Downfall and Legacy of Delphi

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For over a thousand years Delphi stood at the center of the ancient world According to myth, Zeus, king of the gods, released two eagles One flying east, the other west And where they met He marked the center of the earth. That sacred spot became the site of Delphi. and was dedicated to Apollo, the go of prophecy Pilgrims and kings traveled from across the Mediterranean to the Temple of Apollo to make offerings, seek guidance and hear his words through the Oacle of Delphi Hith you rulers, emperors, and statesmen would travel to consult the Pythia and make their mark on the city with monuments and statues. Visitors came from all around to enjoy the Pythian games, second only to the Olympics and to marvel at this special L sanctuary which was itself a showcase for the best of Greek art and culture Welcome to the Ancients I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And this is the story of Delphi prorofessor, author, and broadcaster Michael Scott Michael, greatreat to have you back on the show. It's a pleasure to be here. And we're talking about one of your first big topic areas, one of your first loves in ancient history, the Great site of Delphi This is one of the most splendrous ancient sites, not just in Greece, but in the whole of the ancient world. It is, as you say, kind of, it's a place very close to my heart, but I I have to let on that the first time I ever went to Del I was seventeen I was on that school trip to Greece. And you know what? my luggage had got lost on the plane on the way over. And so I went around the entire trip In the same set of clothes I was pretty smelly. No one really wanted to spend any time near me. and the day we were at Delphi, it was prettyrety miserable weather. And so that first encounter with this great place, I was perhaps, you know, we didn't hit it off as a love affair at first sight. So let's put it that way But then I went back when I was a masters student and it became clear to me that there was something here. not only is it A really mesmerizing space and place to spend some time And I think whether you know anythingything about the ancient world ether you're religious whether you're not religious whate It's still a mesmerizing and affecting place to be and I know of relatively few places in the world that have that kind of impact on everyone who goes there but it was also kind of from an academic perspective a place that really had an extraordinary story and yet so much more to town. And so it became for me kind of very much cessentrial to my PhD work, which was kind of on the sanctuary of Delphia, and I ended up being lucky enough to actually live at the site in the archaeological dighouse that's right by the site for a period of time while I was doing some work on the sanctuary And you know, at night, You're sort of alone there kind of with the sanctuary of Delphi and that is something quite extraordinarilyly special. So I would now say absolutely this is one of my favourite places on earth And if someone says ancient Delphi, what should we be thinking Inevitably, I think if people have heard of Delphi, they have heard of Delphi because of its oracle And an oracle is a way of communicating with the gods And in the ancient Greek and Roman context, the ancient worlds more generally Gods were in charge of everything. The gods were all powerful. There was a god in everything and everywhere, right? So And the gods are not benevolent gods, we imagine in many modern day religions, you know kind of actually these gods could be before you and against you And so in that context, it became absolutely crucial to know what the gods thought about a particular endeavor or whether they were something happening or not because if they weren't prayer happening, it wasn't going to happen And so understanding the will of the gods was an absolutely crucial aspect of ancient Greek, Roman religious practice. And the way to do that was to consult them through in the case of Delphi, an oracle describe the location for us because I guess that's also one of the key reasons as to why it has What was that that divine appeal, that star striking nature is its position in Greece Yeah, it's todayod about two hours car drive outside of Athens up into the Parnassian mountains And if you can believe it, Delphi is just below Greece's main ski resort. Oh wonderful. So if you wanted to do some skiing in Greece, which is your obvious place to go to to do skiing, you go to Delphi and then if you go up above Delphi, you get to Arakova and you go above there, you get to the kind of ski plateau. So it really is nestled in the crags of the high Parnassian mountains And as a result, as you say, it is a spectacular location and site. Actually the natural geography of the place is even more enticing because the site is sort of nestled really hidden in a particular crag of the mountains. And so It's not something you see from a long way away and you go, o yeah, yeah yeah, there's Delphi. Aually as you wind around the side of the mountains, Delphi iss hidden from you until you turn that final corner and then it's completely explodes in front of your face and today, of course, it's an archaeological site. But if you imagine back to its's heyday of the fifth century BCE, for instance when it was filled to the brim with shhining marble Brilliant bronze. gleaming gold, you know, kind of absolutely all shimmering in the sunlight of Greece. It would have been the most fantastical thing that you were around the face as you got to it and is, you know, kind of as a result a magical and important place both in the ancient world for people to spend time and I think for us today. I in that description right there I'm a Lord of the Rings fan. but I imagine if Tolkien was inspired when he created like the ellven capapital of inladris in that hidden valley, Whether maybe there was some thoughtorts of Dlphi in his mind, I