Apollo
is Abaddon
or Apollyon: the Muses
serve him and are the locusts or musical performers of
Revelation.
See
how INSTRUMENTAL
CHURCHES appeal to the
paganism defined by Strabo as authority for instrumental music in the
Christian system.
A.
Ralph Johnson in Instrumental Music, Sacred or Sinful.
1. Tom
Burgess in Documents
on
Instrumental Music
reviewed.
Psallo and Instrumental Music: Proofs do
not prove anything but the "music-homosexuality" connection.
See
more
on Strabo's
definition of the worship of Apollo or
Abaddon or Apollyon: his
MUSES are the locusts or musical performers in the book of
revelation.
2.
Tom
Burgess More Review of Plutarch: if
Psallo authorizes "church music" it authorizes a homosexual
gathering.
3.
Tom
Burgess on Moralia
confirms the
"Music-Heresy-Perversion" connection
which has no historical exception. 10/20/04
4.
Tom
Burgess on John Chrysostom: are the
anti-instrumentalists ignorant rurals?
10/21/04
What
about Paul and Martin
Luther and John Calvin and Zwingli and--everyone who believed the
Bible as authority.
5. Tom
Burgess on Kurfees versus Thayer and
Grimm: Quotes
from: G. C. Brewer, A Medley on the Music
Question, Gospel Advocate, Nashville 1948. Burgess uses the same
Krewson arguments. LATEST
11/06/05
Charles
Daily Northwest
College of the Bible Part
One
..... Part
One A
.....Part
Two
.... THRESKIA or CHARISMATIC
Homer's
Hymn to Apollo.
Apollo is the father of musical harmony.
Melody or
"psallo" speaks of his "twanging his bowstring to sind singing arrows
into the literal heart. He is the father of "far shooting arrows"
including love darts. He is the father of liars and thieves. In his
good nature he is the father of purification or purging.
From the Britannica: Apollo: by name Phoebus,
in Greek religion, a deity of manifold function and meaning, the most
widely revered and influential of all the Greek gods. Though his
original nature is obscure, from the time of Homer onward he was the
god of divine distance, who sent or threatened from afar; the
god who made men aware
of their own
guilt and purified them of it; who
presided over religious
law and the
constitutions of cities;
who communicated to man through prophets and oracles
his knowledge of the future and the will of his father, Zeus.
Even the gods feared him,
and only his father
and his mother, Leto, could endure his presence. Distance, death, terror, and awe were
summed up in his symbolic
bow;
a gentler side of his
nature,
however, was shown in his other attribute, the lyre, which
proclaimed the joy of
communion with Olympus
(the home of the gods) through music, poetry, and dance.
In humbler circles he was
also a god of crops
and herds, primarily as a divine bulwark against wild animals
and disease,
as his epithet Alexikakos (Averter of Evil) indicates. His forename
Phoebus means "bright" or "pure," and the view became current that
he was
connected with the sun.
Helios in his chariot (Greek: "Sun"),
in Greek religion, the sun god. He drove a chariot daily from east to west
across the sky and sailed
around the northerly stream of Ocean each night in a huge cup. In
classical Greece, Helios
was especially worshiped in Rhodes, where from at least the early 5th
century BC he was regarded as the chief god, to whom the island
belonged. His worship spread as he became increasingly identified
with other deities, often under Eastern influence.
From
the 5th
century BC, Apollo,
originally a deity of radiant purity, was more and more interpreted
as a sun
god.
During the Roman
Empire the sun
itself came to be worshiped as the Unconquered Sun.
Among Apollo's other epithets
was Nomios
(Herdsman), and he is said to have served King Admetus of Pherae in
the lowly capacities of groom and herdsman as penance for slaying
Zeus's armourers, the Cyclopes.
He was also called Lyceius, presumably
because he protected the flocks from wolves (lykoi);
because herdsmen and
shepherds beguiled
the hours with
music, scholars
have argued that this
was Apollo's
original
role.
Though the most Hellenic
of all gods, Apollo
apparently was of foreign origin, coming either from somewhere north
of Greece or from Asia. Traditionally, Apollo and his twin, Artemis,
were born on the isle
of
Delos. From
there Apollo went to Pytho
(Delphi),
where he slew Python, the dragon that guarded the
area. He established his oracle by taking on the guise of a
dolphin,
leaping aboard a Cretan ship, and forcing the crew to serve him.
Thus Pytho was renamed
Delphi after the dolphin
(delphis), and the Cretan
cult of Apollo Delphinius superseded that
previously established there by Earth (Gaea).
During the Archaic period
(8th to 6th century
BC), the fame of the Delphic oracle spread as far as Lydia in
Anatolia and achieved pan-Hellenic status. The god's medium was the Pythia, a local woman
over fifty years
old, who, under
his inspiration,
delivered oracles in the main temple of Apollo.
The oracles were subsequently interpreted and versified by priests.
