Throughout the ancient world oracles and diviners practiced their arts, giving insights to the
future that both commoners and nobles wanted to know about.
Some of these clairvoyants achieved great fame, others were not even recorded in history
and a few became legendary icons.
Perhaps the most famous of the ancient oracles and certainly the most important and trustworthy
for the ancient Greeks, was the Oracle of Delphi, where Pythia, the priestess of Apollo,
gave her famous ambiguous prophecies.
In this video, we will describe how this process took place.
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According to ancient Greek mythology, the father of gods Zeus released two eagles: one
headed west and the other east and after circumnavigating the world they met over a stone at Delphi
where the omphalos or navel of mother earth Gaia was found and thus the site was considered
the center of the world by the ancient Greeks.
There, lived Python, a serpent-like monster that guarded the stone and the oracle that
was dedicated to Gaia.
Python would have lived a quiet life had he not taken part in one of Zeus’ and Hera’s
feuds.
The Queen of the Gods was angry at her husband for his infidelity that had resulted in Leto,
his newest lover, being pregnant with Artemis and Apollo.
So Hera commanded the monster to chase the unfortunate Leto in order to stop her from
giving birth.
That didn’t come to pass however and the God of Music and Light, Apollo, would exact
his revenge when he slew the dragon using his golden bow and arrows, made by Hephaustus
himself and took over Python’s former home and oracle.
Another myth tells us that he guided some Cretan priests to the holy site in the form
of a dolphin and was thus called and worshipped as Apollo Delphinieus.
These two myths might have given the names to the town and to Apollo’s high priestess.
The town Delphi, in honour of the God of the Art of Prophecy himself and Pythia from Python,
the legendary monster Apollo had slain.
While little is known of individual Pythias, historian Plutarch who came from a small town
near Delphi gives us some of the characteristics all Pythias had to possess.
Every priestess had to be Delphic and was chosen, at least in Plutarch's time, from
one of the most esteemed and respected families of the city.
However, that didn’t necessarily mean noble families.
In fact, Plutarch's Pythia came from a poor family of peasants.
Once chosen, the priestess served Apollo for life committing herself to strenuous exercise
and of course chastity.
While originally the priestesses had to be young virgins, this would change from the
2nd century BC.
Diodorus of Sicily informs that after an incident where a man named Echecrates of Thessaly,
kidnapped and raped the Pythia, the Delphians declared that the Oracle should be a woman
of more than fifty years of age, so as to not sexually excite the consultants, but that
she would continue to wear the maiden's garment in honour of her predecessors.
In previous centuries the sanctuary was so busy that three Pythias had to be used at
any time, but by the end of the first century AD the Oracle's popularity had declined so
much that one priestess was enough to cope with the number of customers.
The prophetess gave her consultations only once per month which was thought to be the
7th day coinciding with Apollo's birthday.
Furthermore, she was only available 9 months a year, as during the winter months it was
thought that Apollo was absent from Delphi and residing with the people of Hyperborea,
leaving in his place the god of wine Dionysus.
On the nine days of the year that were reserved for an oracular consultation the day would
progress as follows.
At dawn the priestess would head down and bathe at the Castalian spring near the sanctuary.
After she had purified her body she would return to the temple to burn an offering of
laurel leaves and barley to Apollo and possibly accompanied by a spoken homage to every deity
honored at the temple.
At the same time the male priests of Apollo would make sure that the god was willing to
be consulted.
This they would do by sprinkling cold water on the head of a goat which had to be pure
and without visible defects.
If the goat shuddered then the god was happy and the animal would be carried to Apollo’s
altar outside the temple to be sacrificed.
Then the consultation could go ahead.
Pythia wasn’t the only one who had to be purified.
The visitors who wanted Apollo’s advice had to purify themselves as well by using
water from the local springs.
Then they would be organized into groups that would enter in an order that was determined
by a set of strict rules.