don't know, but you can see the similarities currently between a fictional and a nonfictional place. Yeah. And you know, it's not just us today that fascinated with I was saying that the ancients were fascinated with it as a location and why it was in that location. because att the same time You're halfway up a mountainside You're in the middle of really nowhere in terms of ancient Greek geography and political kind of state boundaries. you're not near any major city or power player of the ancient world And so from the perspective of It's quite hard to get there in the ancient world. It's quite hard to get all the stuff up the mountains side. You need to build stuff there. It's pretty hard to build stuff there because of all the terracing work that needs to get done. You know All of these questions the ancients were themselves asking, why is Delphi where it is? And we get a number of different kind of explanations from the ancient Greeks for why it is where it is The first kind of comes forward in the seventh sixth centuries BCE, the Homeric hymn to Apollo. And this is a series of hymns worsihiping the different gods. and it's Apollo because Apollo is the god of prophecy. and it's Apollo who is the ruling divinity at Delphi, whom you are consulting through their orracular priestess. And so in the Homeric hymn to Apollo, the story goes Apollo was, you know, poddering around the world one day, you know and just sort of came across this spot in the Parnassian mountains. Yeah this looks good for an orracular site There may have been a sort of dragony creature there that he had to defeat in battle, no problem for God. you know, And then he's sitting there going right This is going to be my maculous cyber. no one lives there So he sort of looks around, you know divine godlike sight into the distance and sees a ship of some Cretan sailors that are sailing on the sea and he goes to them them. and he sort of yanks them and brings them up to the sanctuary. And you know, ironically, they're the ones saying What are we doing here? No one's going to come here. We're in the middle of nowhere. And Apollo goes, you know, don't worry, I'm going to set this side up to become this divine center of the entire world So that's kind of one story. And then as you go through the decades and the centuries, plenty more different stories are told that in some cases sort of make it not Apollo's decision, but Zeus's decision ad, Apollo's dad, who basically Apoll' is a bit of a nughty child and Zeus tells him, go found an oracle, do it here Then later stories extended even further back past the generation of Zeus and Apollo back to the previous gods you know, to Gaia and Themis to the original deities setting up an Oraculular sanctuary in the site And then you get other great stories that involve goats of Diodoraciculus. You' got to love a goat, in a good story about a goat sort of wandering over this chasm in the ground and they go all a bit weird and they sort of fall into it. And so the people sort of put a poor woman on a three legged tripod over the hole to sort of you know prophesize and the gases that they come out inspire her to prophesize. And then you get through to Strabo and he's the one who says, no, no, this is Zeus And it's Zeus who basically let loose two eagles from opposite ends of the earth and where they met was the center of the earth, the center of the world was Delphi. So that's where we get I' not saying Dellphia is the center of the ancient world. And the Greek word for that is the omphilos the center and it also translates as the word for your navel, your belly button. And when we did a BBC documentary about Delphi They were very keen that we have that word belly button kind of in the title because it made all ancient history sound that little bit exciting, that a little bit risque, you know, kind of thing. But it's omphilos. it's it's the center of the world I remember watching that Delphi documentary and she was one of the inspirations into wanting to pursue Ancient history media. I'm always grateful. So you were brought in by the risky the risky belly bton, right? Like kind you know, you werere like, oo, I wonder what that's about. did his job. There you go And Straber you mentioned there. So he's writing many centuries after that Homeric hymn to Apollo. He's a Greek geographer first century, BC AD that kind of time. Yeah, soactly exactly that. and he's writing a big geography of the entire known ancient world at the time. And so this idea that Which is quite striking, isn't it? that Delphi has a history that starts with its oracle. We think around about the eighth century BCE. Right by Strobo's time He's the one telling the story that it's the center of the world. And Delphie's story will continue right the way through the Roman Empire as an important place It will continue into the early Christian era. And it's really only in the sixth and seventh centuries AD that Delphy falls out of use and out of the storybooks So for this incredible length of time Delphia is a preeminent place And our question, my question when I was looking at this piece is trying to explain and understand How can one place that is so physically remote halfway up mountain in the middle of nowhere end up being so preeminent and so important for so long. It is one of those big questions, isn't it? and the time frrame Met you me An instant comparison with, let's say, the Bast of Hastings of modern day, and everything that's happened in between. And yet in ancient history, the Oracle of Delphi, Delphi is one of those amazing sites and they're pretty sure there are a few others as well, where it just continues for so long, rememains so important for so long for so many generations And I think it must be testament just to word and mouth, the passing down of stories and legends and their importance for people who lived around the Mediterranean, you An amount of time that we think today divides up so many eras and yet that continued