Other oracles of Apollo existed on the Greek mainland, Delos, and in
Anatolia, but none rivalled Delphi in importance.
Of the Greek festivals in
honour of Apollo, the
most curious was the octennial Delphic Stepterion, in which a boy
reenacted the slaying of the Python and was temporarily banished to
the Vale of Tempe.
Although Apollo had many
love affairs, they
were mostly unfortunate: Daphne, in her efforts to escape him, was
changed into a laurel, his sacred shrub; Coronis (mother of
Asclepius) was shot by
Apollo's twin,
Artemis, when
Coronis proved
unfaithful; and Cassandra (daughter of King Priam of Troy) rejected
his advances and was punished by being made to utter true prophecies
that no one believed.
In Italy Apollo was
introduced at an early date
and was primarily concerned, as in Greece, with healing and
prophecy; he
was highly revered by the emperor Augustus because the Battle of
Actium (31 BC) was fought near one of his temples.
...........
In art Apollo was
represented as a beardless
youth,
...........
either naked or robed, and often
holding either a bow
or a
lyre.
........... Introductory notes from the Britannica about
Apollo
-Strabo, Geography 9.3.1
III. [1] After Boeotia and
Orchomenus one comes
to Phocis; it stretches towards the north alongside Boeotia, nearly
from sea to sea; it did so in early times, at least, for in those
times Daphnus belonged to Phocis, splitting Locris into two parts and
being placed by geographers midway between the Opuntian Gulf and the
coast of the Epicnemidians. The country now belongs to the Locrians
(the town has been razed to the ground), so that even here Phocis no
longer extends as far as the Euboean Sea, though it does border on
the Crisaean Gulf. For Crisa itself belongs to Phocis, being situated
by the sea itself and so do Cirrha and Anticyra and the places which
lie in the interior and contiguous to them near Parnassus--I mean Delphi, Cirphis,
and Daulis--and
Parnassus
itself which
belongs to Phocis and forms its boundary on its western side. In the
same way as Phocis lies alongside Boeotia, so also Locris
lies alongside Phocis on either side; for Locris is double, being
divided into two parts by Parnassus, the part on the western side
lying alongside Parnassus and occupying a part of it, and extending
to the Crisaean Gulf, whereas the part on the side towards the east
ends at the Euboean Sea. The Westerners1 are called Locrians and
Ozolae; and they have the star Hesperus engraved on their
public seal. The other division of inhabitants is itself also
divided, in a way, into two parts: the Opuntians, named after their
metropolis, whose territory borders on Phocis and Boeotia, and the
Epicnemidians, named after a mountain called Cnemis, who are next to
the Oetaeans
and Malians. In the middle between both, I
mean the
Westerners and the other division, is Parnassus, extending lengthwise
into the northerly part of the country, from the region of Delphi as
far as the junction of the Oetaean and the Aetolian mountains, and
the country of the Dorians which lies in the middle between them. For
again, just as Locris, being double, lies alongside Phocis, so also
the country of the Oetaeans together with Aetolia and with certain
places of the Dorian Tetrapolis, which lie in the middle between
them, lie alongside either part of Locris and alongside
Parnassus and the country of the Dorians. Immediately above these are
the Thessalians, the northerly Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and some
of the Epeirote and Macedonian tribes. As I was saying before,2 one
should think of the aforementioned countries as ribbon-like
stretches, so to speak, extending parallel to one another from the
west towards the east. The whole of
Parnassus is
esteemed as sacred, since it has caves and other places that are held
in honor and deemed holy. Of these the best known and most beautiful
is Corycium, a cave of the nymphs bearing the same name as that in
Cilicia. Of the sides of Parnassus, the western is occupied by the
Ozolian Locrians and by some of the Dorians and by the Aetolians who
live near the Aetolian mountain called Corax; whereas the other side
is occupied by Phocians and by the majority of the Dorians, who
occupy the Tetrapolis, which in a general way lies round Parnassus,
but widens out in its parts that face the east. Now the long sides of
each of the aforementioned countries and ribbon-like stretches are
all parallel, one side being towards the north and the other towards
the south; but as for the remaining sides, the western are not
parallel to the eastern; neither are the two coastlines, where the
countries of these tribes end, I mean that of the Crisaean Gulf as
far as Actium and that facing Euboea as far as Thessaloniceia,
parallel to one another. But one should conceive of the geometrical
figures of these regions as though several lines were drawn in a
triangle parallel to the base, for the figures thus marked off will
be parallel to one another, and they will have their opposite long
sides parallel, but as for the short sides this is no longer the
case. This, then, is my rough sketch of the country that remains to
be traversed and is next in order. Let me now describe each separate
part in order, beginning with Phocis.
