7. The battle with the Python being finished,(1323) Apollo himself breaks the laurel, to weave a crown of victory.(1324) Here too he was said first to have sung the pæan, as a strain of triumph. In the dramatic exhibition, by which the Delphians represented the adventures of Apollo, the Pythian strain (νόμος Πύθιος) was here introduced. This air, which was originally nothing more than a simple melody, soon received all the embellishment of art; and, being raised by Timosthenes to the dignity of a great musical composition,(1325) was (contrary to the ancient custom) performed with flutes, lyres, and trumpets, without the accompaniment of the voice. The accounts concerning this festival are indeed copious, but unluckily of too late a date to give us an idea of its ancient and genuine character. In Plutarch’s time(1326) it was not a hollow serpent’s den, but an imitation of a princely house (καλιὰς), that was erected in a court (ἅλως), at every octennial festival.(1327) Into this building the women of a Delphian family(1328) led the boy by a secret passage (δολωνεία) with lighted torches, and fled away through the door, overturning the table, and setting fire to the house. 8. Although the destruction of the Python is characterized as a triumph of the higher and divine power of the deity, yet the victorious god was considered as polluted by the blood of the monster, and obliged to undergo a series of afflictions and woes. Tradition represented him as going immediately after the battle by the sacred road to Tempe; which the boy, who personified Apollo, afterwards took as leader of the religious procession.(1329) The direction of this road has been accurately stated above. The chief circumstance in this wandering was the bondage θήτευσις of Apollo under Admetus the Pheræan, to which the god subjected himself in order to expiate his guilt. This too was represented by the boy, who probably imitated the manner in which the god, as a herdsman and slave, submitted to the most degrading services.(1330) Perhaps it was the piety of Admetus, celebrated in tradition, which entitled him to the privilege of possessing such a slave; yet it must be doubted, whether, conformably to the spirit of the ancient mythology, an ideal being, and not a mortal hero, was not originally intended to be represented under this name. Ἄδμητος is an usual name for the god of the infernal regions; to whom, according to the original idea, Apollo became enslaved. The worship of this deity is connected with that of Hecate, who was called θεὰ Φεραία, and the daughter of Admetus.(1331) Cannot we, in the rescuing of Alcestis from the infernal regions by Apollo(1332) and Hercules, find some clue which may lead us to suppose that the fable of Admetus refers to a worship of the infernal deities? An ancient dirge, called the song of Admetus, was chanted in Greece, having, as was pretended, been first sung by Admetus at the death of his wife, originally perhaps addressed to Αἵδες