The Temple of Apollo is not only a symbol of the mythology of ancient Greece, but also provides a narrative of Delphi’s role at the centre of ancient Greek religion. Delphi was a source of international influence by virtue of the prophecies that were expressed through the Oracle of Delphi.
The Temple of Apollo at Ancient Delphi is located within the broader expanse of the Sanctuary of Apollo. The temple was considered sacred to the god Apollo. The God endowed selected mortals with the gift of prophecy, one of whom was the Oracle of Delphi. The Temple of Apollo was constructed from carbonate rocks and marble. It occupied the most central and prominent position in the Delphic Sanctuary. It is possible that the location was chosen so that the (Oracle) Pythia could inhale the vapours that emanated from the sacred chasm.
The physical history of the Temple of Apollo and the Doric architecture we observe today has been one of destruction and reconstruction. Mythology surrounded the temple because it was believed that the god Apollo used the temple for his terrestrial home. The Temple of Apollo was also used by the Oracle of Delphi. The oracle’s hallucinogenic prophecies were sought by, amongst others, leaders and nobles. Other ruins of Delphi, equally as significant in their own way, can be explored in a separate post.
Menu for Delphi: The Temple of Apollo And Oracle At Delphi
-
The Temple of Apollo at Delphi
- Who Was Apollo?
- History of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
- Doric Architecture of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
- Inside the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
- The Destruction of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
-
The Oracle of Delphi at the Temple of Apollo
- What was an Oracle?
- Who Was the Oracle of Delphi and What Did She Do?
- A Selection of Oracles Uttered by the Oracle of Delphi
- What Really Caused the Oracle of Delphi to Hallucinate?
- Our Final Thoughts On The Temple of Apollo and its Oracle at Delphi
The Temple of Apollo at Delphi
Who was Apollo?
Apollo was the mythological son of Zeus, twin brother of Artemis and half-brother of Athena. He was the God of the sun and the deity of light, purity, and truth. Apollo was also the God ofmedicine, healing, music, poetry, fine arts, and eloquence. Apollo was considered to be more reputable than his father. His ideal physical appearance, energy and poise led to his being the most popular of the Greek deities. Consequently, temples were erected in honour of Apollo all across Greece.
History of the Temple of Apollo
A Temple within the religious architecture of the ancient Greeks was erected to serve as a terrestrial home for an ancient Greek god or goddess. Services and rituals originally took place outside and in front of the temple.
The Greeks made use of temple structures as early as the 8th Century BC. The earliest buildings at Delphi were made from wood but were replaced by masonry structures. These imitated the architectural features of the wooden buildings and were made not only from stone, but also from marble. The Temple of Apollo in this respect exemplified the development of Greek temples.
Ancient Greek mythology describes a series of Delphic temples dating from the 7th Century BC. The first and therefore most ancient in mythology as recounted by Pausanias was ‘a modest shelter constructed from laurel branches; a replacement was said to have been constructed from bees-wax and feathers; a third from bronze and by tradition, a fourth constructed from stone by the mythological architects Trophonius and Agamedes’. Trophonius was the brother of Agamedes and the son of a king, Erginus. Trophonius was said to be the divine son of Apollo. This temple was the earliest built on the current site but it burned down in 548 BC.
Apollo’s Temple remained in ruins following its destruction in 548 BC. Subsequently, the Alcmaeoids, a wealthy family living in exile from Athens, ebuilt the temple between 514-506 BC. They used both their personal wealth and funds contributed by cities and nobles, some of whom were foreign. The limestone and marble temple was named in honour of the family as “Temple of Alcmeonidae”. The marble was quarried at Marathi on the isle of Paros, a quarry that provided marble to the ancient world. Parian marble is highly crystalline and composed almost completely of grains of clear, colourless calcite. Calcite is a form of calcium carbonate and the primary mineral in limestone. The complete metamorphosis of the host limestone resulted in marble with uniformly distributed grains. This uniformity resulted in marble with consistent colour and appearance.
This second Temple of Apollo of the archaic period on the current site was destroyed by earthquake in 373 BC. The restoration of this temple was completed in 330 BC. The temple emulated the Alcmeonidae temple, not only in form, but also in its use of Parian marble. We see the archaeological ruins of this temple today when we visit Delphi.
Doric Architecture of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
If you are new to the design and architecture of ancient Greek temples you might find the following basic description of Greek temples helpful when identifying the features of the ruins of the Temple of Apollo.
The vertical columns of Apollo’s Temple at Delphi are probably the features that gain our attention first. The following image shows that the ancient Greeks carefully sectioned the columns at Delphi rather than construct them in one piece.
Each section of column, or drum, had to be carefully shaped. This ensured it would fit as well as possible to the vertically adjacent sections of columns positioned above and below. They were joined using a wooden dowel or metal peg that had been placed through the centre of each section. The sectioning of the columns was practical. It was easier to transfer and work with sections of columns rather than with a complete column. Also, Delphi is in a seismic zone. Sectioning the columns increased the tolerance of the columns to movement which resulted from tremors. The sectioning of the columns of the enormous Temple of Zeus (Olympieion) in Athens is another excellent example. The columns of the Temple of Zeus have collapsed in sections on the ground.
