely as an arrow let fly by the best of archers. [59] The minute he appeared in Cyrene, when he manifested himself in the sanctuary there, the chorus greeting him referred to his foot striking the temple door. [60] In Troad, at Smintheus, Strabo claims he saw him stepping on a rat. [61] Apollo reached his goal in a single stride. In the opening lines of the Iliad a dark figure is glimpsed. It is Apollo, angry, bending his bow, “and his descent was like nightfall,” [62] a swiftly moving god slipping past to take up position a little way from the ships, his bow at the ready. He appears again as a fleeting figure, in the cultural tradition of the fourth century: Apollo, the civilizing god, roaming the earth, keeping an eye on the human race, dissuading it from partaking of the wild nourishment that is a feature of the parades of Demeter at Triptolemus, in the Sulpician imagery of Eleusis. [63]

In the Homeric Hymn, Apollo, the walker and clearer of land, manifests a mode of action that is expressed by the compound verbal forms of the movement denoted by bainein. [64] This means ‘to go’, but not in the sense of to go and come back, nor of to depart; rather, it implies moving from one place to another or, to be more precise, bainein seems to mean ‘to place the foot firmly’, be it embarking or disembarking, scaling town walls or following in someone else’s tracks. [65] The gesture of bainein also implies a certain static dimension: “setting one’s foot” has a static connotation that is conveyed by a series of words derived from the same root: belos meaning ‘threshold’; bêma meaning ‘tribune’, the place to which an orator steps up, to speak; embas or bêla meaning a ‘shoe’ or ‘sandals’; bebêlos, a ‘trampled space’, sometimes with the sense of ‘profane’; and bebaios, whatever is ‘solid, securely placed’. [66] The first thing that Apollo does is take up a firm stance, stand solidly on his {57|58} two feet. This is the god who solidly supports or “protects” (amphibainein) Chriseis, in the Iliad, and Ismarus in the Odyssey. [67] Amphibainein can mean to be supported firmly on both sides, as in the case of Apollo providing a base and stability for a town or a territory.

In short, the step of Apollo possesses quite a range of specific characteristics; it passes over a boundary or obstacle; it secures a firm stance on the ground; it solidly establishes the path that it has opened up. His younger brother Hermes, also an excellent walker, has a quite different step. Although he steps over the threshold, away from his mother’s house, on the very night of his birth, he soon turns back and returns from his night of plunder, rubbing out his own tracks and reversing the hoof marks of the cattle he has stolen from the herds of the gods kept on the mountains of Pieria. [68] His tricks with footprints certainly succeed in bewildering Apollo when he sets out to track down the audacious thief.

A path trodden by Apollo was characterized by an end and a beginning. It was a path that reached its destination, a way opened up by a god whose every stride fashioned a “well-constructed” route, a path that was aguia, firmly cut (euktimena). [69] Apollo Aguieus presided over the civilizing power that roads and paths possessed in the organization of a territory. It is well known how important this was to Greek cities. [70] In Sparta it was the kings, the two of them, who held jurisdiction over everything to do with “public roads” (hodoi dêmosiai). [71] Meanwhile, in Attica, it was the yokers of oxen, the Buzyges, who in their own way exercized a jurisdiction that closely resembled that of the “king” or archon who dealt with defilement resulting from blood shed on the ground: when such defilement occurred, they called down curses, proclaiming the great importance of roads constructed for the protection of “civilized life,” a life that also depended on the sharing of water and fire. [72] Just as in the English language roads are “constructed,” in Greek they were “cut” (temnein). [73] Only barbarians such as the Scythian nomads lived {58|59} in territories where no roads were “cut.” [74] It was altogether in the order of things that a city’s land should be subject to such “cutting,” and this would be entrusted to experts who were well aware of Apollo’s authority in this domain. [75] Moreover, Greek roads were not only “cut” but also “constructed” (demein, eudmêtos), [76] just as a tool, a wall, or a dwelling was.

