4. The whole character of the grotto proves, however, that it must have been used as a temple long before such Greek art existed. We have mentioned the enormous block of granite in which the pedestal of the statue was set. This block was probably a βαίτυλος—one of those stones which were worshipped as having fallen from heaven, or as emblems of gods. It may have symbolized the god originally worshipped in the grotto, before the days of even archaic sculpture. The baetyl and the later statue probably represented different gods. But they may have represented the same god, just as stones (πέτραι), said to have fallen from heaven, were worshipped in the ancient temple of the Orchomenian Charites conjointly with "the finished statues" (ἀγάλματα τὰ σὺν κόσμῳ πεποιημένα), made in the time of Pausanias himself, who notes a similar conjunction of sacred stone (πέτρα) and brazen image (εἰκών) in the Orchomenian shrine of Actaeon[1]
Before going further, or discussing the place which this grotto held among the shrines of Delos, we must refer to the results obtained by M. Homolle at another point. His excavations were upon and around the site occupied by the temple of Apollo in the plain between Cynthus and the sea. I give a tracing (Fig. 2) from the plan published by M. Blouet, in the Expédition Scientifique de Morée (Paris, 1838, vol. iii. pl. i), which will serve to indicate roughly where the groups of remains lie. A, site of temple of Apollo; B, ruins of a portico
- ↑ Paus. ix. 8, 4.
