Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference (2011): East Tennessee State University, Presentation Title: The Delphic Oracle in Greek Society (original) (raw)

Questioning the Delphic Oracle

Scientific American, 2003

The temple of Apollo, cradled in the spectacular mountainscape at Delphi, was the most important religious site of the ancient Greek world, for it housed the powerful oracle. Generals sought the oracle's advice on strategy. Colonists asked for guidance before they set sail for Italy, Spain and Africa. Private citizens inquired about health problems and investments. The oracle's advice figures prominently in the myths. When Orestes asked whether he should seek vengeance on his mother for murdering his father, the oracle encouraged him. Oedipus, warned by the oracle that he would murder his father and marry his mother, strove, with famous lack of success, to avoid his fate. The oracle of Delphi functioned in a specific place, the adyton, or "no entry" area of the temple's core, and through a specific person, the Pythia, who was chosen to speak, as a possessed medium, for Apollo, the god of prophecy. Extraordinarily for misogynist Greece, the Pythia was a woman. And unlike most Greek priests and priestesses, the Pythia did not inherit her office through noble family connections. Although the Pythia had to be from Delphi, she could be old or young, rich or poor, well educated or illiterate. She went through a long and intense period of conditioning, supported by a sisterhood of Delphic women who tended the eternal sacred fire in the temple.

DELPHI, APOLLO, LYRA, CYGNUS AND WHEN ORACLES WERE DELIVERED

Keeping an exact calendar was important to schedule Delphic festivals. The proper day for a prophecy involved a meticulous calculation, which was carried out by learned priests and ancient philosophers. The month of Bysios on average is February, but in reality it could be any 30-day interval between January and March. Bysios starts with a New Moon, but the beginning of the month is not easily pinpointed and thus Bysios and the 7 th day for giving an oracle cannot be identified according to the Gregorian calendar. The celestial motions of Lyra and Cygnus with regards to sunrise and sunset are related to the Delphi temple's orientation and the high altitude of steep cliffs of the Faidriades in front of it. Light from the rising Sun shines at the back of the temple where the statue of the god is located, while the appearance and disappearance of Lyra and Cygnus, two of Apollo's favorite constellations in the Delphic sky, mark the period of absence of the god to the Hyperboreans. This coincides with the 3-month interval from the end of December to the middle of March. During the later part of this period, on the 7 th day of Bysios, the oracle was given. At any rate, the Delphic calendar was a lunar-solar-stellar one, and was properly adjusted to coincide with and preserve the seasonal movements of those constellations.