Karneia

## Overview Pausanias (Description of Greece, Book III.13): Provides the premier mythological foundation of the cult [1.1]. He outlines the dual traditions: the killing of the seer Karnos by Hippotes, and an alternate etymological theory where the festival was named after the cornel-tree (kraneia) grove on Mount Ida, chopped down by the Greeks to build the Trojan Horse, which required a placatory festival to soothe Apollo's wrath [2.1].

§ 3.13.3 Carneus, whom they surname “Oiketas” (of the House), had honors in Sparta even before the return of the Heracleidae, his seat being in the house of a seer, Crius (Ram) the son of Theocles. The daughter of this Crius was met as she was filling her pitcher by spies of the Dorians, who entered into conversation with her, visited Crius and learned from him how to capture Sparta.

§ 3.13.4 The cult of Apollo Carneus has been established among all the Dorians ever since Carnus, an Acarnanian by birth, who was a seer of Apollo. When he was killed by Hippotes the son of Phylas, the wrath of Apollo fell upon the camp of the Dorians Hippotes went into banishment because of the blood-guilt, and from this time the custom was established among the Dorians of propitiating the Acarnanian seer. But this Carnus is not the Lacedemonian Carneus of the House, who was worshipped in the house of Crius the seer while the Achaeans were still in possession of Sparta.

§ 3.13.5 The poetess Praxilla represents Carneus as the son of Europa and Zeus, Apollo and Leto being his nurses. There is also another account of the name; in Trojan Ida there grew, in a grove of Apollo, cornel-trees, which the Greeks cut down to make the Wooden Horse. Learning that the god was wroth with them they propitiated him with sacrifices and named Apollo Carneus from the cornel-tree (craneia), a custom prevalent in the olden time making them transpose the r and the a.