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H. here winds up his Lydian history. This chapter shows Croesus in a new light, as a cruel Oriental prince (§ 4), and also gives a non-Delphian account of his oracular success (contrast c. 49). It clearly comes from another source. As it is not likely to be a later addition, it is probably a fragment of H.'s original material, which he has not worked into harmony with his narrative. The temple of Ismenian Apollo (cf. viii. 134. 1; v. 59) was just outside the city of Thebes, on the hill of St. Luke (Paus. ix. 10. 2 and Frazer, v. 40). Tripods were especially dedicated at it ( Pind. Pyth. xi. 4 “τριπόδων θησαυρόν”). Divination at it was by inspection of fire and ashes (cf. Soph. Ant. 1005-11). Every eight years it was the scene of the Daphnephoria, familiar from Leighton's great picture. Golden ‘cows’ were perhaps dedicated (as a symbol of fertility) to Artemis, as representing the great ‘Mother Goddess’ (cf. App. I, § 2). For the Artemision cf. Hogarth, Excavations at Ephesus, 1908, especially pp. 5-8, 245-6. The earliest shrine was probably at Ortygia, under Mount Solmissus, to the south of Ephesus; this was no doubt earlier than the Greek settlement (cf. Paus. vii. 2. 6, who rejects the statement of Pindar that it was founded by the Amazons; but παρθένοι were always associated with the cult); the earliest, near the city itself, dated from about 700; this was destroyed by the Cimmerians circ. 660 B.C. The next two temples followed rapidly, and then the famous one, which owed so much to Croesus, was begun about 550. It seems not to have been finished till about 430, and was destroyed by the arson of Herostratus in 356. Pliny (N. H. xxxvii. 98) states that the Hellenistic temple which followed had 127 columns, ‘a singulis regibus factae’ (obviously in contrast to αἱ πολλαί here). Hogarth (pp. 327 seq.) points out that the ‘many-breasted’ Artemis as a coin type seems to belong to Roman times, not to be archaic. Croesus' name can still be read on an Ephesian column-base in the B. M. (Cat. i. 29; Hicks, p. 7). Athena's temple at Delphi stood near the entrance to Apollo's; hence the epithet ‘of the fore-shrine’, which is confirmed by inscriptions (Ditt. i. 186). The same epithet is used of Athena and Hermes, in reference to the shrine of the Ismenian Apollo (Paus. ix. 10. 2). For A. Προναία at Delphi cf. viii. 37. 2 n., Aesch. Eum. 21, and Paus. x. 8. 6 (Frazer, v. 251). The epithet later was made Πρόνοια with an ethical significance (Farnell, G. C. i. 306).
H. had not seen the offerings at Branchidae; they no doubt perished when the temple was destroyed in 494 B. C. (cf. vi. 21 n.); the story that they were treacherously handed over to Xerxes by the people of Branchidae (Strabo, 634), who for this were massacred later by Alexander (Curtius, vii. 23; Strabo, 518), is to be rejected. On the similarity of weight and form, and on the supposed lack of Croesusinscriptions (but cf. 51. 5 n.) at Delphi, C. Niebuhr founds the wild theory that Croesus never gave gifts to Delphi at all, but that the Branchidae offerings were feloniously transferred thither, about the time of the Ionic Revolt (Mitt. der Vorder-As. Gesell. 1899, pp. 27-8). The whole article is a tissue of guesses and uncritical assumptions. ἀνδρός. His name was Sadyattes; cf. Nic. Dam. fr. 65, F. H. G. iii. 397, who says that he offended Croesus when crown prince by refusing a loan; Croesus then vowed to devote his property to Artemis, if he ever became king (cf. ἔτι πρότερον § 4).
Pantaleon may have been the elder, as Croesus was born in the twenty-third year of his father's reign (cf. 25. 1 and 26. 1). For the conspiracy cf. 51. 5 n.; Pantaleon perhaps had some Greek support, as being ἐξ Ἰάδος.
The κνάφος was an instrument of torture, like a fuller's comb; probably it resembled the mediaeval wheel for breaking criminals. Cf. Plat. Resp. 616 Α ἐπ᾽ ἀσπαλάθων κνάμπτοντες.
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