Strab. 9.3.2 Of Phocis two cities are the
most famous, Delphi and Elateia. Delphi, because
of the temple of the Pythian
Apollo, and
because of the oracle,
which is ancient,
since Agamemnon is said by the poet to
have had an oracle
given him from there; for the minstrel is introduced as
singing
"the quarrel of
Odysseus and
Achilles, son of Peleus, how once they strove . . ., and Agamemnon,
lord of men, rejoiced at heart . . ., for thus Phoebus Apollo, in
giving response to him at Pytho, had told him that
it should be."3
Delphi, I say,
is famous because of these things, but Elateia, because it is the
largest of all the cities there, and has the most advantageous
position, because it is situated in the narrow passes and because he
who holds this city holds the passes leading into Phocis and Boeotia.
For, first, there are the Oetaean Mountains; and then those of the
Locrians and Phocians, which are not everywhere passable to invaders
from Thessaly, but have passes, both narrow and separated from one
another, which are guarded by the adjacent cities; and the result is,
that when these cities are captured, their captors master the
passes also.
But since the fame of the
temple at Delphi
has
the priority of age, and since at the same time the position of its
places suggests a natural beginning (for these are the most westerly
parts of Phocis), I should begin my description there.
[3] As I have already
said, Parnassus
is situated on
the western boundaries of Phocis. Of this mountain, then, the side
towards the west is occupied by the Ozolian Locrians, whereas the
southern is occupied by Delphi, a rocky place, theatre-like, having the oracle and the city on its summit,
and
filling a circuit of sixteen stadia.
Situated above Delphi is
Lycoreia, on which
place, above the temple, the Delphians were established
in earlier times. But now they live close to the temple, round the Castalian
fountain.
Situated in front of the city, toward the south, is
Cirphis, a precipitous mountain, which leaves in the intervening
space a ravine, through which flows the Pleistus River. Below Cirphis
lies Cirrha, an ancient city, situated by the sea; and from it there
is an ascent to Delphi of about eighty stadia. It is situated
opposite Sicyon. In front of Cirrha lies the fertile Crisaean Plain;
for again one comes next in order to another city, Crisa, from which
the Crisaean Gulf is named. Then to Anticyra, bearing the same name
as the city on the Maliac Gulf near Oeta. And, in truth, they say
that it is in the latter region that the hellebore of fine quality is
produced, though that produced in the former is better prepared, and
on this account many people resort thither to be purged and cured;
for in the Phocian Anticyra, they add, grows a sesame-like medicinal
plant with which the Oetaean hellebore is prepared.
[4] Now Anticyra still
endures, but Cirrha and Crisa have
been destroyed, the former earlier, by the Crisaeans, and Crisa
itself later, by Eurylochus the Thessalian, at the time of the
Crisaean War.4 For the Crisaeans, already prosperous because of the
duties levied on importations from Sicily and Italy, proceeded to impose
harsh
taxes on those
who came to visit
the temple,5
even contrary to the
decrees of the Amphictyons. And the same thing also happened in the
case of the Amphissians, who belonged to the Ozolian Locrians.
For these too, coming
over, not only restored Crisa and
proceeded to put under cultivation again the plain which had been
consecrated by the Amphictyons, but were
worse in their dealings with foreigners than the Crisaeans of old had
been.
Accordingly, the
Amphictyons punished these
too, and gave the territory back to the god: The temple, too, has
been much neglected, though in earlier times it was held in
exceedingly great honor. Clear proofs of this are the treasure
houses, built both by peoples and by potentates, in which they
deposited not only money which they had dedicated to the god, but
also works of the best artists; and also the Pythian Games, and the
great number of the recorded
oracles.
[5] They say that the seat
of the oracle is a cave
that is hollowed out deep down in the earth,
with a
rather narrow
mouth, from
which arises breath
that inspires a divine frenzy;
and that over the mouth
is placed a high tripod,
mounting which the Pythian
priestess
receives the breath
and then utters
oracles in both verse and prose,
though the latter too
are put into verse
by poets
who
are in the service
of the
temple.
They say that the first to
become Pythian
priestess was Phemonoe; and that both the prophetess and the city
were so
called6 from the word pythesthai,"7
7 "To
inquire of the oracle." Other mythologers more plausibly derived the
two names from the verb pythesthai, "to rot" (note
the length of the
vowel), because the serpent Python, slain by
Apollo, "rotted" at the
place.
though the first syllable
was lengthened, as in
athanatos, akamatos, and diakonos.8 Now the
following is the idea which leads to the founding of cities and to
the holding of common sanctuaries in high esteem: men came together
by cities and by tribes, because they naturally tend to hold things
in common, and at the same time because of their need of one another;
and they met at the
sacred places
that were common to them for the same reasons,
holding
festivals and general
assemblies;
for everything of this
kind tends to
friendship, beginning with eating at the same table, drinking
libations
together, and lodging under the same roof;
and the greater the
number of the sojourners
and the greater
the
number of the
places whence they came, the greater was
thought to be the use of
their coming together.