In the version of the Hymn, which tells not only of the establishment of an oracle but also of Apollo’s decision “to build a glorious temple” on the same spot, once the god reaches the foot of Parnassus, he himself lays the first stone for the foundations of his sanctuary. Apollo is his own architect. Helpers, from the surrounding area, then hurry to assist him: first, the threshold layers, Trophonius and Agamedes, then the stonecutters. The temple of stone is the first to be built. In contrast, in the tradition recorded by Раusanias when he visited Delphi, the temple of stone was the last to be built, after three other kinds of materials had been tried. First there had been a hut of laurel branches, next a construction of wax and wings, then a building of bronze. Apollo remains in the background in that version. [77] The god of the oracle is set apart from the architect god. [78] An architect called Aguieus, from the land of Hyperboreans, is claimed to have built Apollo’s first temple, [79] although we are not told whether it was made from plaited branches of laurel collected in the valley of Tempe, where Apollo was supposed to have gone to purify himself {59|60} after slaying the Python. [80] The Hyperborean Aguieus bears the same name as Apollo the Walker. He arrives accompanied by Pagasus, another Hyperborean, [81] whose name evokes another aspect of Apollo, the god known as Pagasios, from Pagasae in Thessaly, from which the expedition of the Argonauts set out. [82] The Apollo suggested by Pagasus was a god of sea voyages: the god who showed Jason the paths of the sea, he was also an angry god.

The road leading to the sanctuary of Delphi was impassable. Swan (Kuknos), [83] fathered by Ares, was in the habit of attacking and robbing those taking great hecatombs to Python. [84] This armed Swan waged relentless war on the devotees of Apollo. It was in the temple of the god of Pagasae that Heracles challenged this son of Ares, putting a stop to his murderous activities. Heracles was fighting in the service of Apollo, and the anger of the god of Pagasae was so great that he ordered the river Anaurus, swollen by torrential {60|61} rain, to sweep away all trace of the tomb built in honor of Swan by his followers. [85] Pagasus, the companion of Aguieus and the second architect from the land of the Hyperboreans, is perhaps intended to convey, through the tales of Pagasae, a reminder of how hateful and fatal is the presumption of those who thwart the right of routes to be freely used and trodden by all who respect Apollo Aguieus and his network of paths that link houses, sanctuaries, and cities throughout the civilized world. [86]

According to Pindar, who knew what he was talking about, the Hyperboreans were distant and mysterious: “And traveling neither by ships nor on foot could you find the marvelous way to the assembly of the Hyperboreans.” [87] The Hyperboreans were inaccessible—whereas all roads led to Delphi—and not only did they produce architects but they were also given to following the long roads and paths taken by processions. [88] They carried ceremonial offerings over long distances and, by reason of their long travels along sacred ways, mythically they came to symbolize the routes known as “Pythian,” “Daphnephoric” or—rather less commonly—“lithophoric.” [89] However, in that the offerings that they carried consisted of conical or square stones rather than straw, sheaves of wheat, and laurel branches, the Hyperboreans seem somewhat out of step with the other sacred processions that passed along these routes.

In Miletus, in the heart of Ionia, a brotherhood known as “the Singers” (Molpoi) [90] exercised a partly political, partly religious power within the sphere of the poliad god, Apollo Delphinios. Toward the end of the sixth century BCE, each year, when spring returned and with it Apollo, a procession would set out from Miletus for Didyma. [91] It followed a route marked out by a whole string of toponyms, sanctuaries, and other proper names. The journey was {61|62} punctuated by special songs and sacrifices. Members of the Molpoi brotherhood carried along two stones known as gulloi. [92] The first was set up close to Hecate, “the Hecate standing at the gates” at the entrance to the city. [93] This gullos-stone was crowned and anointed with pure wine, in honor of the deity who possessed an altar within the shelter of the sanctuary of Apollo of Miletus. [94] Seventeen kilometers further on, the second stone was deposited before the gates of the sanctuary of Apollo at Didyma. [95]

