PART 1 - Ch.V.6
(The temple of
the Hyperboreans in Leuce island)
V. 6. Leuke (Leuce)
As we have seen from the
geographical data presented so far, the sacred
But the renown and veneration
enjoyed by this island, while consecrated to Achilles, and especially the
authority of the oracle which was there, the healing properties of the island,
the continuous treasures which poured at the altars of that temple, were only a
legacy of the old traditions and institutions of the religion of Apollo.
Achilles’ island had preserved even
the divine halo which this little piece of land had when powerful Apollo
inspired the whole ancient life from there.
Pindar, in one of his odes (Nemea IV.v.48-50), calls Apollo’s island the bright, shining island, epithet fit
only for Apollo, the god of the Sun.
And the poet Quintus of Smyrna (Posthomericorum III. v.775), who lived around
470 ad, calls it the divine island,
even before this special land had become the possession of Achilles the
Pontarch [1].
[1. Even the legend about the white
birds which tended Achilles’ temple, is basically the same as the legend
communicated by Hecateus, about the
swans which came in countless flocks from the Ripae mountains, and which
first flew around Apollo’s temple, as if they wanted to purify it].
Finally, even the name of this
island, Leuce or Alba (TN – white), shows quite clearly
that once it had close ties with Apollo’s cult, the alb god, called Aplun by
the Thessalians and Aplu by the
Etruscans. Even the
During the Graeco – Roman antiquity
we find an extensive and powerful cult of Apollo and Diana in the vicinity of
this island.
The Scythians, as Herodotus tells us (lib. IV.59), adored
most among their gods Apollo, with the exception of their supreme (and ancient)
divinities, called Istia (Vesta, the fire), Papaeos (Mosul / TN - the old one)
and Apia (the Earth).
At the mouths of the river Borystene
or Nipru (TN – Dneper), there was situated the ancient city called Olbia or Olbiopolis (Scymnus Chios,
v.804; Pliny, Hist. nat. IV.26), the
most important commercial center of Scythia at the time of Herodotus; and the
largest part of the old coins of this commercial center bear the effigy of Apollo.
(It is probable that the city had been consecrated to Apollo, and the name Olbia seems to confirm this – Ouvaroff, Recherches sur les antiquites
de la Russie meridionale, p.44-45).
From an island of the Black Sea
called Apollonia, situated south from
the mouths of Istru, the Romans took one of the most venerated images of god
Apollo, a colossal statue, 30 ells tall, and placed it in the Capitol with the
name Apollo Capitolinus. The expenses incurred by this ancient and magnificent
masterpiece were, according to Pliny,
500 talents, more than the Greeks had managed to gather (300 talents) for the
reconstruction of the temple of Delphi, burnt in 548ad (IV.27.1 Citra Istrum;
XXXIV.18.1).
Finally, a number of other cities
and commercial centers from the proximity of this island were named Alba, some in antiquity, others up to
this day. So is Olbia, Cetatea alba (TN – the white citadel)
or Tyras (Cantemir, Moldaviae
Descriptio, Ed. 1872, p.20), Bolgrad
at the mouths of Ialpug river in Basarabia and Belgarod, one of the mouths of the Danube; names which attest that
these lands were once under the patronage of the white god, Aplu or Apollo [2].
[2. The important city Apulum
(C.I.L.nr.986) from Dacia, appears, from its archaic name, as well as from its
folk name of today of Belgrad (White
citadel / TN – today Alba Iulia), to
have been dedicated to god Apollo, in a remote ante-Roman epoch. Apulum had been known in the Roman
world even before the conquest of Dacia (Ovid,
Oeuvres completes, Ed. Didot, 1881, p.841)].
And we find a very precious document
about the identification of Leuce Island with the sacred island of the
Hyperboreans, with Hecateus and Pliny. The island of the Hyperboreans, as Hecateus tells us in one of his
fragments, also had the name Helixoea
[3], word of an indisputable Pelasgian origin. It is Felicia, or the island of the Blessed, or, with the same meaning,
but in Greek translation, it is Macaron
- of the Blessed – (Pliny,
H.N.IV.27.1-2).
