The First Sacred War -- A racial conflict?
At the turn of the 6th century BC, an alliance of city-states under the leadership of King Cleisthenes of Sicyon led an attack on the city of Kirrha for allegedly 'robbing and mistreating pilgrims' on their way to the Delphic Oracle.
The city was besieged both navally and on land, but the war was ultimately won with the help of an "asclepiad doctor" named Nebros who advised the allies to poison Kirrha's water supply with hellebore, which gave them all horrible diarrhea and allowed the army to take the city. The conquering army then genocided the people of Kirrha. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sacred_War)
. .
As I read this bit of history I couldn't help but think that this underhanded sort of tactic would have been seen as cowardly and dishonorable to those Classical Hellenes who were always very concerned with honor in war. A victory by poisoning their enemies is anathema to the North European soul... or at least, that's my impression.
SO I began to consider another possibility... Certainly there were near-eastern groups who lived in Greece prior to the arrival of the North European invaders. Perhaps this King Cleisthenes was a holdout from this earlier population of near-easterners? Is there any evidence for this?
. .
So I looked further into this Cleisthenes character and found some fascinating facts:
1. Cleisthenes organized with success a war against Argos because of his anti-Dorian feelings. After his victory he abolished all the rhapsodists of Homer, because they vaunted the citizens of Argos.
2. Besides reforming the city's constitution to the advantage of the Ionians and replacing Dorian cults with the worship of Dionysus
3. The key innovation of his reign, which Herodotus mentions, is the reformation of the tribal system in the city of Sicyon. Herodotus states that he gave new names to all the tribes, calling his own non-Doric tribe, rulers of the people, and naming the other three Doric tribes after various animals. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleisthenes_of_Sicyon)
This last one is particularly egregious, since it seems like an attempt to institutionally erase the previous identity of the Dorian tribes living under his rule...
Also interesting is that this strongly implies that Homeric hymns basically belonged to, and gave praise for, the Dorian folk... and not Cleisthenes' non-Dorian folk. If you have read Felice Vinci's The Baltic Origins of Homer's Epic Tales, this is not too surprising.
. .
And it turns out, if we look further back into history, that Cleisthenes' city of Sicyon was in fact conquered by the Dorians during the Dorian invasion.
Were the Dorians Aryan, North Europeans?
From the wiki page on the Dorian invasion--
"After the Greek Dark Ages, much of the population of the Peloponnesus spoke Dorian, while the evidence of Linear B and literary traditions, such as the works of Homer, suggests that the population spoke Achaean – Mycenaean Greek – before. In addition, society in the Peloponnesus had undergone a total change from states ruled by kings presiding over a Palace economy to a caste system ruled by a Dorian master ethnos at Sparta." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_invasion#Invasion_or_migration)
I think this archaeologically verifiable shift from the Palace economy to the caste system shows without doubt that an Aryan nation invaded at this point in time.
The so-called Palace economy (also called a "redistribution economy" because of the fact that the central palace served as a hub where nearly all goods and resources were brought to be divided up and re-distributed "fairly"... hah! like a forerunner to Socialist utopias) was distinctive of the Near East... it began in Egypt, and could be found as far north as Crete during the Minoan period, which, as we know, was established by Phoenicians.
So the fact that this Palace economy was destroyed and replaced with a caste system, led by militaristic elites who saw themselves as completely separate from the average pleb, tells me that this could've been none other than an Aryan nation similar to the invaders of India who set up that caste-based society.
. .
So to return to Cleisthenes and the Sacred War... perhaps it was the case that the Dorian/Aryan invaders who swept in from the North took control over Kirrha, and began to charge a tax for people who wished to pass through their land, so-called "Pilgrims" included. And this was determined to be unacceptable by the near-eastern folk who were actually interested in using the oracular networks to their advantage as intelligence services... as we know the Oracle temples were used as early intelligence services thanks to Allen Dulles' book, The Craft of Intelligence.
