Delphi- Greek LocationLocation · Landmark"Navel of the World"

The Navel of the World

Delphi occupies a spectacular setting on the southwestern slope of Mount Parnassus, overlooking the valley of Pleistos and the Gulf of Corinth far below. According to Greek myth, Zeus determined Delphi to be the center of the world by releasing two eagles from the eastern and western ends of the earth; where they met marked the omphalos, the world's navel. A conical stone called the omphalos stood in the sanctuary to mark the spot.

Before Apollo, the oracle belonged to Gaia, the Earth Mother, whose priestesses delivered prophecies from the same chasm. Themis held it after her.

Apollo and the Python

The site was originally called Pytho, named for Python, a monstrous serpent born from the mud left after Deucalion's flood. Python guarded the oracle of Gaia and terrorized the region from his lair near the Castalian Spring. In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, Python also served as nurse to Typhon, the great adversary of Zeus.

Apollo, though newly born, undertook to slay the serpent. The Homeric Hymn describes the young god letting fly arrow after arrow from his silver bow until Python writhed in agony, coiling and thrashing across the ground. His death cleared the way for Apollo's establishment at the oracle. Apollo took the name Pythian Apollo and instituted funeral games in the serpent's honor, which evolved into the Pythian Games.

But killing a sacred serpent, even for a god, required purification. Apollo went into exile at the Vale of Tempe before he could return to claim his oracle.

The Oracle and the Pythia

For over a thousand years, kings, generals, and colonizers traveled to consult the Oracle of Delphi. No major undertaking was complete without Delphic sanction.

The Pythia, Apollo's mouthpiece, was a woman chosen from the local population to speak the god's words. In earliest times she was a young virgin; later, older women served while wearing virginal dress. She held office for life and lived within the sanctuary, separated from ordinary existence.

On the seventh day of each month, Apollo's sacred day, the Pythia purified herself in the Castalian Spring and descended into the adyton, the innermost chamber of Apollo's temple. There she mounted a bronze tripod set over a chasm in the earth, from which vapors rose. She chewed laurel leaves, drank from the sacred spring, and breathed the pneuma, the divine breath from below. Then she spoke, or cried out, or moaned, and the god's words came through her in fragmentary, ecstatic utterances that the attendant priests shaped into verse for the waiting supplicant. Before any consultation, a goat was sprinkled with cold water; if it trembled, Apollo was present and willing. Visitors paid the pelanos and drew lots for their place in line, though certain cities held promanteia, the right to consult first.

Famous Prophecies

Croesus of Lydia asked the Oracle whether he should attack Persia. The Oracle replied that if he crossed the Halys River, a great empire would fall. Croesus attacked, and a great empire did fall: his own. The prophecy was true; his interpretation was wrong.

Oedipus's tragedy began at Delphi. Learning that he was fated to kill his father and marry his mother, he fled what he believed to be his home, only to fulfill the prophecy through that very flight.

Before the Persian Wars, Athens consulted Delphi and received the "wooden wall" prophecy: that only wooden walls would save the city. Debate raged: were wooden walls the palisade around the Acropolis, or the wooden ships of the fleet? Themistocles argued for the naval interpretation, Athens built its fleet, and the victory at Salamis saved Greece.

Alexander the Great visited Delphi before his conquest of Persia. Arriving on an inauspicious day when the Oracle was not in session, he reportedly dragged the Pythia toward the temple. She cried out, "You are invincible!" Alexander, taking this as sufficient prophecy, released her and departed.

The Amphictyonic League

Delphi belonged not to any single city but to a confederation of twelve Greek peoples, the Amphictyonic League, who administered the sanctuary, organized the Pythian Games, and enforced sacred law. Member states swore oaths not to destroy any confederate city, not to cut off its water supply, and not to plunder the sanctuary's treasures. Violations were punished by sacred war.

The sanctuary's wealth made it a perpetual temptation. The First Sacred War destroyed the town of Kirrha for extorting pilgrims on the road to Delphi. The most consequential erupted in 356 BCE, when Phocis seized the sanctuary and melted down its golden offerings to pay mercenaries. The sacrilege drew Philip II of Macedon into central Greek affairs as Delphi's champion, giving him the foothold from which he would bring all Greece under Macedonian dominion.

The Sacred Precinct

The Sacred Way wound up the steep slope from the entrance, lined with hundreds of statues and treasure houses erected by rival Greek cities, each vying to display their wealth and piety. The Treasury of the Athenians, rebuilt in marble after Marathon, proclaimed that city's triumph. The Treasury of the Siphnians, financed by the island's gold mines, dazzled visitors with a frieze of gods battling giants.

At the heart of the sanctuary stood the Temple of Apollo, rebuilt multiple times after fires and earthquakes. Inscribed at its entrance: Gnothi seauton, "Know Thyself," and Meden agan, "Nothing in Excess." A third inscription, the single letter epsilon, puzzled visitors for centuries; Plutarch devoted an entire essay to its possible meanings. Within the temple, the adyton concealed the tripod, the omphalos stone, and whatever it was that allowed the god to speak.

Above the temple, a theater seating five thousand overlooked the entire sanctuary and the valley far below. Higher still, the stadium hosted the athletic contests. The Castalian Spring, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, provided the water of purification that every visitor touched before approaching the Oracle.

The Pythian Games

While the Olympics were purely athletic, the Pythian Games had begun as a musical competition, a hymn-singing contest in Apollo's honour, and retained their artistic character even after athletic events were added in 586 BCE. Competitions in kithara-singing and aulos-playing drew musicians from across the Greek world.

The prize was a wreath of laurel cut from the Vale of Tempe. The laurel was sacred to Apollo since his pursuit of Daphne, who became the tree itself to escape the god's embrace. Pindar composed victory odes for Pythian champions. The games drew competitors and spectators from every corner of the Greek-speaking world, and the sacred truce that protected them made the festival a meeting ground where rivals could negotiate in peace.

Decline and the Final Oracle

Delphi's influence waned as the classical Greek world gave way to Hellenistic kingdoms and then Roman domination. The sanctuary was attacked by Gauls in 279 BCE, reportedly driven back by snowfalls and rockslides that the Greeks attributed to Apollo defending his precinct. Roman generals treated Delphi ambivalently: Sulla stripped it to fund wars, while Hadrian lavished restorations. Nero removed five hundred statues but also performed at the Pythian Games, winning every musical competition he entered.

When the emperor Julian, attempting to restore paganism, sent to Delphi in 362 CE, the Oracle delivered its final response: Apollo had no more prophecies to give. The spring was silenced, the laurel withered, and the speaking water spoke no more.