The ascent of Olympus / by Rendel Harris.

  • J. Rendel Harris
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The ascent of Olympus / by Rendel Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    56/188 page 38
    It seems then, natural to conclude that we have evidence to warrant us in a belief in an Apollo of the Apple-treeJ With regard to the occurrence of both Apollo and Maleates at Athens, Farnell justly observes that “ two sacrifices to the same divinity under different names are not infrequently prescribed in the same ritual code He thinks, however, that the objection made on the ground of quantity holds : “ the verses of Isyllos have this value, if no other, that they prove that the first vowel in MaXearT^s was short ; we must abandon . . . the supposition that the term could designate the ‘ god of sheep ’ or the ‘ god of the apple-tree * So he looks for a geographical explanation either from Cape Malea at the South of Laconia, or an obscure place of the same name in Arcadia. The solution does not seem to me to be satisfactory : it does not ex¬ plain the duplication of Apollo and Maleates, nor find ground for the diffusion of the title ; it leaves Apollo Maloeis still in obscurity, and loses sight of the parallel with Dionysos Sukeates, Probably some other explanation may be found of the short vowel in the Paean of Isyllos : the progression of the accent in Maleates might have something to do with it. The actual passage in Isyllos is as follows :— ovSe Ke ©eo-craXia? ii/ TpiKKr) TreipaOeirj^ €19 dSvTOP KaTal3d<; ^AcrKXrjTTLov, ei i(j) dyvov irpcoTov ^AiroKkoivo^ ^(opov Overate MaXeara. Isyllos himself derives the epithet Maleates from an eponymous MaXo9, whose name he scans with a long alpha in the very same line in which MaXeara is introduced, as follows :— 7rpd)TO<; MaXo9 ^A7r6Wo)vo<s MaXeara l3copov Kri. There is, therefore, no reason against our scanning the end of the line as j3o)pov OvaaL<; MaXeara with spondaic ending and synizesis of the vowels (compare the spondaic ending of the first of the lines quoted above). ^ The inscription will be found in Conze, Tab. XVIIl. 1. Bechtel, Dialektinschr. n. 255. Hoffmann, n. 168. Gruppe objects to the apple- tree, apparently on the ground that the first a in MaXedrr]^ is short. But vide infra. ^ Cults, iv, 237.
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