importance is just remarkable It is it is absolutely remarkable. When you think about all the pololitical and military changes that take place around the Mediterranean during that time period, you know and all the different cultures that come and go And yet Delphi manages to find its importance to all of them. for me, there are two reasons that that happens. The first is that Crucially, Delphi was not just an oracle That was very important and we need to talk about it some more, but fundamentally that was not the only thing going on And there were other activities their own trajectories of rises and falls and of importance during that time. so that when one kind of wan O things that were going on that brought continue to bring people to Delphi and together they created this kind of perfect storm if you like, of somewhere that could be so important to so many for so long. But the other kind of thing I think we need to recognize is that The Delphians, the little local city of Delphi around this sanctuary. It was probably never more than a thousand citizens. They were not passassive in sitting back and going, I'm sure the world will come to us and it will keep coming to us. You know, actually what we see time and time again is them being pretty proactive and responsive to that wider changing world to think How can we repackage? How can we re emphasize? how can we reinsert Delphi into this bigger narrative So they're being equally, I think, proactive and responsible for Delphia's continuing success and importance, making Delphia a place of importance and of value to the big players and rulers of the day, whoever they may have been. archeologically it must really be a treasure troph. I mean layer upon layer buildings of archaeology, But for archeologists at the site today, have they been able to get down to the earliest layers? Have we got a sense of what early archaic Delphi would have looked like Yeah, we do. I mean, as you say, in terms of archeology, it is an extraordinary treasure trove Partly, that's because got lost Really? So so after it falls out of the history books in that sort of six, seventh centuries literally Delphie is lost. Its remains end up being built over in sort of you know kind of shacks and shanty towns and whatever and through history and gets covered over by a town actually didn't even bear the name of Delphi. You get dive forward to sixteenth century, seventeenth century, eighteenthentury. People are going I've got this place called Delphi that's in all the surviving literature. as this absolutely crucial place No idea where it is donon't know it. And it's only in the eighteenth, nineteenth centuries when that kind of interest in ancient Greece starts to really ramp up across Europe. And with the Greek War of Independence in early nineteenth century that Greece suddenly becomes accessible again for these different European nations to get involved in actually uncovering the archaeology of Delphi And in the eighteen nineties the French won the deal, if you like, with the Greek government to have the right to excavate Delphi. So by the eighteen nineties, people had worked out the Delphi, the ancient Delphi was actually sitting underneath this modern town and the French won the right to not only So they had to destroy the town They had to build a new little town on the next cragground of the Ponassian mountains for the inhabitants to all move to. and then they could get down to excavating the site. and it took them ten years, that initial big dig, as it was called from eighteen ninety six almost ten years, to uncover Delph. So there was, if you like this treasure toad that had been locked secret for so many centuries that could then be uncovered There is so much there In that ten years scrape the surface And excavations are still continuing to this day to be able to get back to those earliest phases. And we are now in nineteen nineties, two thousands on. now we're in the phase of being able to get down to the earliest phases of Delphi's existence and not just at the main site itself, but actually understanding how Delphi warped, if you like, the wider landscape around it both in the mountains and in cleans below picture and answer that picture of, you know, kind of archaeologically what started here in the ninth centuries and eighth centuries that would go on to become so big. And the picture that's emerging is that It's a settlement first. it's actually a place. peopleeople are living And to begin with there is no real distinction between the settlement and kind of what we think are the kind of religious areas. It's all kind of mixed in together There are some early destructions as well, some fires that sweep through and then rebuilds. And then suddenly in the eighth century the archaeology is confirming for us This decision is taken to, if you like, separate out the domestic and to create this prioritized sacred space in the area that will become the latest sanctuary. And that's the kind of moment, if you like, that Delsie emerges. And is that also when you get the building of the grand centrepiece of ancient Delphi, the Temple to Apollo Well,, at least one of them, one of the versions Because the temple that stands there today was actually the temple that was built in the fourth century BCE with a few additions and kind of you bits and pieces in the interim. but actually there were several temples that were built before that on the same site or thereabouts. go back all the way to we think probably seventh century, but archaeologically, we can attest to sort of three main ones that we can see today in the archaeological record And they're each In some ways similar to one another, but each slightly improving on one another. And more amazingly than that, we have surviving sculpture from at least the last two that is on display in the Delphie Museum for you to be able to see today. So we can get a sense of this temple at the heart of the sanctuary, which is where, of course, the