First to enter were of course the local Delphians, followed by Greeks whose city was part of
the Amphictyony, the powerful governing council of the sanctuary.
Finally, other Greeks and non-Greeks would enter.
However there was a way to cheat the system and skip to the front of the line, the so-called
promanteia.
This was awarded to individuals or cities as a thanks for their deeds or offering to
the shrine.
But while the promanteia would allow visitors to cut in line they would still have to pay
the monetary price.
This was not collected directly but rather the customers of the Oracle had to buy the
pelanos, which was a small cake that was burned on the altar as an offering.
The price for this sacrifice varied between.
The compensation if an entire city was seeking the oracle’s consultation was significantly
higher than that for individuals, but prices also differed between each city and each individual
depending on previous arrangements with the temple.
Some people like Croesus, the king of Lydia, had been awarded the high honor of not paying
at all.
When the consultant's turn had finally come he would enter the inner part of the temple
where he would perform another sacrifice, usually that of an animal.
If he was not of Delphian origin, he had to be accompanied by a local who acted as a representative
or proxenos.
Once this second sacrifice was completed, he would move forward and Pythia who was seated
in the adyton would begin her consultation.
The adyton where Pythia resided a restricted area of the temple that besides the prophetess
and the tripod that she was seated on, also contained the stone where the eagles of the
myth had met, the omphalos, as well as the tomb of Dionysus.
Apollo, the protector and the honoured god of the sanctuary naturally couldn’t be absent
from the mystical and innermost part of the temple.
Two statues of Phoebus, one made of gold and the other made of wood, and a laurel tree
stood beside the god’s oracle.
Due to the lack of sources it is difficult for us to reconstruct the inner architecture
of the temple and to tell exactly who was present.
Plutarch informs us that the consultants stayed in a separate room.
If that is true then their question was relayed orally or written to one of Apollo’s priests
who in turn passed it to Pythia and returned with her answer.
If so, was the answer an interpretation of what the priests had heard from the oracle?
Was it truly an answer coming from divine inspiration Pythia received from Apollo or
made up by the priests?
No other subject surrounding the Oracle of Delphi has been debated more than how Pythia
received enlightenment to give her response.
Early ancient sources mention the prophetess uttering cries and shaking a branch of laurel.
Diodorus of Sicily is the first to mention a chasm below Pythia from where vapors arose
and gave Pythia her prophetic abilities.
While other writers agree to the existence of the whole, they claim that it just led
to a place where the oracle physically descended and prophesied from.
Lucan seems to agree with Diodorus, claiming that she was possessed by Apollo’s spirit
after inhaling the vapors, while Lucian in the 2nd century A.D. tells us that Pythia
chewed laurel leaves and drank water from the Castalian spring for inspiration.
Plutarch on the other hand merely mentions that the pneuma filled the temple but gives
no description of its exact nature.
He also commented that the Pythia didn’t rant and was instead calm and peaceful between
her oracular sessions, contradicting the earlier sources.
Diodorus’ and subsequent agreeing accounts thus painted the popular modern image of Pythia
being in a trance state by the intoxicating fumes that emerged from the ground and ranting
incomprehensible answers that had to be interpreted by the priests around her.
Researchers and archeologists have tried for decades to find either the ventilation system
or the exact nature of the gas.
One theory states that these vapors were in fact ethylene which would also correspond
with Plutarch’s account of a “delightful fragrance” that filled the temple.
However, this proposed idea does have its weak points as stated by other researchers.
First of all the ethylene that was found at the site of Delphi, namely in the waters of
the Kerna spring, reached concentrations of 0.3 nanomoles per liter.
To put this into perspective a typical university classroom will contain several times this
amount as a result of the students breathing.
Another obstacle for this theory is ethylene’s flammability; after reaching over 2.7% concentration
in the air it becomes highly combustible.
We can safely assume that fire must have existed inside the temple in lamps and braziers and
Plutarch even informs us that the burning of incense was part of the ritual, yet there
is no record of the temple bursting in flames or exploding.
