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The oracle of Delphis

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Delphis oracle
Delphis was the most famed and celebrated oracle of all the classic period. It was erected in a rugged area of central Greece. There, around the temple and the sacred stone, many important buildings which were part of the “Temenos” (the sanctuary) were set on both side of the sacred road: There were the Treasures and the Monuments of the various people of Greece. Higher than these was Apollon Pythios’s Temple; then the Theatre, and, still higher, on the last platform, the Stadion. Priestress and prophetress of the place was the Pythia, a young girl chosen among the country farmers’s daughters, a virgin that for all her period of charge had to remain strictly chaste.
Someone deemed that the Pythia drew lots using broad beans and, from what she saw in them, she gave her answers, but the questions posed to this young girl had to be expressed in a simple and alternative way: That means that people had to enquire her either if something would or wouldn’t happen, or if it was better to do some thing or abstain from it, and so on. Then, according to the broad bean selected from the heap, the answer was yes or no.
This was a simple way to predict the future and it was very much in use in Greece. It closely matched the throwing of a coin in the air that today we do when, without wanting to disturb a god, we need to take a resolve. It is possible that this minor form of foretelling was also used in Delphis, but the important personages who went there paying huge sum of money, were not satisfied with this kind of parlor game. They wanted prophecies put in verses and inspired by the god himself, prophecies given in the old traditional way. To sum it up they wanted that the Pythia was the one who gave the god’s andswer and that she did it sitting on the tripod in the “Adyton” where, except her, nobody could enter.
There the Pythia helped by the solemn atmosphere of the ceremony and by a firm faith in Apollo, felt that she was possessed by him. Thus she ended by falling in a kind of trance and at the end, feeling directly inspired by the god, she sent her oracles to the kings and leaders who had asked for them, and they had to carefully follow the directions given to them.
There was of course a kind of ceremony that the people who wanted to consult the Pythia had to perform, and, as always the first thing they had to do was to pay quite a large sum of money to the temple and the priests. It was a kind of tax called “Pelanos”. Then a goat had to be sacrificed and, after the sacrifice, cold water had to be poured on the animal: if its flesh did not shrink it was impossible to consult the oracle. It could be very dangerous and even deadly for the Pythia. If instead its flesh contracted it meant that Apollo accepted to give his prophecy. In that case the ceremony went on. The Pythia, went to the Castalia fountain to purify herself, then she entered the temple and, after having made some laurel and barley flour fumigations, came down the stairs in the subterranean part of the temple: The place called “Manteion” that was dedicated to divination.
All the people who had requested her prophecies went with her The first was the one who had a right to the “promantia”, then came all the others according to the place they had got drawing lots. When all, included the priests, arrived down stairs, they had to stop in a hall reserved for them, while the Pythia went alone toward the adjoining “Adyton” where stood the statue of Apollon and Dyonisos tomb. The priests and the ones who had demanded the oracles stayed in the room in front of the “Adyton” and heard her voice but they couldn’t see anything. The Pythia gave their answers in the assigned order and these – as the ancient writer tell us - were always true and never, never deceitful: However the answers of Apollon - who just for this was called “Loxias”, to wit the “shady” - could always be understood in a double way and if someone didn’t rightly interpret them he could find himself in a fine quandary