As has been told in the previous article, Zeus mated with Leto and she conceived the twin gods, Artemis and Apollo. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (number 3), which concentrates in its first part on the details of Apollo's birth, begins as follows (1-18): I shall not forget far-shooting Apollo but remember him before whom the gods tremble when he comes to the home of Zeus. They all spring up from their seats as he approaches and draws his shining bow, and Leto alone remains beside Zeus, who delights in thunder. But then she unstrings his bow and closes his quiver and taking them from his mighty shoulders hangs them on a column of his father's house from a golden peg. She leads him to a chair and sits him down and his father welcomes his dear son by giving him nectar in a gold cup. Then the other deities sit down in their places and the lady Leto rejoices because she has borne a son who is a mighty archer. Rejoice, 0 blessed Leto, since you have borne splendid children, lord Apollo and Artemis who take delight in arrows;

Artemis you bore in Ortygia and Apollo in rocky Delos as you leaned against the great and massive Cynthian hill, right next to the palm tree near the stream of the Inopus. Leto had roamed far and wide in her search for a refuge where she might give birth to Apollo. The Hymn provides a long and impressive list of cities and islands visited by the goddess and then goes on to explain (45-161): Leto approached these many places in labor with the far-shooting god in the hope that some land might want to make a home for her son. But they all trembled and were very much afraid and not one of them, even the more rich, dared to receive the god Phoebus, until lady Leto came to Delos and asked with winged words: "Delos, if you would like to be the home of my son, Phoebus Apollo, and to establish for him a rich temple-do not refuse, for no one else will come near you, as you will find out, and I do not think that you will be rich in cattle and sheep or bear harvests or grow plants in abundance-if you would then have a temple of Apollo, the far-shooter, all men will congregate here and bring hecatombs and the aroma of rich sacrifices will rise up incessantly and your inhabitants will be nourished by the hands of foreigners." Thus she spoke;

Delos rejoiced and said to her in answer: "Leto, most renowned daughter of great Coeus, I should receive your son, the lord who shoots from afar, with joy, for the terrible truth is that I have a bad reputation among men, and in this way I should become greatly esteemed. But I fear this prediction (and I shall not keep it from you): they say that Apollo will be someone of uncontrollable power, who will mightily lord it over both the immortal gods and mortal men on the fruitful earth. And so I am dreadfully afraid in the depths of my heart and soul that when he first looks upon the light of the sun he will be contemptuous of me (since I am an island that is rocky and barren) and overturn me with his feet and push me down into the depths of the sea where the surge of the great waves will rise mightily above me. And he will come to another land that pleases him where he will build his temple amidst groves of trees. But sea monsters will find their dens in me and black seals will make me their home without being disturbed, since I will be without human inhabitants.

But if, 0 goddess, you would dare to swear to me a great oath that he will build here first of all a very beautiful temple to be an oracle for men, then after he has done this let him proceed to extend his prestige and build his sanctuaries among all mankind; for to be sure his wide renown will be great." Thus Delos spoke. And Leto swore the great oath of the gods: "Now let Gaea and wide Uranus above bear witness and the flowing waters of the Styx (this is the greatest and most dread oath that there is for the blessed gods), in truth a fragrant altar and sacred precinct of Apollo will be established here forever, and he will honor you above all." When she had ended and sworn her oath, Delos rejoiced greatly in the birth of the lord who shoots from afar. But Leto for nine days and nine nights was racked by desperate pains in her labor.

All the greatest of the goddesses were with her-Dione, Rhea, righteous Themis, and seamoaning Amphitrite-and others too, except for whitearmed Hera; for she sat at home in the house of Zeus the cloud-gatherer. Eileithyia, the goddess of pangs of childbirth, was the only one who had not heard of Leto's distress, for she sat on the heights of Olympus beneath golden clouds through the wiles of white-armed Hera, who kept her there because she was jealous that Leto of the beautiful hair was about to bear a strong and noble son. But the goddesses on the well-inhabited island sent Iris away to fetch Eileithyia, promising her a great necklace strung with golden threads, over thirteen feet long. They ordered her to call Eileithyia away from whitearmed Hera so that Hera might not be able to dissuade the goddess of childbirth from going. When Iris, swift-footed as the wind, heard their instructions, she ran on her way, and quickly traversed all the distance between. And when she came to sheer Olympus, home of the gods, immediately she called Eileithyia out of the house to the door and addressed her with winged words, telling her everything just as the goddesses who have their homes on Olympus had directed.

And thus she moved Eileithyia to the depths of the heart in her breast, and like timid doves they proceeded on their journey. As soon as Eileithyia, goddess of the pangs of childbirth, came to Delos, the pains of labor took hold of Leto and she was anxious to give birth. And she threw her arms about the palm tree and sank on her knees in the soft meadow, and the earth beneath her siniled.

The baby sprang forth to the light and all the goddesses gave a cry. There, 0 mighty Phoebus, the goddesses washed you with lovely water, holily and purely, and wrapped you in white swaddling clothes, splendid and new, fastened round about with a golden cord. And his mother did not nurse Apollo of the gold sword, but Themis from her immortal hands gave him nectar and delicious ambrosia. And Leto rejoiced because she had borne a strong son who carries a bow. But after you had tasted the divine food, 0 Phoebus, then no longer could golden cords hold you in your restlessness nor bonds keep you confined, but they all were undone.