Oraculular priestess posed and did her heracular consultation that really was the kind of beating heart of the sanctuary. And what do we know about these statues Oh the statues that were in the pediments of the time. So there are interesting choices about, you know, pedimental sculpture it reflects a choice about what is the message you want to send to people who are coming to Delphi And in the case of Delpha,, on the one hand, it's obviously about honoring Aollo So you want you want kind of a story associated with kind of apollo And that's the primary note that we get kind of from the temple itself. But there are also lots of stories related to it not to the fourth century one, but to the one prior to that that was built in the five hundred twenties that was actually there was an Athenian family who were in exile from Athens at the time because they were out of favour and they lodged up at Delphi. and so they offered to pay. for the building of the temple and in fact, out of their own pocket to pay for the front of the temple and the pedimental sculpture to be made an even nicer material than the Dlphins could afford And then they just so happened to be the case following that nice donation to Delphie that the oracle at Delphie gave them very supportive orraculular consultations for a period of time afterwards. So I don't think we can see Delphi as being kind of totally impartial in the way that it engaged with the key players that helped it and supported it But that's kind of part and parcel of that picture of those Dlphians being pretty savvy pretty proactive and you know about securing a future and an importance for their hometown. Is this where we get those fascinating that pair of statues, the Cleobis and Beton? this thing? So they were there in the sanctuary, not from the pedimental sculptures, they were there in the sanctuary as kind of very much the early dedications, but not to do with the Athenians It goes back to that point about what else is going on at the sanctuary You turn up at the oracle. you'd get your consultation great. If actually your consultation turned out to be really helpful and it went on to help you you know in a business venture or military victory or whatever it might be, you would often return to the sanctuary to then dedicate something in the sanctuary in thanks to God for their support and their help and their generosity and their willingness to give you what you wanted. And that could be a set of sculptures, it could be a set of kind of precious objects And over time, different types of dedications get developed. So treasury houses, as they're called, become a thing for a while as well. So you've got the temple But increasingly over time, around the temple You've got a sanctuary absolutely stuffed to the brim with these dedications because once they've been dedicated They are the property of the God And so you can't ever rememove them. So not only are they a brilliant way to say thanks to the God But they're also a brilliant way for whoever set them up to leave an eternal message everyveryone who comes to the ses And this is what I mean by kind of different reasons for people to come to Delphi. You've got your oracle, come and get a consultation. You've got your dedications, saying thanks, but also increasingly, they know that people are going to be coming to the site on a regular basis. So it becomes a great place for you to get a message across. So people start putting up dedications in the sanctuary whenever something great has happened for them because they want the world to know about it And this is an era without podcasts,out YouTube, without radio, without TV. How do you get a message across to the wider ancient Greek world. do it by putting up a monument in a place that you know the ancient Greek world is going to come to. And so Delphi becomes this If you think about it a bit like an information hub People are coming there So there's information traveling with them And that then feeds in no doubt to the orracular consultations and the informed responses that the oracle can give But also it's an information hub because it contains all these monuments to increasingly All of the major moments In Greek history permanently there for all eternity. that people can come to see, to recognise, to engage with, to build on, embellish and indeed contradict and try and counter. So you know, it ends up with G city states who, you know, they didn't like one another most of the time someone puts up a statue to their victory in this battle over say the Spartans. ten years later, the Spartans get a victory. So they come and they put a monument up and they put it up, when you start looking at it, the kind of dynamics of it, they put it up, right opposite the monument better. Yeah. It was right opposite and go, Yah, shucks, boom, my monument's bigger than yours. And it's right opposite. and kind so you get not only this kind of information storyboard of history, but you get these kind of monument wars and competitions and things And it becomes this absolutely enthralling, if you like, history book And it's interesting because you not only have like whole people making dedications, and celebrating events But also certain aristocrats, kings, from the Greek world and beyond wanting to leave their mark on Delphie because it's another way for their legacy to be remembered. Absolutely. know So think of it as a snowball kind of going down a hill getting bigger and bigger and bigger because the more that people come there choose to put up a monument there or consult there, or get involved in the athletic and musical competitions that were also happening there that were on par in the ancient view with the Olympics The more Pe over who have done that The more it becomes a place that You want to do that because people have done it in the past. It becomes an essential space. have a stake in and to have visibility in and to have your identity, your successes reflected in And for me, the