[6] Now although the
greatest share of honor
was paid to this temple because of its oracle, since of all oracles in
the
world it had the repute of being the most truthful, yet the position
of the place added something. For it is almost in the center of
Greece taken as a whole, between the country inside the Isthmus and
that outside it; and it was also believed to be in the center of the
inhabited world, and people called it the navel of the earth,
in addition fabricating
a myth,
which is told by Pindar, that the two eagles (some say crows) which
had been
set free by Zeus met there, one coming from the west and the other
from the east.
There is also a kind of navel to be seen in the
temple; it is draped with fillets, and on it are the two likenesses
of the birds of the myth.
[7] Such being the
advantages of the site of
Delphi, the people easily came together there, and especially those
who lived near it. And indeed the Amphictyonic League was
organized from the latter, both to deliberate concerning common
affairs and to keep the superintendence of the temple more in common,
because much
money and many votive
offerings were
deposited there, requiring
great vigilance and holiness.
Now the facts of olden
times are unknown, but
among the names recorded Acrisius is reputed to have been the first
to administer the Amphictyony and to determine the cities that were
to have a part in the council and to give a vote to each city, to one
city separately or to another jointly with a second or with several,
and also to proclaim the Amphictyonic Rights--all the rights that
cities have in their dealings with cities.
Later there were several
other administrations,
until this organization, like that of the Achaeans,9 was dissolved.
Now the first cities which came together are said to have been
twelve, and each sent a Pylagoras,10 the assembly convening twice a
year, in spring and in late autumn; but later still more cities were
added. They called the assembly Pylaea, both that of spring and that
of late autumn, since they convened at Pylae, which is also called
Thermopylae; and the Pylagorae sacrificed to Demeter. Now although at
the outset only the people who lived near by had a share both in
these things and in the oracle, later the people living at a distance
also came and consulted the oracle and sent gifts and built treasure
houses, as, for instance, Croesus, and his father Alyattes, and some
of the Italiotes, 11 and the Sicilians.
[8] But wealth
inspires envy,
and is therefore
difficult to guard, even if it is sacred. At present, certainly, the
temple at Delphi is very poor, at least so far as money is concerned;
but as for the votive offerings, although some of them have been
carried off, most of them still remain. In earlier times the temple
was very wealthy, as Homer states:
"nor yet all the things
which the
stone threshold of the archer Phoebus Apollo enclosed in rocky
Pytho."12
The treasure
houses clearly indicate its wealth, and
also the plundering done by the Phocians, which kindled the Phocian
War, or Sacred War, as it is called. Now this plundering took place
in the time of Philip, the son of Amyntas, although writers have a
notion of another and earlier plundering, in ancient times, in which
the wealth mentioned by Homer was carried out of the temple. For,
they add, not so much as a trace of it was saved down to those later
times in which Onomarchus and his army, and PhaÃøllus and his
army,13 robbed
the temple;
but the wealth then carried away was more
recent than
that mentioned by Homer; for there were deposited in treasure houses
offerings dedicated
from spoils of
war, preserving
inscriptions on which
were included the names of those who dedicated them; for instance,
Gyges, Croesus, the
Sybarites, and the
Spinetae14 who lived near
the Adriatic, and so with the rest. And it would not be reasonable to
suppose that the treasures of olden times were mixed up with these,
as indeed is clearly indicated by other places that were ransacked by
these men. Some, however, taking "aphetor"15 to mean
"treasure-house," and "threshold of the aphetor" to mean "underground
repository of the treasure-house," say that that wealth was buried in
the temple, and that Onomarchus and his army attempted to dig it up
by night, but since great earthquakes took place they fled outside
the temple and stopped their digging, and that their experience
inspired all others with fear of making a similar attempt.
[9] Of the temples, the
one "with wings" must
be placed among the myths; the second is said to be the work of
Trophonius and Agamedes; and the present temple was built by the
Amphictyons. In the sacred precinct is to be seen the tomb of
Neoptolemus, which was made in accordance with an oracle, Machaereus,
a Delphian, having slain him because, according to the myth, he was
asking the god for redress for the murder of his father;16 but
according to all probability it was because he had attacked the
temple.
Branchus, who presided over the temple at Didyma, is
called a
descendant of Machaereus.
Hislop 225: As the true
Messiah was prophesied of under the
title of the "Man whose name was the
branch," he was celebrated not only as
the "Branch of Cush," but as the "Branch of God," graciously given to
the earth for healing all the ills that flesh is heir to. *
As
the prophets and priests generally bore the
names of the gods whom they represented (Hesychius expressly tells us
that the priest who represented the great god under the name of the branch in the mysteries was
himself called by the name of Bacchus),
this indicates one of the ancient names
of the god of Delphi.
Iamblichus.III
The
woman also who delivers the oracles
in
verse at Branchidal, whether she is holding
the staff 30 which was first
presented by a divinity and becomes filled with the divine
luminance, or
whether she sits upon a wheel and predicts what is to occur, or
whether she dips her feet or the border of her robe in the water, or
receives the god by inhaling vapor from the water,
she becomes by all
these ways prepared for the reception, and partakes of him from
without. 31
30.