[3. In this fragment Hecateus tells us that Helixoea Island was facing
the river called Carambucas (very
probably an arm of the Danube). The geographical term of Bucis, Buces and Bucas is the same with the Latin bucca (ostium). In Italian language bocca has also the meaning of mouth of a river, ostium, stoma in Greek (Vocabolorio della Crusca, I. Ed. 1741.p.325).
We state here also that the mouths of the Danube appear even today under the
name Buhaz.
As for the geographical size of
the island of Apollo during the Graeco – Roman antiquity, we lack positive
information. Hecateus tells us that
this island was no smaller than Sicily, but he immediately adds “as it is
told”. As we know, the geographical dimensions given by the authors of that
epoch had no scientific precision. They are only vague indications. Even Herodotus astonishes us with his
geographical inexactitudes. So he writes about the Meotic lake, that it was not
much smaller than the Black Sea (IV.86). On the other hand, Pliny (IV.27.1) tells us that the
perimeter of Leuce Island was approximately
10,000 steps, meaning 10 Roman miles, or 14km. 792m. According to Pausanias (III.19.11), the island had a
circumference of 3km. 680m, or 20 stades. And Mela (lib.III.7) is getting even closer, when he tells us that
Leuce Island was very small. Finally, as shown by the survey done by Russian
officers in 1823, the circumference of this island was at that time 1km. 973m
(Koehler, Memoire, p.600).
On the 1497 geographical map of Fredutius
of Ancona, this island appears also under the name of Fidonixi, evidently a corrupt name composed of Python and nesos,
with the meaning of the island of the
Dragon, today the Island of the
Serpents (Comte Potocki, Memoire
sur un nouveau periple du Pont euxin, Vienne, 1796, p.7; Koehler, Memoire, p.611, 613).
We must also add here that Apollo had also the epithet of Pythios, as triumphant power over the
dragon Python].
Precious reminders of the religious
ties of Apollo and Latona with Leuce Island, have been preserved even by the
epithets of these two great divinities. Even during Homeric antiquity, Apollo,
the Pelasgian god, was also worshipped under the names lykeios, lykios, lykegenes,
mysterious epithets for the ancient grammarians, but the character of which was
purely geographical. Their origin goes back to a certain location called Leuke (Alba) [4].
The Danube Delta. Sc.1:1,500,000 (drawn from original illustration)
[4. Macrobius (Saturnaliorum,
I.17). In the lands of Troy (at
Colonae, Chrysa and Cilla), Apollo was also venerated with the epithet killaios
(Strabo, XIII.1.62, XIII.2.5; Frag.
Hist. graec. IV.376). The epithet is geographical.
But the historical question is, was this name of Apollo taken from the small
and unimportant village (“topos”) Cilla, or on the contrary, Cilla was named
after the sanctuary of Apollo killaios, name, the origin of
which goes back maybe to Achillea from the mouths of the Danube].
Latona, “the holly mother” of
prehistoric antiquity, named Leto by Greeks and Lete, Letea in the popular Pelasgian dialect, was born, according to
Hecateus, in the sacred island of the Hyperboreans (Diodorus Siculus, II, 47). In the old Apollinic legends, Latona
appears also with the epithet lykaina, an altered form of leukaina,
meaning from Leuce Island. Aristotelles
(Hist. Anim. VI.35) and Philostephanus
Cyrenaeus (Fragm. Hist.graec. III, p.33) mention an old tradition, that Latona, persecuted by Juno, came from
the Hyperboreans to Delos in twelve days, in the form of a she-wolf (lykaina).
A part of the Danube Delta, namely
the island between the arms of Chilia and Sulina, bears even today the name Ostrovul (TN – the island) Letei, and the beautiful oak forest
from that island is called the Forest of
Lete (2,000ha); here we also find a village called Letea. All these are geographical traces of an ancient cult of
goddess Latona or Lete in these parts.
The archaeological investigations
made in Leuce Island confirm in fact these historical and geographical data.