These conical or rectangular stone gulloi probably took the form of pillars similar to those that embodied the presence of Apollo Aguieus, the deity of the roads and paths that led from one place to another. Used as altar stones, they marked out the route linking two temples of Apollo, the sacred way taken by the priests of the Delphinios, who officiated at the ceremonies or orgia described on the stele. These stone gulloi that were carried the whole way along the Apollonian route, from one end to the other, represented the aguieus god, the very one that Pausanias noticed, in rectangular form, in Megalopolis [96] and also, in conical form, standing above the path opened up by Battus of Cyrene, at the spot where this reached the entrance to the sanctuary raised in honor of Apollo, the deity of foundations (Arkhêgetês), who had himself helped Battus the Stammerer to found the city. [97]

These stones came in a wide variety of shapes. Whether as roadside milestones, altar stelae in transit, or monumental cones deposited at the entrance to some sanctuary, [98] they all testified to the powers of Aguieus the Architect, who followed in the footsteps of Apollo so as at last to reach the site of the Delphic oracle. Whether known as Aguieus or as Pagasus, Apollo’s architect operated as a builder, but also, in a more ritual fashion, as a lithophoros, а bearer of stones whose first task was to create “well built” and “solidly constructed” thoroughfares in the manner of Apollo. An echo of these lith- {62|63} ophoroi seems detectable in the college of the semiophoroi or Bearers of Signs, who were the companions of Apollo the Founder at Hierapolis in Phrygia. [99]

Roads, roadside altars, sanctuaries, temples with altars, gates, and walls are all constructions befitting a god who, as he took his very first steps, had announced that he wished “to make a dwelling” (oikia thesthai, 46) [100] and who, on his long march, more than once declared: “This is where I intend to build a glorious temple.” Apollo displayed an innate taste for monumental constructions. In the Iliad, his humiliated priest, praying to him as he proceeds along the beach, bearing the god’s scepter and wearing his ornaments, [101] testifies to the care he has always lavished upon the dwellings of Apollo: “if ever I raised a roof for a shrine that delighted you, if ever I burnt you the fat thighs of a bull or a goat.” [102] The roof constructed by Chryses may not have been fashioned from the indestructible beams of cypress wood that the Alcmeonids presented to the god of Delphi with a level of pomp and ceremony that the Greek world would never forget; but it would at least have been the kind of highly finished roof that one from time to time finds commemorated in archaic dedications. [103] In Thessaly, on a stele dating from about 550 BCE, two characters claimed the credit for constructing a roof: the one for setting it in place; the other for assembling it, which probably meant bolting its rafters together. [104] Meanwhile, in the Granicus region, midway between Cyzicus and Lampsacus, another dedication, carved in the fluting of an Ionic pillar, commemorated the fact that somebody (who remains anonymous, on account of a break in the stone) had made a covering for a sanctuary, aided—it is true—by his companions, who paid the costs out of the temple’s income and the proceeds collected from the sale of the pelts of sacrificial victims. [105] {63|64}

Apollo’s many temples boast not only high rafters and impressive roofs, but also large and imposing thresholds, made of a single slab of stone, no doubt very like the one set in place by Trophonius and Agamedes. [106] The threshold was the largest stone in the whole building and it was “around the threshold” that the stonemasons then proceeded to construct the temple walls. A threshold could be as much as six meters long and two wide and might weigh about ten tons, [107] as did that of the fourth-century temple at Delphi itself. It is the most frequently mentioned part of Apollonian temples. Agamemnon stepped across the threshold when he came to consult the oracle, as Demodocus recalls in the palace of the Phaeacians. [108] When Croesus is set free, it is upon the threshold of Apollo that he lays down the chains of his bondage. [109] It was on the threshold too, that suppliant murderers would sit, awaiting the coming of the god of Cyrene. [110] The archaic words used for threshold reflect two aspects of Apollo’s behavior: houdos refers to the firm support upon which the architect was to base his building; bêlos conveys the imprint of the foot placed there, ensuring a steady stance. [111]

