6. We see then that notwithstanding the arbitrary license assumed by poets, the religious ideas respecting the Hyperboreans were every where preserved without the slightest variation. They were represented as a pious nation, abstaining from the flesh of animals, and living in perpetual serenity, in the service of their god, for a thousand years.(1181) “The muse,” says Pindar, “is not estranged from their manners. The choruses of virgins and sweet melody of the lyre or pipe resound on every side; and, twining their hair with the glittering laurel, they feast joyfully. Neither disease nor old age is the lot of this sacred race; while they live apart from toil and battles, undisturbed by the revengeful Nemesis.”(1182) Respecting their festivals, which were supposed to take place in the open air,(1183) it was related by Hecatæus the younger, of Abdera, that these were celebrated by three gigantic Boreadæ, whose songs and dances were accompanied by innumerable flocks of swans.(1184) But the strangest account is that of Pindar, that whole hecatombs of asses were sacrificed at these festivals:(1185) this however is borrowed from the real worship, from one of the sacred rites of Delphi, where asses were sacrificed at the Pythian festival.(1186) Lastly, the account given of the death of the Hyperboreans strongly reminds us of the rites of the Thargelia, and the leap at Leucate; we are told that, tired of a long existence, they leapt, crowned with garlands, from a rock into the sea.(1187) Chapter V. § 1. The Apollo of Tempe, Delphi, Delos, Crete, Lycia, Troy, Athens, and Peloponnesus, the same deity. § 2. Apollo Nomius of Arcadia rightly distinguished from the preceding. § 3. Apollo the father of Æsculapius likewise a distinct deity. § 4 and 5. Apollo not originally an elementary deity, or god of the sun. § 6. Origin of this idea. § 7. Rites of Apollo unlike those of the elementary deities. 1. Having treated of the extension and propagation of the worship of Apollo, and some of the most remarkable legends and fables connected with it, we next turn our attention to the nature and character of the religion itself.