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Liber VII · Divination

Liber VII · Divination · Chapter X: Other Oracles

The Oracle of Delphi: The Pythia, Apollo and the Sanctuary

The Oracle of Delphi explained: the Pythia and how consultations worked, famous responses, the vapour theory, Plutarch's account and the oracle's history.

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The Oracle of Delphi was the most famous oracle of the ancient Greek world: a sanctuary of Apollo on the slopes of Mount Parnassus where a priestess called the Pythia, seated on a tripod in the inner chamber of the temple, gave the god's answers to questions from cities, rulers and private individuals. It was consulted for more than a thousand years, from at least the eighth century BCE until the late fourth century CE, on matters from the founding of colonies to marriage and debt.

Apollo's Sanctuary at Delphi§

Delphi lies on a steep terrace below the cliffs of Parnassus, above the valley of the Pleistos in central Greece. Greek myth made it the centre of the world: Zeus released two eagles from opposite ends of the earth, and they met at Delphi, where a carved stone, the omphalos or "navel," marked the spot. According to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the god came to Delphi, killed the serpent Python that guarded the place and founded his oracle; other traditions, such as the opening of Aeschylus's Eumenides, said that the oracle had belonged first to Earth (Gaia) and Themis before passing to Apollo.

Archaeology shows a settlement and cult activity at Delphi from the ninth or eighth century BCE, and the sanctuary grew rapidly during the age of Greek colonisation. It was managed by the people of Delphi under the protection of the Amphictyonic League, a council of neighbouring Greek peoples, and was filled with dedications and "treasuries," small buildings in which cities displayed their offerings. The Pythian Games, held every four years with contests in music as well as athletics, made Delphi a panhellenic meeting place. On the temple were inscribed maxims attributed to the Seven Sages, including "Know thyself" (gnōthi seauton) and "Nothing in excess" (mēden agan). The wider religious setting is described in our article on Greek religion and the mysteries.

The Pythia and the Consultation§

The Pythia was chosen from among the women of Delphi. According to Diodorus, she had originally been a young girl, but after one was abducted the office was given to women over fifty, who still dressed as maidens. Plutarch, writing around 100 CE, describes the Pythia of his own day as a woman of good but simple family, without special education. She held the office for life, lived in chastity while serving, and at the busiest periods of the oracle's history two or three Pythias served in turn.

Consultation was originally possible only once a year, on the seventh day of the month Bysios, the god's birthday; later it took place on the seventh of each month, except during the winter months, when Apollo was believed to be absent and Dionysus to preside at Delphi. Inquirers paid a fee, offered a sacrificial cake (pelanos), and presented a goat for sacrifice. The goat was sprinkled with cold water, and only if it trembled was the god considered willing to answer. Some cities and individuals held the right of promanteia, first place in the queue.

The Pythia purified herself at the Castalian spring, and in the temple a fire of laurel and barley meal was burned. She then descended into the adyton, the restricted inner chamber, and took her seat on a tripod. The only near-contemporary image of a consultation, on an Athenian cup of about 440 BCE now in Berlin, shows the mythical king Aegeus before a seated priestess, here labelled Themis, holding a laurel sprig and a bowl. The questions were put orally or in writing, and the answers were given in the Pythia's voice. Priests called prophētai and officials known as the "holy ones" assisted, and in some periods answers were written down, sometimes in hexameter verse.

Famous Responses and Their Reliability§

Greek literature preserves many stories of Delphic responses. Herodotus says that the Lydian king Croesus tested several oracles by asking what he was doing on a particular day and that only Delphi answered correctly, that he was boiling a tortoise and a lamb in a bronze cauldron. Asked whether he should attack Persia, he was told that if he did, he would destroy a great empire; he did, and the empire destroyed was his own. Before the Persian invasion of 480 BCE the Athenians received a response advising them to trust in "wooden walls," which Themistocles argued meant their fleet. In Plato's Apology, Socrates relates that his friend Chaerephon asked whether anyone was wiser than Socrates, and that the Pythia replied that no one was.

The American classicist Joseph Fontenrose, in The Delphic Oracle (1978), catalogued over five hundred recorded responses and sorted them by the quality of their evidence. He found that the responses attested by contemporary inscriptions or reliable contemporary writers were usually straightforward: approvals of a proposed action, instructions about which god to sacrifice to, or rulings on religious law. The ingenious riddles and double meanings belong largely to stories told later, often after the event. Delphi's most common business seems to have been religious: cities asked how to end a plague, which rites to establish, or whether a law or a colony had the god's approval. Private consultants asked about marriage, children, journeys and property.