kind of the ultimate success of this is when the Greek world gives way to the Romans and the Romans feel obligated to put up monuments to their own military victories at Delphi It starts with their military victories over the Greeks. And you can kind of see why that may makes sense. We're establishing our authority over the Greeks. We're better to do that than at one of the key Greek sites, you know, kind of where you establish your monuments to military victory in the past. Romans are here now. look at our big monument right bang sllap in the middle here But actually it starts going beyond that when the Romans are kind of doing things nothing to do with Greece across the much wider kind of Mediterranean sphere Delphie is still having a role in the telling of that story. And again, it comes back to those proactive Dlphinions who when we get into the ear of the Roman emperors, They are writing This little city of Delphi in the mountain crags of the Parnassian mountains are writing to the new emperor going Dear new emmperor We would like to put a statue of you up in the G Sanctuary of Delphi so that you can take your place amongst this extraordinary history book. And we would like to invite you to become a local magistrate, the great honor, you know of becoming a magistrate of Delphi and extraordinarily not every Roman emmperor, but a number of Roman emperors go Yes, please Yes, please. And if the Roman emperor is doing it Everyone else is going to do it as well. It's amazing if you visited Ancient Delphi and you can see in that sacred area You could see a dedication from the legendary King Cryesus You could then see one from Alexander the Great and then one from the emperor Hadrian all pretty close together. in one loc. In one locate, who wouldn't want to be part of that storyboard of that microcosm of history. And that that if for me, you know the Oacle is an absolutely fascinating and important part of Delphi's history. But actually if you look at the kind of consultation record from the fourth century BC onwards, although the oracle will continue to be consulted right the way through to the advent of Christianity and Rome's conversion to Christianity in the fourth century AD, really The Aracula conultation as a reason to come to Delph starts to wane away The Oracle's preeminent moment was eighth century BC to fourth century BC. So the question becomes after that period, after the fourth century BCE, when the oracle is no longer as preeminent as it was, what's driving people to Delphi? And it's increasingly that ability to be part of the monumental permanent storyboard. that Delphi offers And alongside that, it's a chance to be part of the increasingly important and famous athletic and musical competitions that happen at the site. You know When you go to Delvei today, you see a religious sanctary of the temple and all these dedications, but there's also gigantic stadium, you know, that they've carved into the rockside and terraced in. There's a gymnasium. There's a big there and down in the plain below the mountains, they couldn't get this terrace into the mountainside. so they had to put it in the plains below was a great horse racing track. So this place had facilities equivalent to those of Olympia in the ancient Olympics And in fact, actually, in some cases, it had the first sets of facilities. So the gymnasium, for instance at Delphi constructing the fourth century BCE is the earliest kind of gymnasium structure at the sanctuary that we know of. It's getting it before Olympia And so that starts to tell you a story of how those other activities at Delphi actually have their own trajectories of success that extend way beyond the period that the Oracle was the preeminent piece after the fourth century BCE and why Delphi continues to be a place that attracts People to come to it from far and wide Podcast powers the world's best podcasts. H's a show that we recommend. If you've ever dreamed of quitting your job to take your side hustle full time, listen up. This is Nikla Matthews Aomee, host of Side Hustle Probe, a podcast that helps you build and grow from passion project to profitable business. Every week, you'll hear from guests just like you who wanted to start a business on the side. If you can't run a side hustle, you can't run a business. They share real tips. And so I started connecting with all these people on LinkedIn and I saw Target supplier diversity was having office hours. Real advice. 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Don't wait Shop Wayfare's Fourth of July clearance now through july sixth at wayfare dot com d ay fair, every style, every home I am called Coralium Ru. Red corn Mineral plant or I've sparked many lively debates in my time Not only was my classification difficult to determine, but to find me. Curiosity is required. One has to dive deep. into the Dips to locate me. Listen now to Voice of Jewels, a podcast by Le Cole, School of Jewelry Arts, supported by Van Klifffen Arpeels What started the Civil War What ended the conflict in Vietnam Who was Paul Revere And did the Vikings ever reach America I name'm Don Weildldman, and on American History hit, my expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors where the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch, and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership Find American History Hit twice a week every week, wherever you get your podcasts. American History Hit, a podcast from History Hit Well you've set up this next section wonderfully. so let's do the story of the Oracle first and then we'll delve into this entertainment side of Delphy with the Pytheon games and so on First off With the Oacle Not a silly question at all. What exactly was it? How did it work? Oh God, no, not this question, No. It's not just not a silly question. It's the R sixty four million dollars question that you can't So the wonderful irony is that for an orracular process that was happening, From the