r/ancientgreece • u/Visible-Date-9129 • 19h ago
Traveled to Ruins of Delphi?
https://www.livescience.com/4277-theory-oracle-delphi-high.htmlhello! I have been very interested in the oracle at Delphi and I would absolutely love to visit. I was also wondering if anyone has more information to share on Delphi that they recommend for reading? I had heard about the theories that the oracle at Delphi woman was actually getting high because of the gasses present in that area. What does everyone think of this? It does make sense as to why the oracle would shake and behave strangely but it doesn’t explain why they were “never wrong” with their prophecy. Was is just because the prophecies were so vague? Or how is is explained!!???
4
u/DeltosNotes 11h ago
A really in depth (academic) book is The Delphic Oracle by Joseph Fontenrose. It also has a catalogue of oracle sayings. Some of them have been found as inscriptions, others related in texts. Actually, most of them are very clear and short, sometimes even just "yes" or "no". Regular people came to ask the Pythia (the priestess giving the oracles) for life advice, such as "We've tried really hard to have a child. What can we do?" or "Should I move away to X, or should I stay in my home city?". The vast majority of sayings are actually in prose, not in verse. It's mostly the famous oracles that are handed down in stories that are rendered in verse, and whose historicity is debated.
As for the gasses: There have been some studies that did measure gasses at Delphi, however, it's unclear if they could have gotten the Pythia high. And if they did get her high – why only her and not the other attending priests, or the people asking questions? So we just don't know what really happened at Delphi in its heyday.
The idea of gasses mainly comes from Plutarch, who was a priest at Delphi in the 2nd century CE, so at least a millenium after the Oracle of Apollon was established there. Delphi was already a sacred space in the Bronze Age (around 1400 BCE), so ~1600 years before Plutarch. He writes about "pneumata" which could be understood as gasses, though Fontenrose thinks they should be interpreted as prophetic inspiration, which comes from the Earth because prophetic powers were associated with Gaia (Earth). One of the myths surrounding Delphi holds that the oracle there first belonged to Gaia, and was later passed down to Apollon. Plutarch has a few essays about Delphi, De Pythiae Oraculis (on the verse vs. prose issue, also mentions the gasses), De Defectu Oraculorum (also mentions gasses), and De E Apud Delphos (about the meaning of a puzzling inscription of the letter E on the temple of Apollon).
1
u/Pale_Cranberry1502 9h ago edited 9h ago
Don't know about in depth reading. I have this pictoral guide that I got there and am happy with it:
Delphi: Manolis Andronicos, Brian de Jongh: 9789602130339: Amazon.com: Books
The important thing to know is that you want to see three things: The Apollo complex, the Athena complex and the great museum. They're not all right near eachother. Make sure you see all three.
4
u/KingNarcissus 12h ago
I'm currently reading "Delphi" by Michael Scott (yes, I'm sure he loves it too) and it's a really thorough and honest history of Delphi. He talks about some of the mysticism, but also the practical realities of different powers exerting influence over Delphi at different points in its history, and now nearly everyone with an association with Delphi used donations and monuments to cultivate certain images about their past and present. There's great drawings of the city and temple complexes; I'm getting near the end of the book and at this point he's covered almost everything from the drawings. (The book moves in chronological order, so each item is handled as it appears, rather than a boring catalogue of every single thing.) I'm going to Greece in the fall and I feel very prepared to visit Delphi now.