Delphi

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Known to the ancient Greeks as the Amphalos or belly button of the world, the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi was one of the most famous cultic centers in the Greek world.

The Oracle of Delphi features prominently in ancient epics, poetry, and narrative, and the prophecies issued at the sanctuary shaped the course of not only Greek history, but that of the wider Mediterranean world.

According to some ancient Greek writers, the Oracle of Delphi received her prophecies in a very specific way.

In one ancient version of the story, told by the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus, long ago, when Delphi was still uninhabited, a shepherd noticed vapors rising from a crack in the earth.

He also noticed that his goats, standing near the crack, started acting weird, making odd noises unlike normal goats, for the goats began to act like beings possessed.

Approaching the crack to investigate himself, the shepherd suffered the same effect.

According to the story, the inhabitants of the region, in order to eliminate risks, decided to appoint one woman as prophetess for everyone, who would pronounce prophecies from the god Apollo.

Know Thyself.

Ideas producer Nikola Lukšić brings us the story of the Delphic Oracle and the eternal allure and fallibility of prophecy.

When standing in the ruins of Delphi, I could truly feel why it was the sacred center of the universe in ancient Greece.

So there were many stories told about why Delphi is where it is, out of the way, in the middle of nowhere, just halfway up a mountainside.

to be more close to the god Apollo, the god of prophecy himself, and no more respected oracular institution to have a response from than Delphi.

And that oracular institution was a woman.

Even though the Delphic Oracle was around for about a thousand years, there's much mystery about who she was, how she was selected for the role, and what she did.

But what is pretty well known are the rituals a pilgrim would have to observe before getting to ask their question.

Although little is known for certain about Socrates' life, there are two events in particular which are most often regarded as being on the side of fact, while also being viewed as events of monumental importance in the life of Socrates, and it is these two events which will occupy our attention for this lecture.

The first event concerns Socrates' reaction to the oracle at Delphi which pronounced he was the wisest of all men.

An oracle is a religious shrine and sanctuary, and Delphi was an ancient Greek settlement.

To the ancient Greeks, Delphi was thought to be the center of the world, a feeling which had its origins in ancient Greek mythology.

According to myth, Zeus sent out two eagles from the ends of the universe to find the navel of the world, and in Delphi is where they met.

The Oracle at Delphi was devoted to the god Apollo.

Inscribed on the outside of the temple were the words, Know thyself, a saying often misattributed to Socrates.

People traveled from all over ancient Greece to visit the priestess of the Oracle, the Pythia, in hopes of attaining wisdom and guidance.

And it is that dual nature to heal and to poison, right? They carry both.

And so also at the Oracle of Delhi, it was the snake, the Pithya, that carried the wisdom.

But it's usually to do with the wisdom of the earth.

It is an instinctual, intuitive wisdom that has...

The Pythian Priestess, Apollo, Orestes, the Ghost of Clytemnestra, Chorus of Furies, Athena, Attendants of Athena, twelve Athenian Citizens.

The scene of the drama is the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

Afterwards, the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis of Athens and the adjoining Areopagus.

The Furies.

The Temple at Delphi.

The Pythian Priestess.

First in this prayer of all the gods I name, the prophet mother Earth, and Themis next, second who sat, for so with truth is said, on this her mother's shrine oracular.

I'm gonna give you more.

In Greek mythology, the serpent was associated with Delphi.

It was a religious sanctuary in Greece.

One ancient accounts describes as Python guarding the oracle or the church or the priest or the prophet until Apollo killed it and took possession of it.

Apollo was the Greek god associated with prophecy at Delphi.

Worshippers believe the oracle answers communication or guidance.

So Pythia was the title of Apollo's priestess or witch at Delphi.

She delivered oracles or responses seated on her sacred tripod.

All these schemes were however cut short by the unexpected deaths in 370 of both Amyntas and Iason.

The latter had announced his intention of being present at the Pythian Games at Delphi, and had further issued orders to his troops to hold themselves ready for service.

The political world of Greece was thoroughly uneasy, for he had recently seized and dismantled Heraclea, a forfeited town near Thermopylae, fearing as he alleged that it might hereafter bar the pass against him at some time when he was wishing to march into Greece.

Was it that he meant to seize the presidency of the games? Could it be that he meditated laying hands on the treasures of Delphi, and if so, what next? Immense therefore was the relief universally felt when, as the Delphic oracle had promised, the god did take care for himself.

Iason was murdered while reviewing his troops by a band of seven youths, two of whom were overtaken and slain, while the remaining five escaped and were received everywhere with special honor as those who had relieved the Greek world from a haunting fear.

Thessaly was no more a danger to Greece.

And this his proverbial good fortune soon threw in his way.

In 357 a war broke out in central Greece which is known in history as the Second Sacred War.

He made and retained a large acquaintance with the prominent Romans of his day, and was familiar with the questions which most occupied the minds of men at the political center of the world.

Then, after Athenian education, generous travels, diplomatic missions, modest literary celebrity, and considerable residence at Rome, he seems to have retired to his little country home with his books, notes, lectures, essays, and gentle philosophy, and there, in a leisure not all too much encroached upon by local magistacies and certain religious offices at neighboring Delphi, to have elaborated the sketches of his lectures and essays which have come down to us under the collective name of Morals, and to have composed the work on which his fame chiefly rests, the Parallel Lives of Greeks and Romans.

He lived through the reigns of Nero, Domitian, and Trajan, and, leaving the world as he did about 120 AD, must have rejoiced at the accession of Hadrian to the imperial throne.

His world had grown steadily better while he lived, and was now to enjoy its second golden age.

He was reared by Pittheus, as they say, and had an overseer and tutor named Conidus.

To this man, even down to the present time, the Athenians sacrifice a ram on the day before the festival of Theseus, remembering him and honoring him, with far greater justice than they honor Solano and Parrhasius, who merely painted and molded likenesses of Theseus.

Since it was still a custom at that time for youth who were coming of age to go to Delphi and sacrifice some of their hair to the god, Theseus went to Delphi for this purpose, and they say there is a place there which still to this day is called the Thesea, from him.

But he sheared only the forepart of his head, just as Homer said the Abantes did, and this kind of tonsure was called Theseis after him.