The Pythia's Inspiration and the Vapour Theory§

How did the Pythia receive the god's words? Ancient authors did not agree. Some writers described a frenzied seer, though the portrayal of a raving Pythia owes much to later Roman literature, especially Lucan. The geographer Strabo, writing around the turn of the era, says that the oracle was a cave with a narrow opening from which rose a breath (pneuma) that inspired the seer. Plutarch, who served as one of the priests of Delphi for many years, discusses the same idea in his dialogues on the oracles, and suggests that the weakening of this exhalation might explain why the oracle had become less active in his time. He also records the death of a Pythia who was forced to prophesy when the signs were unfavourable.

When French archaeologists excavated the temple from 1892, they found no chasm, and for most of the twentieth century scholars treated the vapour as a myth. Around 2000 a geologist, Jelle de Boer, and an archaeologist, John Hale, with colleagues, argued that two geological faults intersect beneath the temple and that light hydrocarbon gases, possibly including the sweet-smelling ethylene, could have seeped up through them. Later measurements at the site have questioned whether gases were ever present in amounts that could affect anyone, and the theory remains disputed. Many historians of religion stress instead the ritual setting, the Pythia's training and the expectations of her audience.

Delphi in Philosophy and Late Antiquity§

Delphi had a special place in Greek philosophy. The maxim "Know thyself" became a byword for self-examination, and Plutarch's dialogue On the E at Delphi discusses the meaning of a mysterious letter E dedicated in the temple. Later Platonists treated oracles as genuine channels of divine communication. In On the Mysteries, the philosopher Iamblichus explained that the prophetesses of Delphi and of Apollo's oracle at Didyma, and the prophet of Claros, received the god not because of any bodily vapour as such but by a divine possession prepared by ritual; the text is described in our catalogue entry for On the Mysteries. In the same period collections of verse oracles, such as the Chaldean Oracles, carried the authority of revelation into philosophy.

Politically, the oracle's influence declined in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Delphi was plundered by the Phocians in the fourth century BCE, attacked by Gauls in 279 BCE and stripped of many statues by Roman generals and by Nero. It revived under Hadrian and his successors, when consultations were again frequent. Christian writers attacked the oracles as demonic or fraudulent, and imperial laws against sacrifice and pagan cult in the late fourth century, under Theodosius I, ended its operation. A famous "last oracle," said to have been given to the emperor Julian in the 360s and lamenting that Apollo's house had fallen and his spring was silent, is recorded only in much later Byzantine sources, and its authenticity is doubtful.

Other Oracles of the Greek World§

Delphi was one oracle among many. At Dodona in north-western Greece, Zeus spoke through the rustling of a sacred oak and through lots; thousands of small lead tablets inscribed with questions have been found there, revealing ordinary concerns about health, children, work and marriage. Apollo also gave oracles at Didyma near Miletus and at Claros near Colophon. At Lebadeia in Boeotia, consultants descended into the cave of the hero Trophonius in a frightening ritual, and in the Libyan desert the oracle of Zeus Ammon at Siwa was famously consulted by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. Divination by dreams, lots and other methods is described in our guide to other oracles, and the place of oracles in the wider history of divination in our overview, What Is Divination?.

Frequently asked questions§

Who was the Pythia?§

The Pythia was the priestess of Apollo at Delphi who spoke the god's responses to inquirers. She was chosen from the local women, served for life, and in the classical period was usually a mature woman who dressed as a maiden.

Did the Pythia inhale gases?§

Ancient writers such as Strabo and Plutarch mention an inspiring vapour. Modern geological studies have shown faults beneath the temple and proposed that gases such as ethylene may have seeped up, but later measurements have cast doubt on this, and the question remains open.

What did "Know thyself" mean at Delphi?§

It was one of several maxims inscribed at the temple of Apollo. In its original context it probably reminded worshippers of their mortal limits in relation to the gods; philosophers, especially in the Socratic tradition, later read it as a call to self-knowledge.

When did the Oracle of Delphi end?§

The oracle ceased to function in the late fourth century CE, when the Christian emperor Theodosius I and his successors prohibited sacrifice and pagan worship. Its prestige had already declined under Roman rule.

Sources and further reading§