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What was the Oracle of Delphi?
The Oracle of Delphi was the most famous ancient Greek oracle, a consultation of Apollo at his temple on Mount Parnassus, where the Pythia, a priestess, gave answers that priests shaped into verse. Its prestige lasted from the 8th century BCE into the late 4th century CE.
Facts checked on against 13 sources, 10 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| 8th century BCE | The sanctuary and oracle of Apollo at Delphi developed, with pottery and other finds placing the sanctuary on its historical site in this century.12 |
|---|---|
| 582 BCE | The Pythian Games, reorganized by the Amphictyonic League, began to be held at Delphi every four years.3 |
| 548/7 BCE | A first stone temple of Apollo at Delphi was destroyed by fire and replaced by the Alkmeonid temple.2 |
| 373 BCE | An earthquake destroyed the archaic Temple of Apollo, after which Greek cities collected money to build the extant temple.4 |
| 86 BCE | The Roman general Sulla plundered Delphi.5 |
| 393 CE | The last prophecy of the oracle is reported to have been delivered, around the time Theodosius I moved to end pagan activity.3 |
Who spoke and how the consultation was prepared
The Pythia was a woman who spoke for Apollo, and consultations were believed to involve her falling into a trance and speaking in a voice unlike her normal tone.6
Traditionally the Pythia was a woman older than 50 who, once chosen, gave up normal life and lived in seclusion, and the Delphic medium was a woman over 50 who lived apart from her husband and dressed as a maiden.53
On oracle day the Pythia washed in the Castalian Fountain and underwent a purification involving barley smoke and laurel leaves, and before the consultation she and her consultants bathed in the Castalian spring and she drank from the Cassotis.57
Before consulting the oracle, priests of Apollo and assistants of the Pythia would usually sacrifice a goat at the temple's large altar.8
From question to answer
The Pythia entered a basement cell, mounted a sacred tripod, chewed laurel leaves, and entered an ecstatic state.3
Her words were often unintelligible mantic murmurs, which a group of priests interpreted and recorded in ambiguous verse for the inquirer.539
A Delphic tradition holds that the priests were allowed to recast the Pythoness's answers into verse and sincerely believed the responses came from the god.10
The Pythia's guidance concerned practical choices such as where to found a colony, when to attack an enemy, and whom to choose as leader.6
Explanations of the trance
Strabo described a cavern from which pneuma arose and inspired a divine state of possession, and Plutarch, a priest of Apollo at Delphi, described an exhalation of vapor in the adyton that sent the Pythia into a trance.6
Some have claimed that the Pythia's altered condition resulted from gases such as ethylene and methane emitted from geologic fault lines beneath the temple.3
A.P. Oppé proposed that ancient sources confused the fissure with a nearby gorge and that the vapor was a fiction passed from source to source.6
Chalupa reconstructs the oracular session from historical and, to a lesser extent, archaeological sources, and describes the Pythia's mental state and the method by which she brought about her reputed abilities as points still debated among scholars.11
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
In Delphian myth the site was held by the serpent Python, which Apollo killed before taking over the oracle, and Apollo led Cretan sailors to Delphi after a golden dolphin leaped onto their ship.1210
According to myth, Delphi was regarded as the centre of the world by the ancient Greeks, marked by the meeting point of two eagles released by Zeus, and the omphalos in the cella was described as the navel of the earth.14
Plato described the Pythia's frenzy as divine inspiration, calling the two methods of divination enthusiastic (mantike entheos) and inductive.13
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
Joseph Fontenrose argues that the Delphic origin myth in which Ge and Themis spoke oracles before Apollo is not supported by historical evidence, since the earliest account, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, shows no oracle before Apollo killed Pytho.2
Fontenrose's survey of Historical responses found that none show the spectacular or ambiguous character typical of Legendary responses, and that most are clear commands or sanctions on religious matters.2
In 2001 a team of scientists from varied disciplines discovered ethylene gas in the Delphi region, and their findings accord with ancient accounts of vapours rising from the temple floor.3
Geologist Jelle Zeilinga de Boer identified an exposed fault on the south slope of Mount Parnassus, and a 1996 survey found the exposed sections were part of one active fault named the Delphi Fault.6
The Delphi team reported that travertine and spring water from the sanctuary contained traces of light hydrocarbon gases, which chemist Jeff Chanton analyzed.6
In 1950, Pierre Amandry of the École Française d'Athènes stated that intoxicating gas exhalations could not have existed at Delphi because only volcanic activity produces such gas.6
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- The consultation was a staged ritual in which the Pythia's speech was shaped by priests into verse, so the words recorded for an inquirer were the product of both the trance and priestly interpretation.37910
- The gas-based account of the trance remains disputed: geological surveys have found hydrocarbon gases at the site, yet scholars such as Amandry and Oppé have doubted that these gases could have produced the trance.6
Not yet confirmed
- How far did priests shape the wording of the Pythia's answers, and how much of the verse came from the priestly translators?
- Did the vapors described by ancient writers produce the Pythia's trance, or were the accounts of them shaped by later writers?
- When did the Pythia's role and the oracle's prehistory take the form recorded in later Greek sources?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- whc.unesco.org: Archaeological Site of Delphi - UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Read on · Government
- Internet Archive: Joseph Fontenrose] The Delphic Oracle. It's Responses With A Ca TALOGUE Of Responses 1978. Read on · Primary text
- britannica.com: Delphi | Greece, Oracle, History, & Facts | Britannica. Read on · Reference
- delphi.culture.gr: The Archaelogical Site of Delphi - Museum of Delphi. Read on · Museum
- The New York Times: Side Trip: Delphi - New York Times. Read on · Library
- biblicalarchaeology.org: Biblical Archaeology Society - The Oracle of Delphi—Was She Really Stoned?. Read on · Reference
- britannica.com: Delphic oracle | Definition, Greek Mythology, Pythia, & Facts | Britannica. Read on · Reference
- warwick.ac.uk: [Classics & Ancient History](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/ "Classics & Ancient History home page \[1\]") [Classics and Ancient History](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/ "Classics & Ancient History home page \[1\]"). Read on · University
- doi.org: Medical Delphination | New England Journal of Medicine. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- gutenberg.org: The Perilous Seat. Read on · Primary text
- journal.equinoxpub.com: Pythiai and Inspired Divination in the Delphic Oracle: Can Cognitive Sciences Provide Us with an Access to “Dead Minds”? | Journal of Cognitive Historiography. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- cgg.org: [ Church of the Great God ](https://www.cgg.org/index.cfm). Read on · Library
- Internet Archive: The Delphic oracle, its early history, influence and fall. Read on · Primary text