Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/184

168 HISTORY OF GREECE. stances, however, may be named, which go to confirm our idea of their early wealth and importance. 1 . The Homeric Hymn to Apollo presents to us the island of Delos as the centre of a great periodical festival in honor of Apollo, celebrated by all the cities, insular and continental, of the Ionic name. What the date of this hymn is, we have no means of determining : Thucydides quotes it, without hesitation, as the production of Homer, and, doubtless, it was in his time univer- sally accepted as such, though modern critics concur in regarding both that and the other hymns as much later than the Iliad and Odyssey : it cannot probably be later than 600 u. c. The de- scription of the Ionic visitors presented to us in this hymn is splendid and imposing : the number of their ships, the display of their finery, the beauty of their women, the athletic exhibitions as well as the matches of song and dance, all these are represented as making an ineffaceable impression on the spectator : l " the assem- bled lonians look as if they were beyond the reach of old age or death." Such was the magnificence of which Delos was the periodical theatre, and which called forth the voices and poetical genius not merely of itinerant bards, but also of the Delian maidens in the temple of Apollo, during the century preceding 560 B. c. At that time it was the great central festival of the lonians in Asia and Europe; frequented by the twelve Ionic cities, in and near Asia Minor, as well as by Athens and Chalkis in Europe : it had not yet been superseded by the Ephesia as the exclusive festival of the former, nor had the Panathenaea of Athens reached the importance which afterwards came to belong to them during the plenitude of the Athenian power. We find both Polykrates of Samos, and Peisistratus of Athens, taking a warm interest in the sanctity of Delos and the celebrity of this festival. 2 But it was partly the rise of these two great 1 Horn. Hymn. Apoll. Del. 146-176; Thucyd. iii, 104 : 4>a7 ' u&avurovf nal ayqpuc efijievai aiel, "Of TOT' tTravTiuaei' 6r* 'laovsr adpoot elev TlavTUV yap Kev I&OLTO xupiv, TepipaiTO Je "Avdpa? T 1 elaopouv, nahhi&vovf re Niyaf r 1 wmaf, f/6' avruv 1 Thucyd. iii, 104.