So basically, they were now being charged a tax to visit what they considered their own property, which angered those easterners who still held some power in Greece, and caused them to unite and re-establish their control over the Oracle... which is exactly what happened.
Later, Cleisthenes, feeling strong, then wished to go further and continue to attack the Dorians, and even set up the institutions mentioned above to erase their ancient tribal identities.
Also-- returning to the tactic Cleisthenes used of poisoning the enemy's water suppy... I think it's important to note that the mastermind behind the dishonorable tactic was an asclepiad... a doctor of a snake god. We know these snake god cults derived from the Middle East and Egypt... so it seems to maybe even connect to a larger theme I've been finding lately, which is the existence of some kind of snake goddess cult that began in Egypt, was brought to Phoenicia and Crete, existed underground in Greece and Rome, and then was transported via occult mysticism to the present, where we find modern day Satanists worshipping Satan as a snake, or using the symbolism of coiled snakes frequently.
This battle between the Northerly Aryan race, and the middle-eastern race might be symbolized in the allegory of Apollo slaying the Python and assuming the power of prophecy himself...
Also a nearly identical story can be found in Egyptian myth: "Set had a positive role where he accompanies Ra on his solar boat to repel Apep, the serpent of Chaos." It is also well known that Set was considered the "God of foreigners" to the Egyptians and was widely celebrated during the reign of Ramesses II who has been proven to be a fair-skinned redhead.
"The description given here refers to a fair-skinned person with wavy ginger hair.[73][74] Subsequent microscopic inspection of the roots of Ramesses II's hair proved that the king's hair originally was red, which suggests that he came from a family of redheads.[75] This has more than just cosmetic significance: in ancient Egypt people with red hair were associated with the deity Set, the slayer of Osiris, and the name of Ramesses II's father, Seti I, means "follower of Seth." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II#Mummy)
Yet, the worship of Set declined as he was demonized after Egypt was conquered by invaders from the Middle East, including Assyrian and Persians:
"According to Herman te Velde, the demonization of Set took place after Egypt's conquest by several foreign nations in the Third Intermediate and Late Periods. Set, who had traditionally been the god of foreigners, thus also became associated with foreign oppressors, including the Assyrian and Persian empires.[31] It was during this time that Set was particularly vilified, and his defeat by Horus widely celebrated." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(deity)#Demonization_of_Set)
I would suspect that this association was not merely accidental, but it was a planned propaganda campaign by the invaders who erase the memory of the Aryan Set from the minds of the Egyptians by these middle eastern conquerers.
So it appears in Egypt as well as Greece, some ancient spiritual battle between the God of the Sun and the Serpent God was, perhaps, an allegory of a fight between two different racial groups-- the light skinned, light haired Aryans from the North who venerated the Sun, and the darker desert dwellers from the Middle East who likely worshipped snake goddesses.
Most importantly, those darker desert dwellers seemed to have had an international organization that was based in religious temples rather than clan or tribe. Phoenicia, Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, the Minoans, and other Semitic groups had local Kings and rulers, but it seems more and more evident to me that these nations were all controlled, or at least heavily influenced by a hidden religious hand. This idea is supported by various scattered facts, such as the fact given in the Bible that Solomon's Temple was constructed by Phoenician builders, or the report given by Herodotus that the Phoenicians provided the first two priestesses from Egypt to initiate the first oracles in Greece. Also, stories like that of Belshazzar's Feast from the Bible seem to imply, if we interpret it from a rational standpoint instead of giving an explanation from pure superstition, that there was some hidden power that coordinated between nations-- propping up certain 'secular' rulers, and throwing down others.
And that hidden power may have been what the Dorians came into conflict with in the 6th century BC... and also it may be what is represented by the snake that was slain by Apollo and Set.
This history is mostly speculative, but I have tried to base my speculations squarely on the evidence available. I am, however, merely an amateur and I am open to other information or arguments that could contradict this narrative, if it can be provided. Thanks for reading.
Have you ever read the Voyage of Argo by Apollonius of Rhodes? Or the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides?
Superborean post, lad