Homeric Hymn to Apollo, 254-299

hAp 254-299. Apollo begins laying his foundations at Telphousa, who grows angry and speaks: she warns that there will be a lot of noise of horses and chariots, and suggests that he build instead at Krisa under Parnassus. Apollo goes there and repeats his speech that he will build a temple here; again he lays foundations, but this time the sons of Erginus lay down stone on top and the tribes of men build a temple.

1) I find the anthropomorphization of places confusing in this hymn. Delos and Telphousa can speak and have feelings; but then Crisa doesn't, and is happy to accept the temple? A little baffling to me

2) The location of the spring Telphousa is apparently disputed. This 1969 piece in TAPA proposes a location near the town of (mod.) Ypsilanti, but I don't see the photographs that supposedly accompanied it. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2935905

3) A little strange to me that Telphousa persuades Apollo with the fear about the sound of horses and chariots -- isn't that basically the Pythian Games? According to Pausanias the Pythian games gained chariot races in the second set of games, 582 BCE (Paus. 10.7.6). Though Richardson rejects the idea that we're talking about chariot and horse races here (not sure why).

4) Richardson also notes the 'stone threshold' (λάινον οὐδόν), which is also mentioned in Homer (Il. 9.404-5). Interesting that the earliest archaeological evidence for a temple at Delphi is c.650-600; so if you want a 8th century Homer, you have to assume that Homer is talking about a temple in perishable materials that doesn't survive.

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