We do not, however, deny that Apollo and the god of the sun admitted in particular points of a comparison and parallel with each other; the source of external light might be a symbol of the “bright and pure” god; and indeed the Platonists favoured this supposition,(1207) which is not, however, supported by any historical authority. The worship of the sun was practised in the Acropolis of Corinth, at Rhodes, Athens, and in earlier times also at Calauria and Tænarum; but in none of these places was it connected with the rites of Apollo.(1208)
6. This naturally leads us to inquire how any ideal connexion between Apollo and the sun, if it really existed, should have been entirely overlooked for so many centuries; how was it that these deities were not identified till the Grecian mythology had ceased to have any influence upon the ideas and feelings of mankind? Even when the Egyptian interpreters identified Horus with Apollo, they were in all probability guided only by the resemblance between the destroyer of the Python and the vanquisher of Baby (Typhon in Greek).(1209) The Persian magi, however, in discovering a connexion between the worship of Apollo and their religion (on which account Xerxes preserved from injury the island where Apollo and Artemis were born),(1210) were influenced by a well-grounded comparison, which we shall find occasion to confirm in a subsequent chapter;(1211) yet, in all probability, it was not the sun, but Ormuzd, whom they supposed to be Apollo. It was not until the philosophers of the Ionic school identified the deities of the popular creed partly with material powers and objects, and partly with the attributes of the universal intellect (νοῦς), that the doctrine was advanced of Apollo being the sun. From them Euripides, who called Zeus the air, and Vesta the earth, was naturally among the first to receive it. In the tragedy of Phaethon, the mother of the unfortunate youth complained against his father Helius as follows; “_Rightly does he who knows the secret names of the gods call thee Apollo_” (the destroyer);(1212) referring, without doubt, not to any doctrine connected with, or revealed in the mysteries, but to a philosophical interpretation. This opinion, thus adopted by Euripides, became still more general at Alexandria; and Callimachus blames those “who separate Apollo from the sun, and Artemis from the moon.”(1213) Soon afterwards it was said to have originated in very early times; and the author of the astronomical treatise attributed to Eratosthenes(1214) relates, that Orpheus the Thracian had from the top of a mountain, at break of day, prayed to the sun, whom he also called Apollo, as the greatest of all the deities.(1215) Nevertheless, this statement does not authorize us to infer, that in the ancient Orphic Hymns, previous to Herodotus, Apollo and the sun were identified. For this system of religious speculation was chiefly concerned about Bacchus; and in all the Orphic fragments of any antiquity Apollo is hardly ever noticed.(1216)