We do not know if the Belvedere Apollo carried a laurel, but we do know that it was of the very essence of the god to be a Laurel-Bearer.  That, as we shall see in a moment, he, like Dionysos, arose in part out of a rite, a rite of Laurel-Bearing—­a Daphnephoria.  We have not got clear of ritual yet.  When Pausanias,[45] the ancient traveller, whose notebook is our chief source about these early festivals, came to Thebes he saw a hill sacred to Apollo, and after describing the temple on the hill he says: 

“The following custom is still, I know, observed at Thebes.  A boy of distinguished family and himself well-looking and strong is made the priest of Apollo, for the space of a year.  The title given him is Laurel-Bearer (Daphnephoros), for these boys wear wreaths made of laurel.”

We know for certain now what these yearly priests are:  they are the Kings of the Year, the Spirits of the Year, May-Kings, Jacks-o’-the-Green.  The name given to the boy is enough to show he carried a laurel branch, though Pausanias only mentions a wreath.  Another ancient writer gives us more details.[46] He says in describing the festival of the Laurel-Bearing: 

“They wreathe a pole of olive wood with laurel and various flowers.  On the top is fitted a bronze globe from which they suspend smaller ones.  Midway round the pole they place a lesser globe, binding it with purple fillets, but the end of the pole is decked with saffron.  By the topmost globe they mean the sun, to which they actually compare Apollo.  The globe beneath this is the moon; the smaller globes hung on are the stars and constellations, and the fillets are the course of the year, for they make them 365 in number.  The Daphnephoria is headed by a boy, both whose parents are alive, and his nearest male relation carries the filleted pole.  The Laurel-Bearer himself, who follows next, holds on to the laurel; he has his hair hanging loose, he wears a golden wreath, and he is dressed out in a splendid robe to his feet and he wears light shoes.  There follows him a band of maidens holding out boughs before them, to enforce the supplication of the hymns.”

This is the most elaborate maypole ceremony that we know of in ancient times.  The globes representing sun and moon show us that we have come to a time when men know that the fruits of the earth in due season depended on the heavenly bodies.  The year with its 365 days is a Sun-Year.  Once this Sun-Year established and we find that the times of the solstices, midwinter and midsummer became as, or even more, important than the spring itself.  The date of the Daphnephoria is not known.

At Delphi itself, the centre of Apollo-worship, there was a festival called the Stepteria, or festival “of those who make the wreathes,” in which “mystery” a Christian Bishop, St. Cyprian, tells us he was initiated.  In far-off Tempe—­that wonderful valley that is still the greenest spot in stony, barren Greece, and where the laurel trees still cluster—­there was an altar, and near it a laurel tree.  The story went that Apollo had made himself a crown from this very laurel, and taking in his hand a branch of this same laurel, i.e. as Laurel-Bearer, had come to Delphi and taken over the oracle.