In classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

, Delia (Gr

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 ) were festivals and games celebrated at the great celebratory gathering, or panegyris

Panegyris

A panegyris , is an Ancient Greek general, national or religious assembly. Each was dedicated to the worship of a particular god.It is also associated with saint days and holy festivals.-Relation to Panegyry and Panegyric:...

in the island of Delos

Delos

The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece...

, the centre of an amphictyony to which the Cyclades

Cyclades

The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...

 and the neighboring Ionians

Ionians

The Ionians were one of the four major tribes into which the Classical Greeks considered the population of Hellenes to have been divided...

 on the coasts belonged. This amphictyony seems originally to have been instituted simply for the purpose of religious worship in the common sanctuary of Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 Delios, the patron god of the Ionians, who was believed to have been born at Delos. The Delia, as appears from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo

Homeric Hymns

The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three anonymous Ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual gods. The hymns are "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter—dactylic hexameter—as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect...

 (147), had existed from very early times, and were celebrated every fourth year, possibly in the Athenian month of Hieros

Hieros

Hieros is Greek for "sacred, sanctified".* Sacred * Sacrifice* Religion in ancient Greece...

, or in Thargelion, to apply to Delos the Athenian calendar. The members of the amphictyony assembled on these occasions in Delos, in long garments, with their wives and children, to worship the god with gymnastic and musical contests, choruses, and dances. That the Athenians took part in these solemnities at a very early period, is evident from the Deliastoi (afterwards called Theoroi

Theoroi

Theoroi in Ancient Greece were sacred ambassadors, messengers sent out by the state which was about to organize a Panhellenic Game or Festival. Theoroi were received and hosted by Theorodokoi....

, ) mentioned in the laws of Solon

Solon

Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens...

; the sacred vessel , moreover, which they sent to Delos every year, was said to be the same which Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

 had sent after his return from Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

. The Delians, during the celebration of these solemnities, performed the office of cooks for those who visited their island, whence they were called .

In the course of time, the celebration of this ancient panegyris in Delos ceased, and it was not revived until the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War

Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...

, in Olympiad

Olympiad

An Olympiad is a period of four years, associated with the Olympic Games of Classical Greece. In the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, Olympiads were used as calendar epoch....

 88 year 3 (426 BC

426 BC

Year 426 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Cincinnatus, Albinus, Fusus and Cossus...

), after the Athenians had expiated the Island of Delos, removing all the contents of their graves there to Rheneia, and ordaining that henceforth nobody should either be born or die on the island. The Athenians restored the ancient solemnities, and added horse-races, which had never before taken place at the Delia. After this restoration, Athens being at the head of the Ionian confederacy took the most prominent part in the celebration of the Delia; and though the islanders, in common with Athens, provided the choruses and victims, the leader , who conducted the whole solemnity, was an Athenian (Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 Nic. 3; Wolf. Introd. ad Demosth. Lept. p. xc.), and the Athenians had the superintendence of the common sanctuary (see Amphictyons

Amphictyonic League

In the Archaic period of ancient Greece, an amphictyony , a "league of neighbors", or Amphictyonic League was an ancient association of Greek tribes formed in the dim past, before the rise of the Greek polis...

).

The Lesser Delia

From these solemnities, belonging to the great Delian panegyris, we must distinguish the lesser Delia, called by the Delians Apollonia, which were celebrated every year, probably on the 6th of Thargelion. The Athenians on this occasion sent the sacred vessel , which the priest of Apollo adorned with laurel branches, to Delos. The embassy was called , and those who sailed to the island, ; and before they set sail, a solemn sacrifice was offered in the Delion, at Marathon

Marathon

The marathon is a long-distance running event with an official distance of 42.195 kilometres , that is usually run as a road race...

, in order to obtain a happy voyage. (Karl Otfried Müller

Karl Otfried Müller

Karl Otfried Müller , was a German scholar and Philodorian, or admirer of ancient Sparta, who introduced the modern study of Greek mythology.-Biography:...

 Dor. ii. 2. § 14.) During the absence of the vessel, which on one occasion lasted thirty days, the city of Athens was purified, and no criminal was allowed to be executed. The lesser Delia were said to have been instituted by Theseus after slaying the Minotaur

Minotaur

In Greek mythology, the Minotaur , as the Greeks imagined him, was a creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, "part man and part bull"...

, though in some legends they are mentioned at a much earlier period, and Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 (Life of Theseus 23) relates that the ancient ship used by the founder himself, though often repaired, was preserved and used by the Athenians down to the time of Demetrius Phalereus

Demetrius Phalereus

Demetrius of Phalerum was an Athenian orator originally from Phalerum, a student of Theophrastus and one of the first Peripatetics...

.