The staff, rod, wand, scepter,
or baton, as the symbol or authority, possesses the greatest
antiquity. It appears in mythology as the scepter of Zeus charged
with lightning, the caduceus of Hermes
that lulled to sleep, the staff of
Asclepius with healing virtue, the narthex or thyrsos of Bacchus, and
the club of Heracles. Every Roman Senator carried a wand. The rods of
Moses and Aaron, the staff of the prophet, the wand
of Kirkê
[Circe], the magic divining staff and the bishop's crosier belong in
the same category.
31.
Branchidia or Didymea
was situated near Milletus in Ionia. The temple was very ancient. It
was twice burned by the Persians. The structure was of the Ionic
order, but a straight road, which led from it to the sea, was
bordered on each side with statues on charis
of a single block
of stone with the feet close together and the hands on the knees
precisely as at the avenues of the temples of Egypt. There was an
Egyptian influence in Asia Minor and the islands of the Levant in
very ancient times.
Strab. 9.3.10 As for the contests
at Delphi, there
was one in early times between citharoedes, who sang a
paean in honor of the god; it was instituted by the Delphians. But
after the Crisaean war, in the time of Eurylochus,17 the Amphictyons
instituted equestrian and gymnastic contests in which the prize was a
crown, and called them Pythian Games.
-Aeidô
[compare the morphological problems with aeirô]
1.
c. acc. rei, sing of, chant, “mēnin aeide” Il.1.1; “paiēona” 1.473; klea andrōn, noston, 9.189, Od.1.326; “ton Boiōtion nomon” S.Fr.966: c. gen. (sc. melos), sing an air of . ., “Phrunikhou” Ar.V.269, cf. 1225: abs., a. amphi tinos to sing in one's praise, Od.8.266; “amphi tina” Terp.2, cf. E.Tr.513; “eis tina” Ar.Lys. 1243: later, simply = kalein, Ael.NA3.28:—Pass., of songs, to be sung, Hdt.4.35; “ta lekhthenta kai asenta” Pl.Ly.205e; asma kalōs asthen, opp. logos kalōs rhētheis, X.Cyr.3.3.55; adetai logos the story runs, Ph.1.189.
-aeirō , Ep.
II.
raise up, exalt, “apo smikrou d' an areias megan” A.Ch.262, cf. 791; olbon <*>n Dareios ēren Id.Pers.164:—esp. of pride and passion, exalt, excite, hupsou ai. thumon grow excited, S.OT914; ai. tharsos pluck up courage, E.IA1598:4.
take up and bear, as a BURDEN, “moron” A.Pers.547; “athlon” S.Tr.80; “algos” A.R.4.65.
Sing
is USED WITH
kitharizo which
confirms that there is no single word in the Bible which includes BOTH
singing and playing the guitar.
-Paian , anos, ho, Ep. Paiēōn , onos, Att., Ion. Paiōn , ōnos (v. sub fin.), Aeol. Paōn , onos, Sapph.Supp.20c.5:—Paean or Paeon, the physician of the gods, Il.5.401,899, cf. Pi.P.4.270; Paiēonos genethlē, i.e. physicians, Od.4.232. 2.
[select]
title of Apollo (later as epith., “Apollōni Paiani” BCH11.94 (Hierocaesarea); “ō basileu P. . . Apollon” BMus.Inscr.1151); “iē Paiēon' aeidon”
II.
[select]
paian , Ep. paiēōn , Att., Ion. paiōn , paean, i.e. choral song, addressed to Apollo or Artemis (the BURDEN being iē or iō Paian,
-Mousa , ēs, hē, Aeol. Moisa Sapph.84, IG42(1).130.16, etc.; Dor. Mōsa Alcm. 1, etc.; Lacon. Mōha (for Mōsa) Ar.Lys.1298, cf. An. Ox.1.277:—Muse,
II.
mousa, as Appellat.,
music, song, “
m. stugera”
A.Eu.308 (anap.); “
euphamos”
Id.Supp.695 (lyr.); “
kanakhan . . theias antiluron mousas”
S.Tr.643 (lyr.); “
Aiakō moisan pherein”
Pi.N.3.28;
tis hēde mousa; what
strain is this ?
E.Ion757; “
aluros m.”
Id.Ph.1028 (lyr.); “
dia mousas ēxa”
Id.Alc.962 (lyr.): in Prose, “
adein adokimon m.”
Pl.Lg. 829d: in pl.,
mousai Sphiggos, of the Sphinx's riddle,
E.Ph.50; esp.
liberal arts, accomplishments, “
tas mousas aphanizōn”
Ar.Nu.972; “
apaideuton tōn peri tas numphikas m.”
Pl.Lg.775b: also in sg., “
tēs alēthinēs m. ēmelēkenai”
Id.R.548b;
koinōnein mousēs ib.
