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CORRECTION TO RECENTLY PUBLISHED ARTICLE:

PERICLES' DREAM

By:  GEORGIA MOLDOVANI,

Professor of Greek Language, Thessaloniki, Greece

Translation From The Greek: Ioanna Sivridou

 

(Apologies to our new writers for the typo)

PERCLES’ DREAM

By:  GEORGIA MOLDOVANI,

Professor of Greek Language, Thessaloniki, Greece

Translation from Greek: Ioanna Sivridou

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PERICLES DREAM

PERICLES the son of Agaristes and Xanthipos was undoubtedly one of the most well known men not only of ATHENS but of the whole world.

He was born in Cholargos [Athens]  in 495 BC.  Although he was of Aristocratic descent he belonged to a democratic party who believed in equality amongst citizens.

Despite being highly intelligent and a remarkable orator he was also quite humble.  He took away the power of the Supreme Court giving it to the Assembly of people, where the citizens conferred.  He completed the fortification of Athens and Piraeus with complimentary walls.  In order to make Athens more beautiful he built immortal monuments.

In 450BC he began planning the construction of the Acropoles.  Pericle's dream was to make Athens so beautiful that it would not be able to compare it with any other city.  This dream became true. It was the miracle created by both Pericles and his Architects [ Iktinos, Kallikratis and Mnesikles ].

PERICLES led the democratic party and governed Athens for 30 years.  He died in 429 BC.  During this time Athens was at its highest moment. Athens was a rich, strong, beautiful city and full of glory.  It was the city of Culture and Arts.  Sculptures, Poets and Painters adorned the city.  That was the GOLDEN AGE OF ATHENS.

Aspasia his wife stood equally at his side with beauty and spirit, supporting and helping Pericles.  The GOLDEN AGE OF ATHENS declined with the death of the great PERICLES.  Yet his works and fame remain immortal throughout History to this day.  

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                       TO ALL OUR FOLLOWERS AND VIEWERS

               by: Evi Martyn

 

   It is with great pleasure and pride  that I am sending this message

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PRIESTESS (PYTHIA) OF ANCIENT DELPHI

                     PART III

In Part III, we will now explore the four-step process for persons seeking an audience with the Oracle at Delphi, along with the excavations commencing in 1892, and other investigative work completed by various geologists.

In the traditions associated with Apollo, the oracle only gave prophecies during the nine warmest months of each year.  On the seventh day of each month, the oracle would undergo purification rites, including fasting, to ceremonially prepare the Pythia for communications with the divine.  She would bathe in the Castalian Spring then would drink the holier waters of the Kassotis, which flowed closer to the temple, where a naiad possessing magical powers was said to live. [1] She then descended into the adytum (Greek for “inaccessible”) and mounted her tripod seat, holding laurel leaves and a dish of Kassotis Spring water into which she gazed.  Nearby was the omphalos  (Greek for “navel”), which was flanked by two sold gold eagles representing the authority of Zeus, and the cleft from which emerged the sacred pneuma.

The experience of supplicants (those seeking a consultation with the oracle)

Four-Stage Process Of The Supplicant: It would appear that the supplicant to the oracle would undergo a four-stage process, typical of shamanic journeys.

Journey to Delphi:  Supplicants were motivated by some need to undertake the long and sometimes arduous journey to come to Delphi in order to consult the oracle.  In some cases the supplicants traveled great distances to consult the oracle.

Preparation of the Supplicant:  Supplicants were interviewed in preparation of their presentation to the Oracle by the priests in attendance.  The genuine cases were sorted and the supplicant had to go through rituals involving the framing of their questions, the presentation of gifts to the Oracle and a procession along the Sacred Way carrying laurel leaves to visit the temple, symbolic of the journey they had made.

Visit to the Oracle:  The supplicant would then be led into the temple to visit the adyton, put his question to the Pythia, receive his answer and depart.  The degree of preparation already undergone would mean that the supplicant was already in a very aroused and meditative state.

Return Home:  Oracles were meant to give advice to shape future action, which was meant to be implemented by the supplicant, or by those that had sponsored the supplicant to visit the Oracle.  The validity of the Oracular utterance was confirmed by the consequences of the application of the oracle to the lives of those people who sought Oracular guidance [2]

At times when the Pythia was not available, supplicants could obtain guidance by asking simple Yes-or-No questions to the priests.  A response was returned through the tossing of colored beans, one color designating “yes” another “no.”  little else is known of this practice. [3]

Between 535 and 635 of the Oracles of Delphi are known to have survived since classical times, of which over half are said to be accurate historically (see the article Famous Oracular Statements from Delphi  for some examples). [4]

Excavations

Beginning during 1892, a team of French archaeologist directed by Theophile Homolle of the College de France excavated the site at Delphi.  Contrary to ancient literature, they could find a fissure or possible means for the production of fumes which were said to be inhaled by the Oracle.  Later, Adolphe Paul Oppe published an influential article [32] in 1904, which made three crucial claims:  No chasm or vapor ever existed; no natural gas could create prophetic visions; and the recorded incidents of a priestess undergoing violent and often deadly reactions was inconsistent with the more customary reports. [5]

Other scholars such as Frederick Poulson, E.R. Dodds, Joseph Fontenrose, and Saul Levin all stated that there were no vapors and no chasm.  For the decades to follow, scientists and scholars believed the ancient descriptions of a sacred, inspiring pneuma to be false.

