The History of the Oracle at Delphi

Delphi and her cults that resided there spark a fascination which is not matched at any other Hellenistic site. The towering precipices, the dark deep crevice ravines, the enigmatic caves, and the bubbling springs of water combined, bestows a romantic allure and a feeling of awe of which no portrayal can satisfactorily describe.

The temple at Delphi was the home of the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo who interpreted visions for visitors. However, in the beginning it was the home of the worship of Gaia and her children before she appointed Themis to be the guardian. After this, Apollo came to Delphi and slew the Python, a gigantic serpent appointed by Gaia to guard the site. According to one ancient author, “[Apollon] made his way to Delphoi, where Themis gave the oracles at that time. When the serpent Python, which guarded the oracle, moved to prevent Apollon from approaching the oracular opening, he slew it and thus took command of the oracle”. Another version claims that Apollo slew the serpent in order to avenge his mother, the Titan Leto, who had been pursued by Python during her pregnancy.

Slaying Python gained Apollo the possession of the temple. The gigantic serpent rotted away (there are sources which claim that Python was created out of the slime left behind after the Great Deluge) and Apollo named the oracle and the festival of the god the Pythia and Pythian in its honour.

Apollo then brought his twin sister, Artemis, and his mother to the site and later Athena, who were all placed with the Chthonians, and were all worshipped here to various degrees. Apollo was the deity that took the foremost position in the religious concepts at Delphi.

The slaying of the Python has been suggested that it may reflect the Greek conquest of the region after 2000 BCE. The establishment of the Pythia and her priests may have simply taken over a pre-existing religious institution.

The Pythia was the oracle who could tell the future. Anyone wanting to know their destiny made their way to the sacred temple and made offerings of a sacred cake and a goat or sheep before consulting the Pythia.

The Pythia would sit on a tripod, a bowl on three legs and burn bay-leaves and barley-meal (instead of fragment incense as what is commonly believed). After this she descended into a vault, drank of the holy spring, chewed some bay-leaves, and mounted on to the tripod, holding in her hand a branch of bay leaves. She then fell into a deep trance-like state in which she received answers from Apollo. According to Aristophanes, “the voice of the Pythia, concentrated by the curved vault of the oracular cell, would rise into the adytum through an opening in its floor, and there would be heard by the priests”.

As she spoke, her words were written down by a group of priests who then interpreted them and the relayed the answer to the supplicant. If the messages that the Pythia received were negative, then she would refuse to speak.

Sometimes the answers the Pythia gave were ambiguous. For example, when Croesus, the emperor of Lydia consulted the oracle in regards to campaigning against Persia, was told that he would defeat a great empire. Croesus went to war and, unfortunately, destroyed his own kingdom. More often than not, the answers the Pythia gave were extremely obscure and open to any meaning.

The importance of the site can hardly be exaggerated. From as early as the third millennium BCE, Delphi was considered a sacred site and drew visitors, many of them rulers, from all over the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The Pythia was mostly depicted in art as beautiful young women. In later times, due to the seduction of the Pythias, no woman was appointed to this position until she had reached 50 years old. In the early years of the temple there was only one oracle but during the Classical period, the height of its importance, there were three Pythias. One scholar states that “she was probably chosen for her susceptibility to possession, and even if the fumes that surrounded her were non-hallucinogenic, they might well have served to trigger an ecstatic state, in combination with her chewing of equally "harmless" laurel and bay leaves”.

However, her importance, both as an oracle and as a social focus, began to wane in the third century BCE, due to the Greek civilization expansion and outside influence. During the time when Xerxes was invading Greece “the Pythia committed the fatal blunder of advising the Greeks to submit to Persia - a mistake which cost the oracle very dear”. There are two instances that Herodotus claims that the Pythia was bribed.

In later decades, Emperor Theodosius closed all of the oracles in the name of Christianity. Indeed, according to Lucan and several other Roman writers, the oracle stopped continuous functions from approximately 50 BCE on, as she had long since lost the status it had held from the 6^th through the 4^th centuries BCE.

Bibliography:

Fairbanks, Arthur (1906) Herodotus and the Oracle at Delphi, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, the Society for the promotion of Hellenic Studies.

Littleton, C. Scott (1986) The Pneuma Enthusiastikon: On the Possibility of Hallucinogenic “Vapors” at Delphi and Dodona, Ethos, Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological association.

Maurizio, L. (1995) Anthropology and spirit Possession: A Reconsideration of the Pythia’s Role at Delphi, the Journal of Hellenic Studies, the Society for the promotion of Hellenic Studies.

Middleton, J. Henry (1888) The Temple of Apollo at Delphi, the Journal of Hellenic Studies, the Society for the promotion of Hellenic Studies.

The History and Significance of the god Hades

Greek mythology has both fascinated and entertained society from ancient times to our modern contemporary society; the deities of the classical world are some of the world’s most famous figures. One of these deities, Hades, offers us great insight into this fascinating culture, as well as entertaining us with his myths and legends.

Hades, according to mythology, was the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, one of the six children begot by Rhea and Cronos (also spelt Kronos and Cronus). Hades, along with his brother and sister, apart from Zeus, was swallowed by his father in order to prevent the prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him. Hades, along with the others, were rescued by Zeus when he made Cronos vomit them up by the aid of a potion.

With Zeus receiving the heavens to rule over and Poseidon the ocean, Hades drew the lot of the Underworld to reign when their father’s kingdom was divided between the three gods. In the Underworld, which was named after the god, Hades presided not only the lands where the dead dwelled, but also everything that lay beneath the earth’s surface. Therefore Hades controlled the wealth itself in the form of the Earth’s agricultural riches and minerals.