On the other hand if the ethylene in the atmosphere reached levels where combustion would be impossible
then Pythia wouldn’t be able to breathe.
Finally, but perhaps most importantly, the French archaeologists who originally excavated
the ancient site in the 1890’s were unable to find any such chasm as described by some
of the ancient sources, much to their disappointment.
The world was in fact so disappointed at that time by the lack of findings that some scholars
argued that the entire Oracle was a sham created by the priests of Apollo for easy money while
others argued that the laurel leaves or other plants like oleander might have been responsible
for giving Pythia a high.
Another theory that tried to explain Pythias divine inspiration was put forward by Herbert
Parke and Donald Wormell in the 1950’s who argued that it was a form of self-hypnosis.
However, the idea of intoxicating gaseous emissions persisted in the minds of many and
in recent decades researchers have claimed to have found geological faults underneath
the site and possible fissures that could have let gasses escape upwards, towards the
adyton.
Still, as we have already mentioned, some oppose this notion and the subject remains
debatable amongst scholars.
While we are intrigued by the mechanism that set Pythia in a prophetic rave, if such a
thing even happened at all, the ancients didn’t seem to care.
For them the fact that Apollo was speaking through Pythia was far more important.
And certainly for those who came to the sanctuary seeking advice and answers to their problems,
Pythia’s reply would be their primary concern instead of theological debates.
These answers came in the form of hexameters that were usually open to interpretation and
sometimes used grammatical tricks to ensure the Oracle’s reply was always correct.
But the question that was put forward to the oracle had to be of a certain nature and usually
was of the “Should I do x or y” form.
Vague questions were met with equally vague and ambiguous answers from Pythia.
A great example is Croesus’s question of which ancient Oracle was the best.
After many years the king of Lydia submitted a second question to the Delphic Oracle, asking
whether he would win against the Persians or not.
Pythia’s answer to this is a prime example of the ambiguous replies the Oracle gave and
one if not the most famous.
If you campaign against Persia you will destroy a great empire, was Pythia’s response.
Emboldened by this Croesus attacked the Achaemenid Empire but ultimately lost the war and his
kingdom, and only then understood that he had interpreted the cryptic answer wrong.
Because of the answers the Delphic Oracle gave, Apollo who was the God of the Prophesying
art and the deity of the sanctuary, was also called Loxias, meaning ambiguous.
However, none could accuse the shrine and Pythia of lying or misleading through her
responses.
After all these came to be true and any faults regarding the interpretation lay with the
person that had asked the question.
It was partly because of these answers that the Delphic Oracle came to be the most famous
and well-respected oracle in the ancient Greek world.
Its importance grew beyond the oraculations.
People gathered there to watch or participate in the Pythian games, the second most important
competition in ancient Greece, behind only the Olympics.
Finally, some people visited the site neither for Apollo, nor the games, but as tourists
who simply wanted to admire the famous riches the sanctuary had accumulated through donations
and the services it provided.
Yet nothing lasts forever and the Oracle of Delphi would be no exception.
The sanctuary’s declining popularity in Plutarch’s time would only worsen with the
spread of Christianity in the area.
Julian the Apostate tried to reverse the anti-pagan climate of his era but his short-lived reign
bore no fruit.
When Oribasius, Julian’s doctor visited the desolate Oracle on behalf of the emperor
in 362, he asked Pythia about the future of paganism, only to receive a grim reply that
would also be one of the prophetess’ last.
-“Tell the king, the splendid hall fell to the ground.
Phoebus no longer has his house, nor the prophesying laurel,
nor the speaking well.
The speaking water has dried out”
Pythia’s prophecy once again came true as almost two decades later, during the pagan
persecutions of Theodosius I in 381 AD the sanctuary was shut down.
The closure of the Delphic oracle can be seen as a symbolic end of the old pagan world of
the Greco-Roman pantheon and the herald of Christian dominance in the east Mediterranean
for the next three centuries.
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