411c.
Usually connected with Apollon and Dionysus.
Rev
18:14 And the fruits that thy soul
lusted after are
departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are
departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.
Rev
18:20 Rejoice over her,
thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged
you on her.
Rev
18:21 And a mighty angel
took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea,
saying, Thus with
violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be
found no more at all.
Rev
18:22 And the voice of harpers, and musicians [Apollyon's muses or
locusts]
and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no
more at all in thee; and no craftsman, [theater builders and
stage managers] of whatsoever craft he be, shall be
found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone [called a
pipe, made a wistling sound to attract] shall be heard no more
at all in thee;
Rev
18:23 And the light of a
candle shall shine no
more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride
shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the
great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations
deceived.
Homer:
XIV. TO THE MOTHER OF THE GODS
(6 lines)
(ll.
1-5) I prithee,
clear-voiced Muse,
daughter of mighty Zeus, sing of the mother of all gods and men. She is
well-pleased with the sound of rattles and of timbrels, with the voice of flutes
and the outcry of WOLVES
and bright-eyed LIONS,
with echoing hills and wooded coombes.
(l.
6) And so hail to you in my
song and to all goddesses as well!
"Now Rhea, as Ceres,
in Hymn XIV, is called 'brass-sounding' and 'drum-beating'. This has
reference to the mystical
results of
certain sounds and rhythm,
part and parcel of what the Hindus call Mantravidyâ. I
remember reading a curious old French book in the Bibliothèque
de la Ville of Clermont-Ferrand, one of the books confiscated from
the Minime Monastery of the same town, at the time of the Revolution.
-Melōd-ia , hē,
II.
chant, choral song, “melōdias poiētēs” Pl.Lg.935e, cf. 812d; lullaby, ib.790e: generally, music,
-Melpō , Il.1.474, Lasus 1, etc.: Ep. impf.
And to the citharoedes18 they added
both fluteplayers
and citharists
who played without
singing,
who were to render a
certain melody
which is called the Pythian
Nome. There are
five parts of it:
angkrousis, ampeira, katakeleusmos, iambi and dactyli, and syringes.
Now the melody was composed by Timosthenes, the admiral of the second
Ptolemy, who also compiled
The Harbours, a work in ten
books;19 and through this melody he means to
celebrate the contest between Apollo and the dragon,
(Python)
setting forth the prelude
as anakrousis,
the first onset of the contest as ampeira,
the contest itself as katakeleusmos,
the triumph following the victory as iambus and
dactylus,
the rhythms
being in two
measures, one of which, the dactyl, is appropriate to hymns
of praise,
whereas
the other, the iamb, is suited to reproaches (compare the
word "iambize"),
and the expiration
of the dragon as syringes,
since with
syringes (pipes) 20
players imitated
the dragon as breathing its last in hissings.21 (pipings)
The citharoedes sang to the accompaniment of the cithara, and their
contests must have had no connection with those of the fluteplayers and
the citharists, whose performance (of the Pythian Nome) was a purely
instrumental affair.
[11] Ephorus, whom I a m using
more than any other authority because, as Polybius, a noteworthy
writer, testifies, he exercises great care in such matters, seems to
me sometimes to do the opposite of what he intended, and at the
outset promised, to do. At any rate, after censuring those who love
to insert myths in the text of their histories, and after praising
the truth, he adds to his account of this oracle a kind of solemn
promise, saying that he regards the truth as best in all cases, but
particularly on this subject; for it is absurd, he says, if we always
follow such a method in dealing with every other subject, and yet,
when speaking of the oracle which is the most truthful of all, go on
to use the accounts that are so untrustworthy and false.
Yet, though he says this,
he adds forthwith
that historians take it for granted that Apollo, with Themis,
devised the oracle because he wished to help our race; and then,
speaking of the helpfulness of it, he says that Apollo challenged men
to gentleness and inculcated self control by giving out oracles to
some, commanding them to do certain things and forbidding them to do
other things, and by absolutely refusing admittance to other
consultants.
Men believe that Apollo
directs all
this, he says, some believing that the god himself assumes a
bodily form,
others that he transmits to human beings a knowledge of his
own will.
[12]
A little further on, when
discussing who the Delphians were, he says that in olden times
certain Parnassians who were called
indigenous inhabited Parnassus; and
that at this time Apollo, visiting the land, civilized the people by
introducing cultivated fruits
and cultured
modes of
life;
and that when he
set out from Athens to Delphi he went by the road which the Athenians
now take when they conduct the Pythias;22 and that when he arrived at
the land of the Panopaeans he destroyed Tityus,
a violent and lawless man who ruled there; and that the Parnassians
joined him and informed him of another cruel man named Python and known as the Dragon,
and
that when Apollo shot at him with his arrows the Parnassians shouted
"Hie
Paean" 23 to
encourage him
23
A
shout addressed to
Apollo in his capacity as Paean (Healer).