However, a subsequent re-examination of the French excavation has shown that this consensus may have been mistaken.  Broad (2007) demonstrates that a French photograph of the excavated interior of the temple clearly depicts a springlike pool as well as a number of small vertical fissures, indicating numerous pathways by which vapors could enter the base of the temple. [6]

During the 1980s, the interdisciplinary team of geologists Jelle Zeilinga de Boar, archaeologist John Rl Hale, forensic chemist Jeffrey P. Chanton, and toxicologist Henry R. Spiller [7] investigated the site at Delphi using this photograph and other sources as evidence, as part of a United Nations survey of all active faults  in Greece [5]

Jelle Zeilinga de Boar saw evidence of a fault line in Delphi that lay under the ruined temple.  During several expeditions, they discovered two major fault lines, one lying north-south, the Kerna fault, and the other lying east-west, the Delphic fault, which parallels the shore of the Corinthian Gulf.   The rift of the Gulf of Corinth is one of the most geologically active sites on Earth; shifts there impose immense strains on nearby fault lines, such as those below Delphi.  The two faults cross one another, and they intersect right below where the adyton was probably located.  (The actual, original oracle chamber had been destroyed by the moving faults, but there is strong structural evidence that indicates where it was most likely located. [8]

Footnotes

1.      Broad, W.J. (2007), p.34-36

2.     Fontenrose, Joseph (1981), “Delphic Oracle: Its Response and Operations.” (Uni of Calif. Press)

3.     Broad, W.J. (2007), p. 38-40

4.     Fontenrose, op cit

5.     ab The Oracle at Delphi Medb hErren

6.     Broad, W.J. (2007), P 146-7.

7.     Wikipedia-Pythia

 

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PRIESTESS (PYTHIA) OF ANCIENT DELPHI

                               PART II

In Part II, we will now explore how the priestess was chosen, and the vapors that were said to have played a role in her inspirations and prophesies.

Though little is known of how the priestess was chosen, the Pythia was probably selected, at the death of her predecessor, from amongst a guild of priestesses of the temple.  These women were all natives of Delphi and were required to have had a sober life and be of good character. (1) (2) Although some were married, upon assuming their role as the Pythia, the priestesses ceased all family responsibilities, marital relations, and individual identity.  In the heyday of the oracle, the Pythia may have been a woman chosen from an influential family, well educated in geography, politics, history, philosophy, and the arts.  It has been reported that during later periods, however, uneducated peasant women were also chosen for the role.  The archaeologist John Hale reports:

“The Pythia was (on occasion) a noble of aristocratic family, sometimes a peasant, sometimes rich, sometimes poor, sometimes old, sometimes young, sometimes a very lettered and educated woman to whom somebody like the high priests and the philosopher Plutarch would dedicate essays, other times who could not write her own name.  So it seems to have been aptitude rather than any ascribed status that made these women eligible to be Pythias and speak for the God. (3)

The job of a priestess, especially the Pythia, was a respectable career for Greek women.  Priestesses enjoyed many liberties and rewards for their societal position, such as freedom from taxation, the right to own property and attend public events, a salary and housing provided by the state, a wide range of duties depending on their affiliation, and often gold crowns. (4)

During the main period of the oracle’s popularity, as many as three women served as Pythia, another vestige of the triad, with two taking turns in giving prophecy and another kept in reserve. (5)

Plutarch, a known statesman and historian, said (6) that the Pythia’s life was shortened through the service of Apollo.  The sessions were said to be exhausting.  At the end of each period the Pythia would be like a runner after a race or a dancer after an ecstatic dance, which may have had a physical effect on the health of the Pythia.

Several other officials served the oracle in addition to the Pythia (7) after 200 BC at any given time there were two priests of Apollo, who were in charge of the entire sanctuary; Plutarch, who served as a priest during the late first century and early second century AD, gives us the most information about the organization of the oracle at that time.  Before 200 BC, while the temple was dedicated to Apollo, there was probably only one priest of Apollo.  Priests were chosen from among the main citizens of Delphi, and were appointed for life.  In addition to overseeing the oracle, priests would also conduct sacrifices at other festivals of Apollo, and had charge of the Pythian games.  Earlier arrangements, before the temple became dedicated to Apollo, are not documented.

 Fumes and vapors

There have been many attempts to find a scientific explanation for he Pythia’s inspiration.  However, most commonly, (8) these refer to an observation made by Plutarch, who presided as high priest at Delphi for several years, who stated that her oracular powers appeared to be associated with vapors from the Kerna spring waters that flowed under the temple.  It has often been suggested that these vapors may have been hallucinogenic gases which placed the Pythia in a trance.  It is said that the gases were “sweet and perfume-y” according to Plutarch.

NOTES

1.       Broad, W.J. (2007), P. 31-32

2.       Herbert W. Parke, “History of the Delphic Oracle and H.W. Parks And D.E.W. Wormell “The Delphic Oracle, 1956 Volume 1: The history attempt the complicated reconstruction of the oracle’s institutions; a recent comparison of the process of select at Delphi which Near Eastern oracles is part of Herbert B. Huffman, “The Oracular Process: Delphi and the near East.” Vetus Testmentum 57.4, (2007;449-60)

3.       quoted in an interview on the radio program “The Ark,” transcript available.

4.       Broad, W.J. (2007), p.32

5.       Plutarch Moralia 414b.

6.       “Plutarch – On the Failure of Oracles,”  Penelope.uchicago.edu. retrieved 2012-03-19.

7.       On the temple personnel, see Roux 1976, pp. 54-63.

8.       J.Z. DeBoer, and J.R. Hale.  “The Geological Origins of the Oracle of Delphi, Greece.” in W.G.McGuire, D.R. Griffiths, P. Hancock, and I.S.  Stewart, eds. “The Archaeology of Geological Catastrophes (Geological Society of London) 2000. Popular accounts in A&E.