The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2Müller, Karl Otfried
History
The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2
Müller, Karl Otfried
Dorians -- History; Greece -- Antiquities, Dorian; Greece -- History -- Dorian Invasions, approximately 1125-1025 B.C.
1. But whilst the worship of Apollo was experiencing so much opposition in
the north of Greece, the sea, with the neighbouring coasts and islands
afforded ample opportunities for its propagation from the shores of Crete.
This serves to account for the singular fact, that the most ancient
temples of Apollo throughout the south of Greece, are found in maritime
districts, and generally on promontories and headlands.
The colonies of Apollo branched out in various directions from the
northern coast of Crete, carrying every where with them the expiatory and
oracular ceremonies of his worship.(916) The remarkable regularity with
which these settlements were established cannot, however, be regarded as
the work of missions systematically carried on, or as part of the policy
of Minos.(917) They are to be accounted for by the natural desire of the
tribes of Crete, whilst migrating along the coast of the Ægean sea, to
erect, wherever they touched, temples to that god, whose worship was
blended with their spiritual existence.
We shall first advert to those settlements which (taking the coast of
Crete as our centre) were founded in the direction of LYCIA, MILETUS,
CLAROS, and the TROAD; the first and last of which were the most ancient,
the others being perhaps a century later.(918)
2. It is stated by Herodotus that Sarpedon migrated with some _barbarous_
nations from Crete to Lycia or Milyas.(919) This unsupported and singular
account is however probably not founded on tradition, the popular idea
being that he was a brother of Minos the Cnosian, whom it represented as a
prince of purely Hellenic blood. By these means the Cretan laws (that is,
the Doric customs, which had been first fully developed in Crete), and
also the Doric worship of Apollo, were spread over Lycia. For the
situation of the chief temples is a sufficient proof that the settlers of
Lycia came, not from the inland countries of Asia, but over the sea to the
coast. Xanthus, a city renowned for the valour of its inhabitants,(920)
and situated on the river of the same name, was a Cretan settlement.(921)
It seems to have been a Lycian tradition, that Xanthus was the father of
Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon:(922) in this town was a temple sacred
to Sarpedon;(923) but it is uncertain whether to the elder Sarpedon, the
brother of Minos, or to the younger, a hero of the same family mentioned
in Homer, whose corpse Apollo rescued from the Greeks, and conveyed to his
native country.(924) Apollo was also worshipped under the title of
Sarpedonius.(925) Sixty stadia below the town, and ten from the mouth of
the river Xanthus, was a grove sacred to Latona, near an ancient temple of
the Lycian Apollo.(926) To this spot the goddess had been conducted by
wolves; here also she had bathed her new-born babes in the river,(927) and
been hospitably received by an old woman in a wretched hovel.(928) These
are the only remains of the national tradition, which in its general
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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