104.
The same winter the Athenians purified Delos,
in compliance, it appears, with a certain oracle.
It had been purified before by Pisistratus the tyrant; not indeed the whole island, but as much of it as could be seen from the
temple.
All of it was, however, now purified in the following way.
[2]
All the sepulchres of those that had died in Delos were taken up, and for
the future it was commanded that no one should be allowed either to die or
to give birth to a child in the island; but that they should be carried over to Rhenea, which is so near to Delos
that Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, having added Rhenea to his other island
conquests during his period of naval ascendancy, dedicated it to the Delian
Apollo by binding it to Delos with a chain.The Athenians, after the purification, celebrated, for the first time, the
quinquennial festival of the Delian games.
[3]
Once upon a time, indeed, there was a great assemblage of the Ionians and
the neighboring islanders at Delos, who used to come to the festival, as the
Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and athletic and poetical contests took
place there, and the cities brought choirs of dancers.
[4]
Nothing can be clearer on this point than the following verses of Homer,
taken from a hymn to Apollo:—
“
Phoebus, where'er thou strayest, far or near,
Delos was still of all thy haunts most dear.
Thither the robed Ionians take their way
With wife and child to keep thy holiday,—
Invoke thy favour on each manly game,
And dance and sing in honor of thy name.
”
1
[5]
That there was also a poetical contest in
which the Ionians went to contend, again is shown by the following, taken
from the same hymn.
After celebrating the Delian dance of the women, he ends his song of praise
with these verses, in which he also alludes to himself:—
“
Well, may Apollo keep you all! and so,
Sweethearts, good-bye—yet tell me not I go
Out from your hearts; and if in after hours
Some other wanderer in this world of ours
Touch at your shores, and ask your maidens here
Who sings the songs the sweetest to your ear,
Think of me then, and answer with a smile,
“
A blind old man of Chios' rocky isle.
”
”
2
[6]
Homer thus attests that there was anciently a
great assembly and festival at Delos.
In later times, although the islanders and the Athenians continued to send
the choirs of dancers with sacrifices, the contests and most of the
ceremonies were abolished, probably through adversity, until the Athenians
celebrated the games upon this occasion with the novelty of horse-races.
Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
chapter:
chapter 1chapter 2chapter 3chapter 4chapter 5chapter 6chapter 7chapter 8chapter 9chapter 10chapter 11chapter 12chapter 13chapter 14chapter 15chapter 16chapter 17chapter 18chapter 19chapter 20chapter 21chapter 22chapter 23chapter 24chapter 25chapter 26chapter 27chapter 28chapter 29chapter 30chapter 31chapter 32chapter 33chapter 34chapter 35chapter 36chapter 37chapter 38chapter 39chapter 40chapter 41chapter 42chapter 43chapter 44chapter 45chapter 46chapter 47chapter 48chapter 49chapter 50chapter 51chapter 52chapter 53chapter 54chapter 55chapter 56chapter 57chapter 58chapter 59chapter 60chapter 61chapter 62chapter 63chapter 64chapter 65chapter 66chapter 67chapter 68chapter 69chapter 70chapter 71chapter 72chapter 73chapter 74chapter 75chapter 76chapter 77chapter 78chapter 79chapter 80chapter 81chapter 82chapter 83chapter 84chapter 85chapter 86chapter 87chapter 88chapter 89chapter 90chapter 91chapter 92chapter 93chapter 94chapter 95chapter 96chapter 97chapter 98chapter 99chapter 100chapter 101chapter 102chapter 103chapter 104chapter 105chapter 106chapter 107chapter 108chapter 109chapter 110chapter 111chapter 112chapter 113chapter 114chapter 115chapter 116
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
1 See HH Apoll. 146-50
2 See HH 3a.165-72
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.
show
Browse Bar
hide
Places (automatically extracted)
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.
Sort places
alphabetically,
as they appear on the page,
by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Delos (Greece) (7)Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Ephesos (Turkey) (1)
Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.
hide
References (57 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(11):
- W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, 1.26
- W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, 5.88
- W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, 6.97
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.59
- Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.58
- Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.59
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER CIX
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER XXIV
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER XLVIII
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.1
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1, 1.8
- Cross-references to this page
(14):
- The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, PANIONION Turkey.
- Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, ADVERBIAL COMPLEX SENTENCES (2193-2487)
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.2
- Thomas W. Allen, E. E. Sikes, Commentary on the Homeric Hymns, THE HOMERIC HYMNS IN ANTIQUITY
- Thomas W. Allen, E. E. Sikes, Commentary on the Homeric Hymns, THE NATURE OF THE HOMERIC HYMNS
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), AMPHIC´TYONES
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), DE´LIA
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), LUSTRA´TIO
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), PANIO´NIA
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), TYRANNUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CHIOS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), DELOS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), E´PHESUS
- Smith's Bio, Peisi'stratus
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(7):
- Apollodorus, Epitome, Apollod. Epit. E.6
- Apollodorus, Library, Apollod. 1.4
- Diodorus Siculus, Library, Diod. 12.58
- Strabo, Geography, Strab. 10.5
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Thuc. 1.13
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Thuc. 1.8
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Thuc. 5.1
- Cross-references in notes from this page
(1):
- Homeric Hymns, Hymn 3 to Apollo, 165
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(24):
- LSJ, Ἔφεσος
- LSJ, Δήλιος
- LSJ, ἄφημος
- LSJ, ἀγών
- LSJ, ἀνάγω
- LSJ, ἐφορ-άω
- LSJ, ἐναπο-θνῄσκω
- LSJ, ἐντίκτω
- LSJ, εἰς
- LSJ, γυμνικός
- LSJ, ἱππο-δρομία
- LSJ, κα^θαίρω
- LSJ, καθίζω
- LSJ, μουσι^κή
- LSJ, μουσι^κός
- LSJ, πεντ-ετηρίς
- LSJ, περικτίονες
- LSJ, πρίν
- LSJ, προοίμι-ον
- LSJ, θεωρ-έω
- LSJ, θήκ-η
- LSJ, σύνοδος
- LSJ, τεκμηρι-όω
- LSJ, χορός
hide
Search
hideStable Identifiers
hide
Display Preferences