Delphi
Established in a magnificent setting in Phocis, Delphi was the most prestigious, the richest, and the most consulted oracle, and, even in myth, it was obviously the ultimate one. A mass of personal and political interests converged there, and these are attested by buildings, epigraphy, and literature (Amandry 1950; Fontenrose 1978; Jacquemin 1999). In addition to the oracle itself, one could find there a great many buildings, temples, a theatre, and structures needed for the cult and for the penteteric Pythian games. The origins of this site, its allegiance to Apollo, and the history of its divinatory method are disputed (Quantin 1992). But we can say that the oracle was functioning from at least the eighth century BC, the age of the ‘‘Greek renaissance’’ and the rapid rise of Apollo, that it built up its prestige in the seventh century and reached its zenith in the sixth and early fifth centuries BC.
Consultation originally took place once a year, it was said, but it quickly became monthly, and two or even three Pythias acted in relay. Taking account of promanteia (orders of precedence granted by the Delphians: Roux 1990), the consultants, whether acting on their own behalf or in a public capacity, purified themselves with water at the spring of Castalia and made a monetary offering (pelanos). They sacrificed on the altar of Apollo before the temple, in order to obtain omens, then they made their way to a room in the foundations of the temple, the adyton, the configuration of which remains a mystery. The Pythia, who had drunk water and chewed bay leaves, prophesied down below. Since one listened to her without seeing her, a curtain or a screen must have separated the priestess from her consultants. She sat in a bowl mounted on a tripod. The mantic significance of this remains unexplained, but it is related to sacrificial cooking.
Finally, the prophet clarified the divine message. Did he meddle with the responses in so doing? He could surely modify it in one way or another, but as no oracle that produced forgeries on a daily basis would have survived throughout antiquity, who would have been so foolish as to alter the will of the god? The consultant, who also listened to the Pythia, could validate the final text, and the very few ancient allegations of fraud focused upon the Pythias themselves rather than the interpreters.
Dodona
At Dodona in Epirus, the panhellenic manteion of Zeus and Dione flourished from the archaic period to the hellenistic one. Zeus’ oak leaves produced a divinatory rustling which was interpreted by the priestesses, the Peleiads. The method fell between the two mantic types: the tree’s foliage belongs to the inductive type, but the priestesses are presented by Plato as on an equal footing with the Pythia in the Phaedrus, which deals with inspiration (244ab). For his part, Homer (Iliad 16.233-5), speaks of priests named Selloi, and subsequently Herodotus (2.56-7) speaks of male propheteis. Matters are unclear, and it is dangerous to reduce everything to a linear evolution: priests and priestesses may well have coexisted. The oracle is famous for its lead tablets, which preserve some of the actual questions put to it.
Claros and Didyma
The principal oracles in Asia Minor were those of Claros and Didyma. They were both ancient, but they reached their apogee in the imperial period. Claros preserves the only adyton to have come down to us intact. A narrow subterranean corridor (70 x 180 cm) turns right seven times and leads into a vast vaulted crypt. Conditioned by a grueling ritual, the priest entered, alone, into a second vaulted crypt, where he drank water and prophesied to the consultants, who remained in the first room. Numerous inscriptions attest his public role, which was predominantly a religious one, in the cities of Asia Minor in the second and third centuries AD (Graf 1992a; Merkelbach and Stauber 1996). At Didyma the hellenistic temple of Apollo was the third largest in Greece. The priestess underwent a grueling preparation, then she prophesied, scepter in hand, sitting on a cube of wood with her feet in water, in an adyton which has been identified with the inner court, but the case can scarcely be proven. The Didymeion is a depressing example of our inability to synthesize the diverse evidence of site, inscriptions, and various late literary references (Fontenrose 1988).
Trophonius
We are given a detailed picture of the consultation process for Trophonius at Lebadaea by numerous testimonia from the seventh century BC to the third century AD, and not least by a most valuable description of Pausanias and by philosophical speculations about the oracle’s divinatory principles (Pausanias 9.39.1-40.2; Bonnechere 2003). The consultant had to descend to the underworld (katabasis) to secure his response, becoming ‘‘his own prophet’’ (hypophetes autangelos). He lay in the dark and, with the help of his fear, fell into a faint. When he recovered his wits he had been touched by a dream vision. The Greeks believed here that his soul had escaped from the confines of the body, during which time the god manifested himself. Thereafter the consultant, still groggy, was sat upon the throne of Memory, where the priests interrogated him about his vision.
World History