(the
origin, Ephorus adds, of
the singing
of the
Paean
which
has been handed down as a custom for
armies just before the clash
of
battle);
and
that the tent of Python was burnt by the
Delphians at that
time, just as they still burn it to this day in remembrance of what
took place at that time.
But
what could be
more mythical than Apollo shooting with arrows and punishing Tityuses and Pythons, and travelling from
Athens to Delphi and visiting
the whole earth?
But
if Ephorus did not take
these stories for myths, by what right did he call the mythological
Themis a woman, and the mythological Dragon a human being--unless he
wished to confound the two types, history and myth? Similar to these
statements are also those concerning the Aetolians; for after saying
that from all time their country had been unravaged, he at one time
says that Aeolians took up their abode there, having ejected the
barbarians who
were in possession of it,
and at another time
that Aetolus together with the Epeii from Elis took up their abode
there, but that these were destroyed by the Aeolians, and that these
latter were destroyed by Alcmaeon and Diomedes. But I return to the
Phocians.
[13] On the seacoast after
Anticyra, one comes
first to a town called Opisthomarathus; then to a cape
called Pharygium,
where there is an anchoring-place; then to the harbor that is last,
which, from the fact in the case, is called Mychus; 24 and it lies
below Helicon and Ascre. And the oracle of Abae is not far from this
region, nor Ambrysus, nor Medeon, 25 which bears the same name as the
Boeotian Medeon. Still farther in the interior, after Delphi,
approximately towards the east, is a town Daulis, where Tereus the
Thracian is said to have held sway (the scene of the mythical story
of Philomela and Procne is laid there, though Thucydides26 says at
Megara). The place got its name from the thickets, for they call
thickets "dauli." Now Homer called it Daulis, but later writers call
it Daulia. And "Cyparissus," in the words
"held Cyparissus,"27
is interpreted by
writers in two
ways, by some as bearing the same name as the tree,28
and by others, by
a slight change in the spelling, as a village below Lycoreia.29
[14] Panopeus, the
Phanoteus of today, borders
on the region of Lebadeia, and is the native land of Epeius. And the
scene of the myth of Tityus is laid here. Homer says that the
Phaeacians "led" Rhadamanthys into Euboea "to see Tityus, son of the
Earth."30
And a cave called Elarium
is to be seen in the
island, named after Elara the mother of Tityus; and also a
hero-temple of Tityus, and certain honors which are paid to him. Near
Lebadeia, also, is Trachin, a Phocian town, which bears the same name
as the Oetaean city; and its inhabitants are called Trachinians.
[15] Anemoreia31 has been
named from a
circumstance connected with it: squalls of wind sweep down upon it
from Catopterius,32 as it is called, a beetling cliff extending from
Parnassus. This place was a boundary between Delphi and the Phocians
when the Lacedaemonians caused the Delphians to revolt from the
common organization of the Phocians,33 and permitted them to form a
separate State of their own. Some, however, call the place Anemoleia.
And then one comes to Hyampolis (later called Hya by some), to which,
as I have said,34 the Hyantes were banished from Boeotia. This city
is very far inland, near Parapotamii, and is not the same as Hyampeia
on Parnassus; also far inland is Elateia, the largest city of the
Phocians, which is unknown by Homer, for it is more recent than the
Homeric age, and it is advantageously situated in that it commands
the passes from Thessaly. Demosthenes35 clearly indicates the natural
advantage of its position when he speaks of the commotion that
suddenly took place at Athens when a messenger came to the Prytanes
with the report that Elateia had been captured.36
[16] Parapotamii is a
settlement on the
Cephissus River near Phanoteus and Chaeroneia and Elateia. Theopompus
says that this place is distant from Chaeroneia about forty stadia
and marks the boundary of the territories of the Ambryseans, the
Panopeans and the Daulians; and that it lies on a moderately high
hill at the pass which leads from Boeotia into Phocis, between the
mountains Parnassus and Hadylius, between which is left a tract of
about five stadia divided by the Cephissus River, which affords a
narrow pass on each side. The river, he continues, has its beginnings
in the Phocian city Lilaea (just as Homer says,
"and those who held
Lilaea, at the
fountains of Cephissus "37), and empties into Lake Copais; and the
mountain Hadylius extends over a distance of sixty stadia as far as
the mountain Acontius,38 where Orchomenus is situated. And Hesiod,
too, describes at considerable length the river and the course of its
flow, saying that it flows through the whole of Phocis in a winding
and serpentine course;
"like a dragon it goes
in tortuous
courses out past Panopeus and through strong Glechon and through
Orchomenus."
39 The narrow
pass in the
neighborhood of
Parapotamii, or Parapotamia (for the name is spelled both ways), was
an object of contention in the Phocian war, since the enemy had here
their only entrance into Phocis. There are, besides the Phocian
Cephissus, the one at Athens, the one in Salamis, a fourth and a
fifth in Sicyon and in Scyros, and a sixth in Argos, which has its
sources in Mt. Lyrceius; and at Apollonia near Epidamnus there is a
fountain near the gymnasium which is called Cephissus.
