DELIA  , a festival oi

Apollo held every five years at the great panegyris in Delos (Homeric Hymn to Apollo, 147) . It included athletic and musical contests, at which the prize was a branch of the sacred palm . This festival was said to have been established by Theseus on his way back from Crete . Its celebration gradually fell into abeyance and was not revived till 426 B.C., when the Athenians purified the island and took so prominent a part in the maintenance of the Delia that it came to be regarded almost as an Athenian festival fhucydides iii . 104) . Ceremonial embassies (Bewpint) from all the Greek cities were present . See G . Gilbert, Deliaca (1869) ; J . A . Lebegue, Recherches sur Delos (1876); A . Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen (1898); E . Pfuhl, De Atheniensium porn pis sacris (1900) ; G .

F .

Schomann, Griechische Altertiimer (4th ed., 1897—1902) ; P . Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusalterti mer (1898) ; T . Homolle in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire des antiquites .