Walls and cities belong to the domain of the Apollo, who declares himself to be a founder and creator of cities. But, to look no further than the setting in which the Homeric Hymn begins, the first architectural forms that Apollo brings into being in his wake are altars. In her very first words, designed to elicit the island’s hospitality, Leto refers to altars. Delos alone will be known for the fragrant altars set all around Apollo’s home: “All men will bring you hecatombs and gather here and incessant savor of rich sacrifice will always arise” (57–58). Leto makes Delos a solemn promise: “Phoebus shall have here his fragrant altar and precinct” (87–88). Yet Leto can do nothing to alter the fact that, however indissociable from Apollo the place where he lives may be, equally so is the impulse that carries him away from it. {64|65}

The first step in his travels was Telphusa, where Apollo conceived the plan of establishing an oracle and an altar that was as “well built” (eudmêtos, 271) as a well-cut road or path. The site’s jealousy put an end to the idea, but later Apollo was to return there to confound the site of Telphusa by building himself a sacred altar smack in the middle of the sacred wood, close to the spring. Before that altar, all would hail him as the Apollo of Telphusa, so that the humiliation of the jealous nymph would never be forgotten (384). Once Apollo had reached Crisa and built his temple there, those altars were indeed constructed, and they did attract showers of sacrificial offerings (289), just as Leto had promised when she declared “incessant savor of rich sacrifice will always arise” (57–58). [112] A well-designed altar testified to the skill of its founder. At this table and in this precinct Apollo, always partial to sacrificial victims, proceeded to organize the first sacrifice, with the cult’s own officiating priests and instruments and all its own rituals. It was an inaugural scene that did justice to a god explicitly recognized—later, but with retroactive force [113] —as the highest of all patrons of “consecrations” (hidruseis), that is to say, of the founding of cults, festivals, and sacrifices throughout the entire Greek world.

Contemplating his oracular sanctuary, Apollo paused to consider: who could he bring there to officiate as orgiônes (389–390) for his Pythian cult? The forests through which he had passed and the lands that he had crossed had been deserted, with no sign of human inhabitants. The only people glimpsed, in the distance, had been Phlegyae, consumed by an insane pride. He would have to look elsewhere, out to sea: there, a ship appeared, carrying Cretans from Cnossos. These would be the ministers of his cult and would perform the sacrifices (hiera … rhezein) and make known the themistes, the “founding words of the oracle” (393–395). No sooner had he come to this decision than Apollo assumed the form of a dolphin and leaped up on to the ship’s bridge. The crew was breathless with surprise at this marvel (400–406). The great dolphin steered the ship (421), with the wind blowing it ahead on a trajectory that defied the common sense of nautical lore (421–437). When Crisa hove into view, Apollo rose up, shining like a star. Flames caught in the sanctuary’s fires, and he made his way in through a double row of tripods. The people of Crisa, suddenly thronging the sacred way, were terrified. With the shrill cries of an ololugê, the women and girls greeted this manifestation of Apollo {65|66} (440–447). Their cries heralded the sacrifice and killings that were soon to take place amid the tripods. [114]

Already Apollo was busy. He welcomed the strangers who had come there by “watery paths” and invited them to disembark, ekbainein (451–457). [115] Then he told them what to do: “Light fire upon the altar” (pur epikaiein); “make an offering of white meal” (alphita leuka thuein); “next, stand side by side around the altar and pray” (eukheisthai … paristamenoi peri bômôn, 490–492). This was the first altar to be used. It needed a name: “In as much as … I sprang upon the swift ship in the form of a dolphin (delphinos), pray to me as Apollo Delphinus; also, the altar itself shall be called Delphinus and [visible] and overlooking for ever” (495–496). [116] His last advice to his future ministers was to “sup and pour an offering to the blessed gods who dwell on Olympus. [Then, having eaten,] come with me, singing the hymn Iê Paean, until you come to the place where you shall keep my rich temple” (458). [117]

