Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/436

 4o6 The European Sky-god.

Further confirmation of my conjecture, that a priestly king once reigned for eight years only at Delphi and that he was chosen as victor in the Pythian contest, is fortunately forthcoming. Aristotle''^^^ states that the king who presided at the common hearth of the people was sometimes called their archon or " ruler." And an inscription-"^ found in 1892 at Magnesia on the Maeander mentions a certain Xenyllus, who lived about logo B.C., as proarchon or " ruler of the eight-year festival at Delphi." It thus appears that, just as at Athens we saw first kings, then ten-year archons, and lastly annual archo7is, so at Delphi the annual archons were preceded by eight-year proarchons, and the eight-year proarchons by kings : also, that it was the express business of the eight-year proarchons to preside over the eight-year Pythian festival.

With regard to the second part of this festival, the Hero'is, its name the " hero-feast " coupled with Plutarch's state- ment that its ritual resembled the evocation of the earth- goddess Semele suggests that it portrayed the resurrection of the Delphic heroes. But who were the heroes ? Possibly the whole line of Delphic kings and victors. " At Delphi/' says the scholiast on Pindar,-''- " an entertainment for heroes takes place, at which the god appears to invite the heroes to a banquet." This is said a propos of Neoptolemus, who, according to Pausanias,""^ was slain on the sacred hearth by

200 Supra, p. 370 n. 3.

^'" O. Kern, Die Griindungsgeschichte von Magnesia am Maiandros, Berlin, 1894, p. 7. we ^^ 'nt.^ti 6ySoiT]Kov9' trt] fiera Tr)v aTt](TOVTig iTipi t>ji: clg rijv lci[av] iTravoSolv Upw/isi'/zc] iv 'Apyti GE/xtorot'f, irpodpxovTog ev [AeXj^oTc; rfiv ev\_ . . . . ] AevvWov. The text is given also by Sakolowski in Mythographi Gmci, ii., i, p. xxi., and Michel Recueil d'inscrr. grecques, 855. For the last lacuna Kern op. cii., p. 10, suggests Trjv ei{^Lavaiov] sc. apX'l^ '■ but t))v €v[i'eeTr]pLca] is more likely; see Pauly- Wissowa, iv., 2590 and 2605.

202 Schol. Find. Nem., 7. 68.

^"^ Paus., 10. 24. 4 and 6, cp. I. II. I, l. 13. 9, 4. 17. 4, "Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, slew Priam at the altar of the God of the Courtyard, and by a