[17] Daphnus is now razed
to the ground. It was
at one time a city of Phocis, bordering on the Euboean Sea; it
divided the Epicnemidian Locrians into two parts, one part in the
direction of Boeotia, and the other facing Phocis, which at that time
reached from sea to sea. And evidence of this is the Schedieium in
Daphnus, which, they say, is the tomb of Schedius; but as I have
said,40 Daphnus "split"41
Locris on either
side, so that the Epicnemidian and Opuntian Locrians nowhere bordered
on one another; but in later times the place was included within the
boundaries of the Opuntians. Concerning Phocis, however, I have said
enough.
41 The Greek word for
"split" is "schidzo," which Strabo connects etymologically with
"Schedius" (see Hom. Il. 2.517).
1 In Greek, the
"Hesperioi."
2 9. 2. 1.
3 Hom. Od. 8.75
4 About 595 B.C.
5 Of Appolo at Delphi.
6 i.e., "Pythia" and
"Pytho."
7 "To inquire of the
oracle." Other mythologers
more plausibly derived the two names from the verb pythesthai,
"to rot"
(note the length of the vowel), because the serpent Python, slain by
Apollo, "rotted" at the place.
8 But in "diakonos" it is
the second syllable
that is long; and Homer does not use the word. For his uses of the
first two with long a see (e.g.) Hom. Il. 6.108, 5.4.
9 See 8. 7. 3.
10 i.e.,
Pylae--assemblyman.
11 Greeks living in Italy.
12 Hom. Il. 9.404
13 352 B.C. Both were
Phocian generals. For an
account of their robberies see Diod. Sic. 16. 31-61.
14 See 5. 1. 7.
15 The Greek word
translated "archer" in the
above citation from Homer.
16 Achilles.
17 On the time, compare 9.
3. 4 and footnote.
18 The citharoedes sang to
the accompaniment of the cithara, and their
contests must have had no connection with those of the fluteplayers
and the citharists, whose performance (of the Pythian Nome) was a
purely instrumental
affair.
19 If the text of this
sentence is correct,
Strabo must be referring to the melody played as the Pythian Nome in his own time or in that of some authority
whom he is
quoting, earlier compositions perhaps having been superseded by that
of Timosthenes (fl. about 270 B.C.). But since the invention of the
Pythian Nome has been ascribed to Sacadas (Pollux 4.77), who was
victorious with the flute at the Pythian Games about three hundred
years before the time of Timosthenes (Paus. 6.14.9, 10.7.4), Guhrauer
(Jahrb. fúr Class. Philol., Suppl. 8, 1875-1876, pp. 311--351
makes a strong argument for a lacuna in the Greek text, and for
making Strabo say that the melody was composed by Sacadas and later
merely described by Timosthenes in one of his numerous works. Cp.
also H. Riemann, Handb. der Musikgeschichte 1919, vol. i, pp.
63-65.
20 "Pipes."
21 "Pipings."
22 A sacred mission
despatched from Athens to
Pytho (Delphi). See 9. 2. 11.
23 A shout addressed to
Apollo in his capacity
as Paean (Healer).
24 Inmost recess.
25 On the site of Medeon
see Frazer's
Pausanias, note on Paus. 36.6.
26 But Thuc. 2.29 says: In
that country
(Daulia) Itys suffered at the hands of Philomela and Procne."
Eustathius ad Iliad 2.520 repeats without correction Strabo's
erroneous reference.
27 Hom. Il. 2.519
28 Cyparissus is the word for cypress tree.
29 As the text stands, the
meaning is obscure.
The scholiast on Ven. A, Hom. Il. 2.519, says that Cyparissus was
named after Cyparissus the brother of Orchomenus, or after the
cypress trees that grew in it; and the scholiast on Ven. B ibid.,
"Cyparissus, the present Apollonias, named after Cyparissus." Paus.
10.36.3 says: "In earlier times the name of the city was Cyparissus,
and Homer, in his list of the Phocians, purposely used this name,
though the city was even then called Anticyra" (see Frazer, note ad
loc.). On the position of Lycoreia, see 9. 3. 3.
30 Hom. Od. 7.324
31 "Wind-swept."
32 "The Look-out."
33 About 457 B.C. (see
Thuc. 1.107-108).
34 9. 2. 3. Cf. 10. 3. 4.
35 Dem. 18.168.
36 By Philip in 338 B.C.
37 Hom. Il. 2.523
38 Cf. 9. 2. 42.
39 A fragment otherwise
unknown.Hes. Fr. 37
(Rzach)
40 9. 3. 1.
41 The Greek word for
"split" is "schidzo,"
which Strabo connects etymologically with "Schedius" (see Hom. Il.
2.517).
Strabo in
Geography Secton
10
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