eighth century BCE to the fourth century AD We don't know exactly how it happened. don't know,. And that is because there is no single source from the entirety of that period tells us step by step What happened And partly that could be because It was a bit of a big secret But then at the same time, we get stories from the kind of classical era from the great historian Herodotus who he's talking about other other Oracular sites and he goes consultation here. happen just like it happens at Delphi. M, okay And you're like So is that? kind of I don't know how I am there and I don't know happen here sort of thing, getet out of jail free card for ansers. Or is it indicating that Actually it was so well known But no one needs to talk about it. Either way, what we're left with are a series of smatterings of indications of how the process worked from that vast time frrame And the only thing we can do is try and put together a sort of composite picture from all of those sources. that is never going to you know really represent process at any one period of time because we know it changed over time So so we are never going to know the answer to that question best we can offer is this that There was a priestess, known as a Pythian priestess She somehow was inspired to give an answer that was thought to come from the god Apollo question that was posed by consultant That happened within the temple then the sources all are kind of disintegrating and conflicting as to whether or not the consultant stood in front of the Pytheian priestess and questioned directly and heard the response or whether they were in separate rooms and the response was sort of given to them whether this priestess was inspired, you know by the God, Was it those weird gases that sent the goats weird, you know, according to Diodorosiculus? Was it some kind of self induced. hallucination or some kind of hypnosis. People have poured over this question endlessly in a desperate attempt to come up with what to us today would seem like a logical answer. And there's lots of different directions you can go in. but what I would say is this that Put it against the background of what I would call a kind of constant hum of human divine communication. everyveryone was trying to communicate with the gods to find out what they had in store So people came predisposed to think this system worked You were there at the place You could only turn up on nine days a year for the consultation. O day a month for nine months of the year. So tons of people massing at Delf for a consultation day. So you get that collective buy in You then paid your fee to be able to offer the consultation. So you've bought in quite literally to the system. And then people tell us that the way you ask your questions was, you know, it wasn't shouldhould I eat salad for lunch or you know whatever? It was Would it be better for me to do O why So you offer two options And if the priestess came back to you saying do option X and you went away and you did option X and it turned out to be a disaster Th then the priestess or the Delphia authorities could go, ye, yeah, yeah it was a disaster You've no idea how bad w would. It was still much better than that. whichich you could never, ever disprove. So there was a kind of teflon coating to the process whereby you couldn't necessarily dispve or prove that the priestcess had given you bad advice. And then on top of that It's clear that a lot of the responses weren't simply do X. It was quite ambiguous and unclear response that required you then to go away, chew it over and decide how to interpret the response. So the two famous ones and you mentioned Cocresis You know, kind of he famously gets a consultation from the Oracle that says, you know, if you invade this territory, a great empire will fall And he goes, fabulous. That's going to be my enemy. He loses, he ends up losing his empire. He turns up literally at Delphi, throwing his chains of imprisonment down in front of the archle going, You told me a great empire will fall. they go, Yes, we did. You misinterpreted the answer Nowother famous one, the Athenians, when the Persians are invading, turn up a dolph and go, what should we do? And the Athenians get told to trust in your wooden walls They have to go back to Athens and they have to have a debate about how to interpret that So We shouldn't think about the Oracle at Delphia as some kind of fortune teller.. This isn't Mystic Meg This is a kind of sense making mechanisms give some kind of impetus that has a really strong divine authority behind it that people are buying into people having to think about the decision they need to make and spurring them on their way to be able to make the decision for themselves Or as one businessman put it to me once? Oh Sounds like a management consultant And I think there's some value to that. example that I immediately go to and this is just my nerdy interest and I just remember the story It's a lesser known prophecy supposedly happens. But I can't remember if actually he goes to Dadona and not Dphy but this is a king of a region in Northwest Greece who's considering going to southern Italy or not. and said should I go or shouldhould I not And then the response to that is be wary of the river Acaron and the city of Pandosia And those are two places in Northwest Greece in Epus So he goes over to southern Italy And then he loses a battle in southern Italy and he loses his life in a river Aceron. Be he didn't realize there was also another river called that and another city called Pandzia When I started saying that, my question was going to be That type of prophecy sounds very different to one from Delphi becausecause that one feels like one with hindsight And then as I was saying it, I remembered that I think that's from another oracle at Dona and not from Delphi So my question then is The style of the Oracles at Delphi wereere they Therefore very unique in how they presented the knowledge in that kind of you know