And straightway Phoebus Apollo exclaimed to the immortal goddesses: "Let the lyre and curved bow be dear to my heart, and I shall prophesy to men the unerring will of Zeus." With these words Phoebus, the far-shooter with unshorn hair, strode on the ground that stretches far and wide; all the goddesses were amazed, and the whole of Delos blossomed laden with gold like the top of a mountain with woodland flowers, as she beheld the son of Zeus and Leto, in her joy that the god had chosen her among all islands and mainland sites to be his home, and loved her most of all in his heart. And you yourself, 0 lord Apollo, far-shooter of the silver bow, come at times to the steep Cynthian hill of Delos, and on other occasions you wander among other islands and other peoples; indeed many are your temples and wooded groves and every vantage point, highest peak of lofty mountains, and river flowing to the sea, is dear to you. But, 0 Phoebus, your heart is delighted most of all with Delos, where the long-robed Ionians gather with their children and their revered wives. In commemoration of you they will take pleasure in boxing and dancing and song when they celebrate your festival.

And anyone who might encounter the Ionians while they are thus assembled together would say that they were immortal and ageless, for he would perceive grace in them all and be delighted in his heart as he beheld the men and the beautifully robed women, the swift ships, and the abundant possessions. In addition to this there would be the maidens who serve the far-shooting god, the Deliades, a great and wondrous sight, whose renown will never perish. They sing their hymn to Apollo first of all and then to Leto and Artemis, who delights in her arrows, and they remember the men and women of old and enchant the assembled throng with their songs. The second part of the Hymn (which is considered by some scholars to have been originally a separate composition) deals with Pythian Apollo, the god of Delphi. It tells how he descended from Mt. Olympus and made his way through northern and central Greece, finally discovering the proper spot for the foundation of his oracle among mankind at Crisa under snow-capped Pamassus. Apollo laid out his temple and then slew a she-dragon by the fairflowing stream nearby. The name of the site was henceforth called Pytho (and Apollo, the Pythian) because the rays of the sun made the monster rot. (The verb pytho, in Greek, means "I rot").

Other accounts (mainly those of Aeschylus in the prologue to his Eumenides and of Euripides in a chorus from his lphigenia in Tauris) provide additional although conflicting evidence for the early history of Delhi. A cogent historical reconstruction maintains that originally (perhaps as early as 1500) the site was occupied by an oracle of the great mother-goddess of the Minoan-Mycenaean period, sometimes known as Ge-Themis. The slaying of the dragon (the traditional manifestation of a deity of earth), therefore, represents the subsequent conquest by Hellenic or Hellenized Apollo. The Omphalos, an archaic stone shaped like an egg, which was kept in the temple during the classical period, seems to confirm an early habitation of the site. Legend has it that this Omphalos (the word means navel) signified that Delphi actually occupied the physical center of the earth (certainly it was in many ways the spiritual center of the ancient world). Zeus was said to have released two eagles who flew from opposite ends of the earth and met exactly at the site of Apollo's sanctuary-a spot marked out for all to see by the stone Omphalos with two birds perched on either side. For the murder of the dragon, Apollo was forced by Zeus to suffer exile in Thessaly for a period of nine years (his punishment presumably mirrors the religious dictates of ancient society).

A festival (called the Stepteria) was celebrated every ninth year at Delphi; the festival was believed to commemorate these events in the early history of the sanctuary. The ritual went as follows. A hut was constructed in an open space and a handsome and noble youth, especially chosen, played the role of Apollo in a pantomime that consisted of the actual burning of the hut by attendants carrying lighted torches. The group then fled on a prescribed journey to the Vale of Tempe in northern Thessaly where the boy was ritually purified and returned, crowned with Apollo's sacred laurel, amid honors and ceremonies. To return to the Homeric Hymn, the curious and interesting story that concludes the poem is worth paraphrasing. After he had established his sanctuary at Crisa, Apollo was concerned about recruiting attendants to ' his service. He noticed a ship passing, manned by Cretans from Cnossus, on its way to sandy Pylos. Phoebus Apollo, transformed into a dolphin, immediately sprang aboard. At first the men tried to throw the monster into the sea, but such was the havoc it created that they were awed to fearful submission.

The ship, speeded on by a divine wind, would not obey the efforts of the crew to bring it to land. Finally, after a lengthy course, Apollo led them to Crisa, where he leaped ashore and revealed himself as a god amid a blaze of fiery brightness and splendor. He addressed the Cretan men ordering them to perform sacrifices and pray to him as Apollo Delphinius, and he led them to his sanctuary, accompanying them on the lyre as they chanted a paean in his honor. The Hymn ends with the god's prediction of the prestige and wealth that is to come for his sanctuary as he instructs the Cretan band, who are placed in charge. The story links the early cult of Apollo with Crete, explains the epithet Delphinius in terms of the Greek word for dolphin, and provides an etymology for Delphi as the name of the sanctuary. Apollo as the god of sailors and colonization (his oracle played a primary role as the religious impetus for the sending out of colonies) was worshiped under the title Delphinius. The Hymn confirms the universality of the worship of Apollo and the importance of his outstanding cult centers at Delos and above all at Delphi. The sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi (excavated by the French) is representative of the nature and character of other panhellenic sites elsewhere.The sacred area (temenos) was built on the lower slopes of Mt. Parnassus, about two thousand feet above the Corinthian Gulf. It is an awe-inspiring spot to this day. As one traces one's steps along the Sacred Way up to the great temple of the god, it is not too difficult to sense the feelings of reverence and exaltation that filled the heart and the soul of the ancient believer.