ἄδμητος.(1333) How well does it suit the sublime character of the religious poetry in question, that the god, who had been polluted by the combat with the impure being, should be obliged, in order to complete his penance, to descend into the infernal regions. In confirmation of this, there have been preserved some obscure traditions, which represent Apollo as actually dying, that is, descending into the infernal regions.(1334) However, after eight years, the appointed time of bondage, the god wanders to the ancient altar of Tempe, where, sprinkling with laurel-branches, and other expiatory rites, symbolically restore his purity,(1335) After this, the purified deity returns by the same road to Deipnias, near Larissa, and there breaks his long fast. 9. These Delphian traditions in very early times became the theme of epic poetry, in which however another cause was assigned for the slavery of Apollo; it was represented as a punishment inflicted by Zeus for slaying the Cyclops, who forged the lightning with which Zeus struck his son Æsculapius, because, not satisfied with recovering the sick, he even recalled the dead to life.(1336) Yet some of the poets also state that Pheræ was the place of his servitude, alluding to the Pythian road, and mention a _great year_ (μὲγαν ἐνιαυτὸν) as the time of his bondage;(1337) by which they mean the Delphian period. We may perhaps find a trace of a more ancient tradition in the story of amber being a petrified tear, which Apollo shed during the time of his slavery in his ancient abode amongst the Hyperboreans, in the land of the Celts.(1338) The combat with Tityus is nearly allied to that with the Python. This earth-born monster, dwelling at Panopea, a town situated on the sacred road, and hostile to the Delphians, laid hands upon Latona when passing through that place: but her children soon overcome the ravisher, and send him to the shades below; where a vulture incessantly preys upon his liver,(1339) the seat of inordinate desire. 10. The hostile part of nature now lying vanquished, and quiet having gained the victory over disturbance, Apollo begins to exercise the other office for which he was sent into the world. He mounts the tripod of the Delphian oracle, no longer to give utterance to the dark responses of the earth, but to proclaim the “unerring decree of Zeus.”(1340) For it is evident that, in the language of this religion, fate was considered as the will of Zeus (Διὸς νοὸς, Διὸς αἴσα), who was at Delphi called Μοιραγέτης, “leader of fate;” whilst the epic poets, from their custom of making each god a separate individual, generally (though the glimmering of a more exalted idea may be sometimes traced) made Zeus, like all other individuals, subject to fate. The prophetic powers of Apollo will be more fully treated of in the following chapter. Chapter VIII.