Delphi

How Apollo Came to Delphi

Ancient authors told at least three stories of how Apollo came to own the oracle. In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, he chooses the site below Parnassus, lays the foundations of his temple himself, and kills an unnamed she-dragon who lived at a nearby spring. Her corpse rots (Greek pythein) in the sun, and the hymn explains the names Pytho and Pythian Apollo from that. Later writers named the serpent Python and made it male. The hymn then has the god take the form of a dolphin, leap onto a Cretan ship, and steer it to the coast below Delphi so that its crew can serve as his first priests. That is the origin it gives for the cult title Apollo Delphinios.

Aeschylus' Eumenides opens with the Pythia's prayer, which tells a peaceful history. Earth (Gaia) was the first prophet, then her daughter Themis, then the Titaness Phoebe, who gave the shrine to Apollo as a birthday gift. Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris tells a more violent version. Apollo drives out Themis, and Earth takes revenge by sending prophetic dreams to mortals, until Zeus restores the oracle's monopoly. Pausanias adds a series of legendary temples. The first was a hut of laurel, the second was made of beeswax and feathers by bees, and the third was bronze. The fourth, the first stone temple, was built by the architects Trophonius and Agamedes.

Dionysus, Heracles and Other Visitors

Delphi was never Apollo's alone. Plutarch, who served as a priest there around AD 100, says Dionysus ruled the sanctuary during the three winter months while Apollo was away. Women from Athens and Delphi, the Thyiads, climbed Parnassus every second year to hold rites for him. His figure appeared on the west pediment of the 4th-century temple, facing Apollo on the east.

Heroes came to Delphi too, and not always politely. When the Pythia refused to answer Heracles, he grabbed the tripod to start his own oracle. Apollo fought him for it until Zeus separated them with a thunderbolt. The scene is carved on the east pediment of the Siphnian Treasury, now in the Delphi museum. Orestes came to Apollo's temple for purification after killing his mother. Achilles' son Neoptolemus came and died there. Euripides' Andromache blames a plot by Orestes, while Pindar says Apollo himself arranged his death. The oracle also stands behind the whole tragedy of Oedipus. Prophecies given at Delphi to Laius and later to Oedipus himself set the disaster in motion.

How Consultations Actually Worked

Apart from the famous prophecies, the oracle had a working routine. At first it answered only once a year, on Apollo's birthday, the seventh of the month Bysios. Later consultations were held on the seventh day of most months, and in his own day Plutarch says there was just one Pythia. At its busiest, though, the oracle had needed two, with a third in reserve. Diodorus says the Pythia was originally a young virgin. After one was abducted by a Thessalian visitor, the Delphians chose women over fifty instead, who still dressed as maidens. Visitors paid a fee called the pelanos and sacrificed a goat. The animal was sprinkled with cold water first, and the consultation went ahead only if it shuddered. Many surviving responses are short, practical yes-or-no answers about colonies, cult and laws, not the riddles of popular legend.

The "vapours" are a matter of debate. Strabo and Plutarch both speak of a pneuma rising from the earth. A study published in 2001 argued that faults beneath the temple could have released ethylene. Other researchers dispute whether enough gas could ever have reached the chamber, so the theory remains plausible but unproven. The festival called the Septerion, celebrated every eight years, re-enacted the killing of the serpent with a hut set on fire and a boy playing the god. The Pythian Games began as a contest in hymns to Apollo with the kithara, and athletics were added only when the games were reorganised in the 580s BC.

Ancient sources

• Homeric Hymn to Apollo, lines 182–546 — The Pythian part of the hymn tells how Apollo founded his temple, killed the she-dragon, explained the name Pytho, and brought Cretan priests as Apollo Delphinios.
• Aeschylus, Eumenides 1–33 — The Pythia's prologue lists the oracle's earlier holders, Gaia, Themis and Phoebe, before Apollo.
• Herodotus, Histories 1.46–55 and 7.140–143 — Herodotus tells how Croesus tested the oracles and what replies he received, and gives the "wooden wall" oracles given to Athens.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 10 — Pausanias tours the sanctuary, its treasuries and dedications, and gives the tradition of the four early temples.
• Plutarch, On the Pythian Oracles and On the Obsolescence of Oracles — Plutarch writes as an insider-priest about why the Pythia no longer spoke in verse, the pneuma, and how the oracle declined.
• Plato, Apology 20e–21a — Socrates recounts how Chaerephon asked the oracle whether anyone was wiser than Socrates.

Frequently asked questions

Who was at Delphi before Apollo?

Aeschylus lists Gaia, Themis and Phoebe as earlier holders of the oracle. Other versions have Apollo take it by force, killing the serpent that guarded the site for Earth.

Did the Pythia really inhale gas?

Ancient writers describe a pneuma from the earth, and a 2001 geological study suggested ethylene could explain it. The amount of gas and the evidence for a chasm are still debated, so the theory is not settled.

How often could you consult the Oracle of Delphi?

At first only once a year. Later the oracle answered on the seventh day of most months, except in winter, when Apollo was believed to be away and Dionysus held the sanctuary.

When did the Oracle of Delphi stop?

Its activity dwindled under the Roman Empire and ended in the late 4th century AD, when the emperor Theodosius I banned pagan cult. The famous "last oracle" said to have been given to Julian survives only in late sources, and its authenticity is doubtful.