A x or Y comppared to stories of prophecies and Bad luck and misfortune for other figures who try to get a prophecy from a different old There were certainly lots of different ways in which Oracle consultation happened at different sanctuaries and gave different kinds of responses I mean we go back first to that kind of fologist quote when he's talking about a different oracle and he says, Oh, it happens here just like it does at Delphi. right? So So in some cases, there would have been similarities between the way it happened at Delphi and the way it happened at other places. But actually, As you quite rightly point out s of other oracle consultation sites did things in very different ways. So at Dadona They listened to the rustling of tree leaves. There was a sacred tree to Zeus and they had priests who were, you know, trained interpreters of the rustling of these tree leaves To get your response, there was no kind of orracular priestess in the same way and then Even more widely, kind of that oracular consultation model was just one of the ways in which you could actually divine the will and intention of the gods. So you could also go and consult the spirits of the dead There were sites of necromancy, as it was called, to find out about the will of the gods. Or you could cut up an animal and read its entrails and look for particular signs on its liver, and there'd be specialists who could do that. There'd be others who would read the signs in, say, the flights of birds or things like that Famously, though, the Greeks trusted most animals for divination except fish There's this really weird kind of thing where the Greeks think fish are inherently dumb and thus untrustworthy and cannot possibly tell you the will of the gods sort of slightly out of left field But then also there were oracle books. So these books that had just tons of different responses in them all sort numbered or whatever. And then you went through this complex system of you know, pick your favorite number, take away five, add six at your age, whatever, and you ended up with a response that was relevant to your question. And then even down to the lowest of the low, there would be people that were called Heddlers who would literally be accosting you on the street of your hometown going, would you like an oracular consultation? You know, only a fiver. So there was a whole spectrum differentere ways to consult and find out the will of the gods And you'd have to make a choice right? it? Was this an important question? If it was, you'd probably go to a more expensive or more authority weighty orraculular site that would inevitably take you more time, cost you more money to go to travel to know, etcetera. If it was a kind of youost. to line sell my sheep or whatever, you might go for a more local sort of nearby place But the one bit I really do like is that over time Clearly people start thinking Totally trust the system. Of course I trust the system, right But is there a way to play this system? And one of the ways that I think's absolutely brilliant that people occasionally did it was If you were somebody quite big in importance You couldn't still can turn up a Dlphie and go give me the response I want, right That might happen down the line in the Roman era where the Roman emperors But certainly in the Greek world, no Because that place has such authority in power But if you turn up at the the little orraculous site in your hometown and you're the ruler and you go high you're more likely to get the response you want. So we have examples of people who would go to an oracle of Zeus But it was a little piddlely orracular sanctuary in their hometown that they could perhaps influence more to get the response they wanted But no, even though it's an orracle of Zeus, it's the oracle of Zeus in some little town that no one's heard of. No one's going to buy into it, it doesn't have the authority. Then they would go to Delphi the Oracle of Apollo. The son of Zeus. And they would simply ask the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi The sun agree with his father And Apollo cannot disagree with his dad, Zeus, king of the gods.. So what they then get is the answer they wanted with the authority comes from having an oracular response from Delphi as the kind of, if you like, the gold standard inacular responses. So lots of different ways of doing it, lots of different choices you could make but also within that, ways in which you could Play the system to your best invant You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfare gets it. planning on dining alfresco or relaxing poolside Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to seventy percent off during Wayfare's fourth of July clearance. sccore huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs, and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget. Plus, sururprise Flash Deals July sixth. Don't wait. Shop Wayfare's Fth of July clearance now through july sixth at wayfare dot com d Pay fair, every style, every home. My name is Perito transparent green gemstone I was discovered by chance in the center of Patagonia While most stones are born in the Earth's crust, my origin is rather different I an extraterrestrial Listen now to Voice of Jewels, a podcast by Lees Cole School of Jewelry Arts, supported by Ven Klefand Arpeels. Well, there's certain cases where Oracular stories were added with hindsight knowning the misfortune that happened to a certain individual and then drawing a link saying, oh actually parish near a place called Andosia, which was actually in Northwest Greece as well. And then they kind of create Oracular stories to align with it saying, Well He just didn't listen I think that's inevitably the case as well, right? So a number of the where we get told all of these mraculous stories, particularly at Delphi They're all in later literary sources than they are happening. So from Herodotus onmer through Thucydides, through the Hellenistic