Hades most famous myth concerns the legend on how he procured his wife, his niece Persephone, the beautiful daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Mother and daughter were in a meadow picking flowers when Persephone wanders off to look at other flowers. Hades, seeing his chance, creates a hole in the earth, drives up his chariot, grabs the young Persephone and returns back to Hades with his stolen bride.

For a long time, Demeter searched the world for her daughter before finally finding Persephone in the Underworld. She requested her daughter back but Persephone, having eaten 6 pomegranate seeds (this varies in different accounts), is required to stay in the Underworld. Asking for help from Zeus, he decreed that Persephone spend 6 months in Hades with her husband and 6 months on earth with her mother (again, the amount of time can differ with different sources; some say 6 months, others say a third of the year). It was this myth that explained the changing seasons on earth.

When looking at the significance of this god, we must put everything into context. For the ancient Greeks, it was ideal for one to achieve glory in one’s life. Occasionally, a mortal who was loved by the gods was granted a form of immortality by placed amongst the stars as a constellation, but for the most part, the afterlife was not relied upon to bring any rewards for good behaviour in life.

It is due to this that could explain why Hades was seen as a dark, unattractive and hard-hearted figure in Greek mythology. He was reluctant to spend time on Mount Olympus, the home of the gods, instead he spent the majority of his time Underworld, emphasising the permanence of death. Due to this, he was the supreme god of the chthonic or earth gods and sometimes called the Chthonian Zeus.

Hades was not a god that was widely worshipped throughout Greece, and there are few myths that he features in. Unlike his brothers, Hades was not as sexually active. Apart from the abduction of Persephone, he did not become involved in the passions that make up so much of the myths of Zeus and Poseidon.

Bibliography:

Alderink, Larry J. (1982) Mythical and Cosmological Structure in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Numen, BRILL.

Cotterell, Arthur & Storm, Rachel (1999) The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology, Hermes House, Anness Publishing House.

A Brief History of Ancient Sparta

Sparta was a major city-state in ancient Greece, located on the southern part of the Peloponnese. The history of Sparta has fascinated scholars and non-academics for many years, especially in regards to their military prowess.

To understand the history of Sparta, one must first understand her people and their social system. Her history is fundamentally based on the class struggle between the helots and the Perioikoi, who were two of the three classes.

The helots’ social status is not expressed adequately by any contemporary phrase, but ‘state-serf’ it probably the closest that comes to mind. Either way, the helots’ made up the majority of the Spartan population, but ultimately remained the property of the state (Talbert, p.23), although the State could release them when it so desired. Scholars are still in debate as to what social and community life they had, but it is generally accepted among academics that they could hold property in their own right and practice marriage.

The Perioikoi were a higher class than the helots’ and it is generally accepted among scholars that they devoted themselves to trade and industry. They were dependant on agriculture as the basis of their lots, which the helots’ worked on for them. V. Ehrenberg writes: "The common view that the Perioikoi carried the burden of trade and crafts must, to a large extent, be modified. Sparta's foreign trade was small, crafts were mainly domestic and dependent on helot labour. The perioikoi were 'yeomen' who naturally went in for some local crafts and petty business" (Ridley, p.282-283).

The Spartiates were the ruling class of Sparta. Elite Spartiates not only avidly sought monetary enrichment through political activity and dealt in terms of coined money abroad, but they maintained stocks of precious metals (in coins and bullion) hidden within their oikoi (Figueira, p.67). As the controllers of most assets in the local economy, the Spartiates had the most to gain from greater efficiency among their sources for goods and services.

From the age of seven the Spartan male was directed in a group with others of his age-class and was thrown into a painstaking discipline of a comprehensive state education, as well as a process of socialization.

We can see the general attitude between the Perioikoi and the helots’ through the writings of Myron of Eleutherae, an Athenian sculptor. He states that "they impose on the helots every kind of insulting work which leads to total degradation. For they made it a requirement that each should wear a dogskin cap and be dressed in leather as well as receive a fixed number of lashes annually - without reference to any offence - so that they should never forget to behave like slaves. Moreover, if the physical well-being of any surpassed the usual appearance of slaves, they prescribed a death sentence and also a penalty for owners who failed to curb those putting on weight” (Talbert, p.36). There are several other examples which convey this same general feeling between the two class systems.

We know that the helots’ served in the army in various capacities from archaeological and literary sources. The first reliable source comes from the 5th century BCE when the helots’ accompanied King Cleomenes’ against Argos in 494 BCE and then again at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 against the Persians. It has even been mentioned by later Greek writers that helots or ex-helots were appointed as military governors abroad (Talbert, p.26).

Sparta had a duel government system – both a military oligarchy and a monarchy rolled into one, and was able to keep its monarchy unlike city-states such as Athens. The two kings of Sparta, from the Agiad and Eurypontids families, were believed to have been descended from the legendary Hercules. Between the two kings and the 28 nobles who had completed their military duties, they made the political decisions for the state.

The decline and fall of Sparta were due to several reasons - the tensions and inequalities between the Spartiate group, the pursuit of foreign overambitious policies and a devastating earthquake all contributed, leading to the disestablishment of the state in 195 BCE.

Bibliography:

Cartledge, Paul (1977) Hoplites and Heroes: Sparta’s Contributions to the Technique of Ancient Warfare, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.

Figueira, Thomas J. (2003) Xenelasia and Social Control in Classical Sparta, The Classical Quartley, Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.

Ridley, R. T. (1974) The economic Activities of the Perioikoi, Mnemosyne, BRILL.

Talbert, Richard J. A. (1989) The Role of the Helots in the Class Struggle at Sparta, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschicht, Franz Steiner Verlag.