Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Delphinia

（τὰ δελφίνια). A festival of the same expiatory character as the Apollonia, which was celebrated in various towns of Greece, in honour of Apollo, surnamed Delphinius, who was considered by the Ionians as their θεὸς πατρῷος. The name of the god, as well as that of his festival, must be derived from the belief of the ancients that in the beginning of the month of Munychion (probably identical with the Aeginetan Delphinius) Apollo came through the defile of Parnassus to Delphi and began the battle with Delphyné. As he thus assumed the character of a wrathful god, it was thought necessary to appease him, and the Delphinia accordingly were celebrated at Athens, as well as at other places where his worship had been adopted, on the sixth of Munychion. At Athens seven boys and seven girls carried olive-branches, bound with white wool (called the ἱκετηρία), into the Delphinium (Plut. Thes. 18).