historians, through into the Roman historians, they're all talking back and telling us a story with hindsight. So you get lots of these stories whereby clearly the question the answer then makes sense in light of what goes on to happen or You know sometimes the poetry and verse that these responses come in. There's no way that some priestess high on some gas or you know a hallucinogenic experience or hypnosis or whatever is going to come out with this perfect verse clearly the responses have been curated That is very different though. mean Dadono is really another interesting example where actually There was this rustling of tree leaves, but then the way responses were often given was very simply Yes or no Interesting and not given orally but actually inscribed. And one of the traditions was that you would write your question and the are sometimes the answer. on a lead tablet that you would then bury at the sanctuary. So we've actually dug these up And at Dedono, we have the questions and the answers you know, of it for a sanctuary that works in a very different way. So Delphia again a has a slightly different story because of that increasing preeminence and that increasing importance and that increasing authority and because of the way that the consultation happened that allowed for This retelling and restyling it enables stories of oraculular consultation to be told with the benefit of hindsight and inserted in some cases into the stories of history. So if you get through into the early Christian era There's actually in those kind of Ely Christian writers who are working within the world of the Roman Empire attempt Try and construct an orracular consultation from Delphi foreseeing the birth of Jesus Wow. you know, And so it's cross in some cases, it's crossing worlds, cultures, religious divides and everything in between. But once again, that kind of harkens back to that the evolving nature of Delphi and how it is able to stay important Thanks to the local Dlphans, but also kind of that prestige that it keeps for so long Shall we talk a bit about the Python games then and the whole entertainment side? of Delphi popular. Do these games become In antiquity, they are considered on par with the ancient Olympics. So there were four sets of athletic games that were the Premier League, if you like, and they were known as the Crown games. That's at Olympia, that's a Delphi, and that's at two other sanctuaries, Ismir and Nemir So you know, famously, for instance, Athens great city of the ancient Greek world had its own set of games, but they never became part of the Premier League, the Crown Games that was Olympadelphi. And so what we need to imagine is these would be the biggest events in the entire ancient Greek world in terms of audience coming together for them and estimates are of somewhere between fifty and one hundred thousand people conongregating for these games lasting a week or so every couple of years sometometimes Olymp inadelphia on this cycle And at Delphi, that must have been an absolutely extraordinary occurrence because It's a tiny place clinging to the crags of the Ponassian mountains. So that many people would have been spread out around the mountains down into the valley below. And imagine that at night, you know twinkling fires as all of these people are camping out. There's no hotels or anything like that for them. They're all camping out kind of around the grounds and they're all bringing all the animals and everything they need with them for that period of time and winning one of these sets of games was really the kind of gold standard. Celebrity status, celebrity status. And so again In the sanctuary, alongside all those monuments to Oracular consultation and military victories and the city's done amazing things, you'd also have monuments to the athletic victors and the great things they've done And what we see is an expanding number of competitions, kind of the running races, the chariot races and everything in between But what Delphie had on top of that, which actually we don't see at ia Ismir and Nemir was alongside the athletic competitions, they also had a really well respected set of musical, theatrical and poetical competitions. So if you were, a Rhapsoder, you know, an orator. if you were a poet, if you were sculptor, if you were a dramatist, if you were any of these kind of a musician, you would want to perform and win at these musical competitions. and dial forward through to the era of the Roman Emperors again. Roman Eperor Nero Nero was it? Nero rocks up at the musical competitions. you know, because we know Nero and his pres love for kind of you know playing music, kind of he's entering the musical competitions. Amazingly he wins, you know, phenomenal. as well as consulting the oracle as well as kind of leaving some dedications in the city. So kind of people are coming in huge numbers to the site for these athletic and musical competitions and they again generate their own momentum for the site and their own importance that keeps people coming back over time I guess of all the statues that survive Shall we mention the charioteer because it is one of the most I use the word incredible a lot, but it is a standout artteifact, an amazing piece of bronze art that survived. Yes, it is. and it was discovered in that big dig in the first ten years of the excavation of Delphia. and there's an extraordinary photo of it literally half found in the earth kind of coming out feet first You can see it in the Delphie Museum today work of the fififth century BCE in which they have managed to cast in bronze this extraordinarily human figure, the charioteer, the musculator is extraordinary, the facial features are extraordinary. But we have to imagine and remember that it is only a tiny bit of the original Dedication because this was a chariot driver And there were also The charot and the horses all in bronze. This entire thing was life size over life size as an enormously impressive Visible?