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.

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    maidens, of whom the White maidens of Delos may be taken as the representatives. Their male counterparts are the Sons of Boreas. If we have rightly divined the meaning of the White maidens of the North, Hyperoche and Laodike, who were the primitive Delian saints, we must allow that the heroes Hyperochos and Laodikos, whose shrines are in the sacred enclosure at Delphi, are a pair of Boreads, who, further North and in earlier days, would have been the priests of the sanctuary. The actual passage of Strabo, with the fragment of Sophocles, to which we have been referring is as follows : Strabo, vii. p. 295. Nauck, Fragg. Trag. Gr. ed. 2, p. 333: ovhe yap et rcva l!o(J)OK\r}i: rpayooSel irepl ’OpetOvla^, Xiycov ft)9 dvap- Trayecaa vtto Bopiov KopaaOeir] virep re ttovtov irdvr iir ecr'gara vv/CTo<; re Tryydf; ovpavov F dvarrrvya'^^ ^OL^ov iraXaiov ktiitov, ovhev dv eirj Trpo? to vvv, oKXd iareov. For K^TTov in the third line some editors propose to emend o-7]k6v, because, as Miss Harrison says, they did not understand it ! Certainly the garden must stand, and it is the sacred garden of old-time, in the land of the Hyperboreans, to which ancient garden a modern garden at Delphi must have corresponded.^ We may confirm our previous observation that the “garden of Apollo ” was a real garden and probably a medical garden in the following way :— We learn from Aristides Rhetor that the goddess Hygieia, who is commonly looked upon as a feminine counterpart of Asklepios, but who is in reality an independent young lady who lives next door to him and manages her own affairs, had such a medical garden as we have been speaking of. To these gardens the sons of Asklepios were taken to be reared after their birth. Nothing could be clearer, they were medical gardens. The first doctors must have been herbalists. This striking instance confirms us in our previous statements about the garden of Apollo.^ We see also the importance ^ Observe also the language of Pindar, with regard to the visit of Apollo to the Hyperboreans; OL, iii. 32, roOi hevhpea Odpu^atue araOel^. One of the newly discovered Paeans at Delphi (vi. 14), is called ’^AXcro? ' AirdWcdvo^;. For the reference, see Aristides, vii. 1, ed. Dindorf, p. 73 : yevopi- 2/OL'9 Se avrov^ rpe(f)et 6 rrarpp ev ^Tytela^; Krj'Trot<^.
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