Perched on a rocky slope of Mt. Parnassos, Delphi has a stunning view and a “numinous quality” noted by every visitor.19 A thriving Mycenaean village and cult area were abandoned at the end of the Bronze Age, but in the midninth century, people returned to this lovely spot and resettled it. Fifty years later, Delphi had already become a regional gathering place for the worship of Apollo. Fueled by the popularity of the oracle, its fame grew until it became the premier sanctuary of Apollo in the Greek world, exerting a unique influence on Greek colonization and interstate relations. Its only rival in this respect was the Panhellenic sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia.20 During the Archaic period, a mythic pedigree for Apollo’s sanctuary was established in order to cement its claim to be the most important Greek oracle. Before Apollo’s arrival, it was said, the oracle belonged to Gaia (e. g. Aesch. Eum. 1-8). Although Gaia did have old oracles like the one at Olympia, the lack of archaeological or literary evidence for Gaia’s presence at Delphi before the fifth century makes it difficult to accept the historicity of this tradition.21
What drew so many visitors to Delphi was the chance to consult Apollo, god of divination and prophecy. In myth, Apollo often predicted future events, such as Oedipus’ murder of his father. In reality, he more often advised petitioners on the best course of action for addressing their problems, specializing in ritual solutions that invoked the aid of the gods. If a town suffered from a plague or crop failure, perhaps the citizens had neglected to make the proper sacrifices or purifications. If land shortages resulted in civic discord, or if new trade connections were required, Apollo might recommend that colonists settle in likely areas overseas. The oracle could be consulted on virtually any major enterprise contemplated by a city, from legal reform to military conquest. The congregation of delegates from many cities also ensured that Delphi remained a valuable resource for intelligence-gathering and diplomatic exchange. The political importance of Delphi meant that it must not be under the control of any one state. After a series of wars, the sanctuary was overseen by a federation of states known as the Delphic Amphictyony. By the Classical period, however, the oracle was consulted primarily on matters involving religious practice and procedure. Purification was an important Apolline specialty, although there is surprisingly little evidence for purification rituals (for example, the cleansing of blood-guilt) performed at Delphi itself.22
At the center of all this activity was the Pythia, the priestess who acted as the medium for the voice of Apollo. Consultation with the Pythia was limited to one day per month during the nine-month season when Apollo was believed to be “in residence,” and this helps to explain why consultations in the early centuries of the oracle were dominated by important matters of state, rather than by individual concerns as at Dodona. Before an oracular session, the Pythia purified herself, probably with water from the Kastalian spring. She entered the inner room of the temple and sat on a covered tripod cauldron, clutching a branch of laurel. There she received the questions of the petitioners and answered them. Many reconstructions of the oracle have described the process as one of violent possession, in which the Pythia raved incoherently while priests translated her answers into verse oracles. None of the early sources presents the Pythia as frenzied or hysterical, and she is always described as responding directly to the petitioners in intelligible speech, though sometimes her answers were ambiguous and riddling.23
Certainly the Pythia experienced a form of religious ecstasy, and its cause has been the subject of much speculation through the centuries. According to various theories, she owed her inspiration to a drink from the spring Kassotis, to laurel leaves she chewed while seated on the tripod, to a mediumistic trance that required no artificial stimulant, or to intoxicating vapors rising from a chasm in the earth. This last possibility, taken seriously by Plutarch (Mof. 432d-438d) but scoffed at by modern scholars, was revived when geologists newly evaluated the site of Delphi in the 1990s. They concluded that ethylene, a sweet-smelling, mildly intoxicating gas present in the limestone beneath the temple, could have contributed to the Pythia’s trance.24
The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3.300-76) gives the foundation legend for the sanctuary, telling how the god battled a huge serpent (later known as the Python) for possession of the site and supervised the building of the first temple, which archaeologists date to the late seventh century. At the Pythian festival, held every four years, one of the most important contests was the Pythian nome, in which musicians presented their interpretations of Apollo’s combat with the serpent.25 The Pythian games originally focused upon artistic contests of lyre-playing and singing to the flute, though athletic events soon began to gain in popularity as the festival was modeled more closely on the Olympic games. The serpent combat was also considered the basis for another important Delphic festival, the Septerion. Every eight years, the Delphians enacted a ritual drama that incorporated elements of the combat myth and linked Delphi with the valley of Tempe in Thessaly. According to the Delphic myth, Apollo was purified in Tempe after killing the serpent, and returned in triumph with the laurel for his sanctuary. In ritual, a boy played Apollo’s role and traveled to and from Tempe in a sacred procession, bringing laurel boughs to make crowns for the Pythian victors.26
Because of Apollo’s sponsorship of colonization efforts and his importance for civic decision-making, the cult of Apollo Pythios/Pythaeus became widespread throughout the Greek world; he often bears the titles Archegetes (Leader/Founder) and Ktistes (Establisher), which were also given to colony founders. The Spartans believed that Apollo played an instrumental role in creating their constitution. In their marketplace they had statues of Pythian Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, and the kings appointed a board of Pythioi who were responsible for state consultations of the oracle. In Athens, the Pythion was the oldest cult center of the god. At Argos, where an important sanctuary of Apollo Pythaeus was located on the Deiras ridge between the two citadels, the cult seems to have been appropriated from Asine, which the Argives destroyed at the end of the eighth century.27