a later time—that of Melcarth, the Tyrian Heracles, a solar divinity. M. Lebégue seems unquestionably right in holding that the grotto on Cynthus was once associated with Apollo. If this grotto was the most venerable sanctuary of the island at the early time when the worship of Apollo first came in, it would doubtless have become the dwelling of the new god as soon as he had prevailed over his predecessors. Among the marble fragments found in the grotto were a lion's claws and part of the trunk of a tree, covered with a lion's skin.
I think that these objects may help us to conjecture what happened. The solar god of Tyre may have been in possession of the grotto when Apollo came. By and by Apollo became its principal divinity; but the memory of his predecessor was still preserved, and the granite baetyl remained in the grotto as the sacred emblem of the earlier solar god. Afterwards a new temple for Apollo was built in the plain. This now became the principal seat of his worship. Greeks visiting the less frequented grotto on Cynthus, and finding there the traditions of a god whom they identified with their own Heracles, worshipped the ancient god of the grotto as Heracles; and thus the Tyrian sun-god, though still associated with Apollo, may once more have become the chief deity of that primitive shrine. The number of Tyrians who visited or inhabited Delos in the age of its commercial prosperity would have favoured such a result. The temple of the Tyrian Heracles at Delos is mentioned in an