Apollo had spoken. The Cretans knew what they had to do. Now it was up to them, and they followed Apollo’s instructions to the letter: they built an altar, made the first sacrifice, gave a name to the god of the territory, and then dined together without forgetting libations for the Olympians (502–512). It was an inaugural moment for the human race, which was making its first appearance in the territory that Apollo had prepared. The scene for the sacrifice was already set: materials for the altar were ready; the wood for the fire awaited; the cereal grain was there. No inventiveness was required, either for lighting the fire or for finding the cereals. [118] All the necessary instruments and ingredients were to hand, concomitant with Apollo’s declared desire to see “the rites performed” (hiera rhezein, 394). Those responsible for performing the rites immediately set to work, completing in the correct order all the operations listed by their host. Then, having eaten, the Cretans set off, headed by the “prancing, high-stepping Apollo,” playing his lyre (514–516). [119] {66|67}

On that seashore altar there had been no suggestion of any blood sacrifice of animals. The time for hecatombs and “rich smoke” offered up to the god would come later. In that first ritual the offering had consisted of cereals consumed directly by the fire on the altar, a pure altar fed by barley grain that was not shared by those officiating. The Cretans dined separately among themselves, not forgetting to pour a libation for the gods. However, at the Delphic site, in front of, if not inside the temple of Pythian Apollo, the ministers from Crete were to perform sacrifices of a quite different nature. Just as they were wondering what kind of life awaited them in this rocky place bereft of vines or pastureland, Apollo gave them new orders, telling them: “Though each of you with knife in hand should slaughter (sphazein) sheep continually, yet would you always have abundant store” (535–536). Here were the promised hecatombs, the savors of meat, the pleasures of sacrificing rich victims drawn there by the centripetal force of this second altar, constructed at the same time as the temple was set upon its vast foundations. Furthermore, in this second sacrificial scene, the principal agent was no longer the “visible” (epopsios) altar fire, but a sacrificial knife, deployed openly rather than being concealed, as was customary, in a basket, hidden by the cereal grain. The bloody knife was here allowed full visibility, for Apollo sanctioned it with solemn violence.

Those two altars in the Apollonian Delphic landscape stood in contrast to each other by virtue of the manner of their inauguration. There were two other Apollonian altars that were similarly opposed in Delos, which had no oracle but was nevertheless rich in altars and sacrificial offerings. In Delos, in particular, Apollo reigned over an altar that was famous for the simple, natural offerings brought to it from every side. This Apollo, known as Genetôr, received on his table only “the pure fruits of the earth”: barley and cakes; mallow and asphodel. [120] It was said that this was the altar to which Pythagoras came, to do homage to the god beloved above all others. [121] No animal sacrifices were ever made here, for it was a “pure” altar, untouched by blood. But it was situated “behind” another, [122] known as Keratôn, which was an altar of horns, constructed by Delian Apollo from the interwoven horns of goats and fed by sacrifices of the most bloody kind. [123] {67|68}

The Homeric Hymn presents us with one last image, at the end of the road from Delos: positioned before the altar of his magnificent temple, the god promises his ministers that in the right hand of each there will always be a sacrificial knife. This final violent note echoes two from the beginning of the Hymn. The first was that struck by the demeanor of the young god as he burst into Olympus with his bow at the ready, in the full force of his anger (4–6). It was a hint of violence that the text then repeats and amplifies when Delos confesses its fears to Leto: “They say that Apollo will be one that is very haughty and will greatly lord it among gods and men” (180). The meaning of atasthalos is ‘one with a limitless pride’, like the Titans who tried to oppose heaven and stand up to Zeus; and prutane means ‘one who domineers’, always determined to impose his own will. He was certainly a violent god, this walker and builder of altars and temples who came to install himself on the heights above Crisa. {68|}