inscription[1]. The tripod and cortina were attributes of Heracles as well as of Apollo. So long as oracles continued to be given at the grotto, they were doubtless given in Apollo's name.
But, granting that the grotto was the earliest temple of Apollo, was it his only Delian temple down to such a date as (say) 400 B.C., the superior limit which M. Homolle is disposed to assign for the temple in the plain? I will briefly state the reasons which make such a hypothesis very difficult to my mind.
1. In the days of Ionian greatness the Pan-Ionic festival drew to Delos all the wealth of the race. The Homeric hymn pictures the Ionians of all cities vying with each other in the display of their "swift ships and great possessions." All were animated and united by a common sentiment of devotion to Apollo, the father of Ion. Is it conceivable that no fraction of their wealth was expended on an object which the spirit of the festival so strongly commended, and which would have brought public credit to the donor—on making offerings (ἀναθήματα) to the god? It is surely certain that, besides votive statues, the Apollo of the Ionians must have received gifts of gold, silver, bronze, gifts of those various materials and forms which his temple is known to have contained at a later time. But if he then had no temple but the grotto,—17 feet long, with an average breadth of 11, seamed by the chasma, and partly open to the sky,—where
- ↑ Corp. Inscr. Graec. 2271.
