The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi
was the most famous place
where you could consult the
gods in the ancient Greek world.
The Oracle was in the temple of
Apollo at Delphi in central Greece.
Delphi was thought to be the
central point of the Greek world,
and the Greeks called it
the omphalos or navel.
Apollo was able to answer questions one
day a month, nine months of the year.
He got the winters off.
Only men could ask
questions of the Oracle.
The men had to purify themselves by
washing before entering the sanctuary,
and then they had to
sacrifice a goat to Apollo.
The goat needed to quiver
to show that the god was
ready to answer the question.
The inquirists then had to line up in
a pre-established order of precedence
according to where they came from.
Those from Delphi and the immediate
neighborhood were first in the line.
Apollo's mouthpiece was a priestess
chosen from the village of Delphi
and known as the Pythia.
She was said to be an
ordinary middle aged
woman dressed in the
clothes of a virgin,
so the clothes of a much
younger, unmarried woman.
At the beginning of the day, she
washed in the Castalian Spring
to purify herself before
sitting on a three-legged tripod
inside the temple of Apollo.
She entered a trance-like state.
There's been a lot of modern
speculation on whether she
was high on fumes or drugs,
but it's actually unlikely
that her trance was chemically induced.
The most reliable ancient
accounts suggest she was calm,
rather than ranting and raving.
We think that the questioner also
entered the temple of Apollo,
although he may have
stood in a separate room.
The question was
typically framed as either
should I do X, or is
it better to do A or B?
The question might be about something
quite personal, like going on a journey
or getting married or having children.
Or it might be a matter of state,
like going to war, founding a city,
or endorsing the decision
of the political assembly.
The Pythia would then give her reply,
probably in simple spoken form,
although there are also lots
of ancient accounts of giving
her responses in complicated,
riddling hexameter verse.
The fame of the Oracle
of Delphi means there
are many legendary or apocryphal
stories of responses, including
notorious riddles that were
misinterpreted by the Haras.
One example is of Croesus, the
sixth century BCE King of Lydia,
who was told that if he
made war on the Persians
he would destroy a great kingdom.
He thought that meant that he
would destroy the Persian kingdom,
but of course, it turned out to
be that his own kingdom of Lydia
was destroyed when he was defeated
by the Persian King Cyrus.
Although this example is apocryphal,
it illustrates the importance
not just of the oracular response but
of the questioner himself and sometimes
his whole family or community having
to work out what the Oracle means.
