Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

426 From Daimon to Olympian [ch.
could well have put the matter more clearly and truly. These
' wanderings ' and ' hidings ' and the like are not of the 6eol, not
of the fixed Olympian personalities, but of the recurrent cycles
of the daimones, and they are commemorated just because of
their magical ' virtue and force.' In another moment we feel
Plutarch will be using the expression ' functional daimon.'
Being himself a priest at Delphi Plutarch takes, as an
instance of how things are misunderstood, the festival of the
Stepterion, according to him an extreme case. iEschylus, we are
told, is utterly wrong when he says
'And pure Apollo, banished, a god, 1 .'
from Heaven
And furthest of all from the truth are the theologians at Delphi who hold
that once a fight took place there between the god and a serpent about the
oracle, and who allowed poets and story-writers to present this at dramatic
performances in the theatres, as though they were bent on contradicting what
is actually done in the most sacred rites.
Here he is interrupted, most fortunately for us, by a question
from one of his audience, a certain Philip, who wants to know
exactly what these ' most sacred rites ' are, which dramatic
authors, when they represent a fight as taking place between
Apollo and the snake, contradict. Plutarch answers
Those rites I mean which are in connection with the oracular shrine,
which quite recently the state (Delphi) celebrated, admitting into them all
the Hellenes beyond Pylae and going in procession as far as Tempe.
It is these rites that contradict the notion of a fight with a
serpent.
For the hut that is set up here, over the threshing-floor, every nine years,
is not just some hole like the lair of a serpent, but is the imitation of the
dvjelling of a tyrant or king, and the attack made in silence upon it along
what is called the Doloneia...they accompany the youth, both of whose
parents are alive, with lighted torches, and when they have set fire to the hut
and overturned the table they fly without looking back through the doors of
the sanctuary. Finally the wanderings and the servitude of the boy and the
purifications that take place at Tempe make one suspect that there has been
some great pollution and some daring deed 2 .
1 Supra, p. 413.
2 De def. orac. 15 ...17 re yap larafxevT] /caAtas evravda irepi tt\v a\w 5t evvia £twv,
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