in Ancient Geography, an islet in the Aegean Sea, the most famous of the Cyclades, and the central spot round which that group was believed by the ancients to cluster in a nearly circular form. It was known by the ancients under many names, such as Asteria, Chlamydia, Cynthus, Otygia, Pyrpile, &c. Delos is the smallest of the Cyclades, being only about 5 miles in circumference, and lies at nearly equal distances between Myconos and Rheneia, though somewhat nearer the latter, in N. Lat. 37° 23'. and E. Long. 25° 17'. Many traditions were current in ancient times regarding the origin of Delos, the most popular of which, recorded with some variations by the different poets of antiquity, describes it as having been called forth from the bottom of the sea by a stroke of Neptune's trident, and as having floated through the Aegean till Jupiter moored it as a place of refuge for the persecuted Latona. Here it was that Apollo and Diana were soon after born; and from this circumstance the island was ever after deemed peculiarly sacred to these deities. The early history of Delos is involved in much obscurity. The best authorities describe the island as originally colonized by Ionian settlers, and as being the seat of a great Pan-Ionic festival, which was celebrated with musical as well as with gymnastic contests. So sacred was the island believed to be, that in the time of Pisistratus all the tombs within sight of the temple were removed as being displeasing to the god; a purification which was repeated even more strictly in the course of the Peloponnesian war by the Athenians, who removed every tomb that was there, and ordained that no one should henceforth either die or be born on the island. Invalids and pregnant women were accordingly always removed from Delos to some of the adjacent islands. The purification was a few years afterwards completed by the final removal of all the inhabitants from the island. A full account of this second Delphi purification and all the ceremonies consequent upon it will be found in the third book of Thucydides' History. It was just about this time that the great festival already mentioned began to lose its national character and assume a local one. It still however afforded great facilities for commerce, of which, after the overthrow of Corinth, Delos became the great emporium in the Aegean. The fame and importance of the island, however, had by this time been long on the wane; and in the Mithridatic war it received a shock from which it never afterwards fully recovered. In the time of Pausanias it was little better than a barren uninhabited rock. The town in which the temple of Apollo was situated lay on the western side of the island, at the foot of Mount Cynthus. In the middle ages the greater portion of these magnificent ruins were carried off by the Turks and Venetians to Constantinople and Venice; and nothing now remains but a few broken pillars and architraves to mark the site of one of the most sacred and sumptuous edifices of the ancient world. The only inhabitants of Delos now are a few shepherds who cross over with their flocks during the summer months from the neighbouring islands. (See Leake's Northern Greece; Sallier, Histoire de l'île de Delos; Thucydides, Book III.; and Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography.)