In the middle of the plateau of this
island were found in 1823 the ruins
of a temple of an extraordinary size. The walls of this
building were still 1.66m high in some places. The building of this temple, as Kohler tells us (Memoire, p.604),
belongs to a very remote antiquity, the epoch of primitive architecture, or cyclopean. The walls were formed of
great blocks of white limestone, very little fashioned, and laid on top of each
other without any cement.
This temple appears to have been,
even from its few remains found in 1823, a monumental work of art. It was
richly adorned with white marble, as could be deduced from the many fragments
of sculpture found there [5].
[5. Kohler, Memoire, p.604:
“…numerous fragments of a finely worked cornice, some of which were more than
three feet long; other fragments seemed to have been part of a pedestal of a statue. The most
considerable pieces and a column capital, also in white marble, were removed in
1814 by the captain of an Italian ship….p.607: this island had in antiquity the
name Leuce or White island….because of the whiteness of its great buildings”.
According to the ancient ritual, all the temples of Apollo were built of white stone (Pausanias, I, 42. 5)].
Today though, there is almost
nothing left of all those ruins scattered about the island in 1823. The
grandiose size of this sacred edifice, of 29.76m on each side, attests very
evidently that the primitive purpose of this majestic temple built in a
cyclopean style, was not for the cult of a simple hero, but for a first class
divinity. Here was the temple of a religion, or of a great divine power.
The external architectonic shape of
this construction corresponds wholly to the archaic temples of Apollo. The poet
Homer (Hymn. in Apoll. v. 295), mentions in one of his hymns
the temple of this god, located at the feet of Parnassus, at Crissa, the
foundations of which were wide and very
long [6].
[6. According to Hecateus,
the temple of Apollo in the island of the Hyperboreans was of a round shape, but it is beyond any doubt
that the primitive shape of this temple has been modified in time. The
spherical shape generally belongs to the primitive temples of Apollo. So Pausanias (X. 5. 9) tells us that the
oldest temple of Apollo of Delphi had the shape of a hut. But the system of rectangular
architecture was later on introduced also to the temples of Apollo, as proved
by the famous temple of Apollo of Crissa, about which Homer speaks].
Apart from the walls of the temple,
there were discovered on the eastern and western sides of the island the
remains of three other vast buildings, of the same material and origin as the
main temple. Their primitive use was probably to serve, some as sanctuaries and
lodgings, others as porticoes for sheltering the pilgrims. Near the walls of
the temple, on the north-western side, could still be seen in 1823 a well dug
in rock, 15 feet deep, with a circular opening; and on the western side, two
other wells with rectangular openings, wells which, according to archaic ritual,
served for the temple’s needs as well as for the washing of the head and hands
of the faithful. As it was ascertained
in 1823 by the Russian officers, the interior of the main temple was divided by
a north to south wall, and the part to the west was divided again in three
rooms. Near the northern part of the temple there was a small addition which
contained a cistern.
Homer (Hymn. in. Apoll. v.300) mentions also a beautiful flowing spring near
the temple of Apollo of Crissa, and Pausanias
(lib. IX. c. 2.1) tells us that near the ruins of the temple of Apollo at
Hysiae in Beotia, could be seen even in his days the sacred well, about which
the inhabitants of Beotia told that, whoever drank (in the old days) from it,
acquired the gift of divination.
Leuce Island, from the mouths of the
Danube, had therefore two epochs of cult and renown:
The first was before the fall of
Troy, when this island had been the cradle of the primitive religion of Apollo,
from which epoch derives also its name of Leuce or Alba. And the second epoch
began after the Trojan war, when Leuce Island was consecrated to the shadow of
the hero Achilles, but at the same time keeping and continuing the old
organization of the cult of Apollo, namely: the institution of the oracle, exclusive
privilege of the Apollinic priests, as well as the right to pious offerings,
prayers, oaths and sacrifices, all of this while preserving the tradition of a
sacred and healing island.
(TN – for a comprehensive and up to date information
on Serpents’ Island, I recommend the excellent study “Serpents’ Island –
between rule of law and rule of force”, published on the Web by Prof. Dr.
Aurelian Teodorescu).