Other Doric temples which are worth visiting include the Temple of Apollo at Ancient Corinth and The Parthenon in Athens. The giant Temple of Zeus in Athens also started as a Doric temple. However, it was completed several centuries later during the Roman occupation of Athens.
Inside the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
Pausanias gave us a little insight into the interior of the Temple of Apollo when he recorded;
“In the temple has been built an altar of Poseidon … Here you may behold the hearth on which the priest of Apollo killed Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles … Not far from the hearth has been dedicated a chair of Pindar (a lyric poet from Thebes). The chair is of iron, and on it they say Pindar sat whenever he came to Delphi, and there composed his songs to Apollo. Into the innermost part of the temple there pass but few, but there is dedicated in it another image of Apollo, made of gold”
— Pausanias
Pausanias continued;
“In the fore-temple at Delphi are written maxims useful for the life of men, inscribed by those whom the Greeks say were sages… the seventh sage, according to the list of Plato, the son of Ariston, is not Periander, the son of Cypselus, but Myson of Chenae, a village on Mount Oeta. These sages, then, came to Delphi and dedicated to Apollo the celebrated maxims, “Know thyself,” and “Nothing in excess.”
‘These men wrote what I have said, and you can see a bronze statue of Homer on a slab, and read the oracle that they say Homer’
“Blessed and unhappy, for to be both wast thou born.
Thou seekest thy father-land; but no father-land hast thou, only a mother-land.
The island of Ios is the father-land of thy mother, which will receive thee
When thou hast died; but be on thy guard against the riddle of the young children.”
— Pausanias
The Destruction of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
Delphi and the Temple of Apollo had long been the historical target of foreign incursions and according to Pausanias;
“It seems that from the beginning the sanctuary at Delphi has been plotted against by a vast number of men. Attacks were made against it by this Euboean pirate, and years afterwards by the Phlegyan nation; furthermore by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, by a portion of the army of Xerxes, by the Phocian chieftains, whose attacks on the wealth of the god were the longest and fiercest, and by the Gallic invaders.”
— Pausanias
The Romans occupied Greece in the second century BC. They sacked nearby Corinth in 196 BC as a warning against the futility of rebellion. The punishment of Corinth was not immediately transferred to the Temple of Apollo. However, the temple was subject to later plundering during Roman occupation. Pausanias adds that;
“It was fated too that Delphi was to suffer from the universal irreverence of Nero, who robbed Apollo of five hundred bronze statues, some of gods, some of men.”
— Pausanias
Delphi and the Temple of Apollo were finally destroyed in 390 AD when ‘universal christianity’ cleared Delphi of paganism.
The Oracle of Delphi at the Temple of Apollo
What was an Oracle?
The term ‘oracle’ is derived from the Latin word ‘oraculum’, meaning ‘prophecy’ and is related to ‘speak, utter, pray’. An oracle in Greek mythology is therefore a prophetic utterance from the gods. These utterances required interpretation by priests. Mythology holds that the earliest oracle was uttered by Zeus. Priests at Dodona would render prophecies spoken by Zeus through the rustle of oak leaves.
Other mythology held that ‘in the earliest times the oracular seat belonged to Earth’ (Ge) after which the oracle belonged to both Poseidon and Earth in common. The Earth pronounced her oracles herself, but Poseidon used Pyrcon as his mouthpiece in giving responses. Myth holds that afterwards Earth gave her share to Themis, who gave it to Apollo as a gift.
Pausanias wrote that ‘in the temple has been built an altar of Poseidon, because Poseidon too possessed in part the most ancient oracle.’
The term ‘Oracle’ also came to be applied the God or mortal who was gifted with prediction. This theme is pursued in reference to the Oracle of Delphi. However, prediction was not the sole province of an Oracle. It was claimed that Prometheus also educated Greeks in prediction: ‘The animosities, the consortings and attachments of birds; and the smooth surface of the viscera, and what hue the gall must have for the god’s pleasure and the mottled symmetry of the liver lobe; and the thigh bones in fat enwrapped, and the long chine I burned and initiated mortals into the mysteries of an occult art.’
Who Was the Oracle of Delphi and What Did an Oracle Do?
The Temple of Apollo was attended by priestesses. The High Priestess at the temple was known as ‘Pythia’, the Oracle of Delphi. The use of the term ‘Pythia’ was a clear reference to the mythological defeat of the serpent ‘Python’ by Apollo.
“The poets say that the victim of Apollo was a dragon posted by Earth to be a guard for the oracle. It is also said that he was a violent son of Crius, a man with authority around Euboea. He pillaged the sanctuary of the god, and he also pillaged the houses of rich men. But when he was making a second expedition, the Delphians besought Apollo to keep from them the danger that threatened them.”
— Pausanias
The Oracle of Delphi was held in high esteem. After all, she communicated with the gods! However there was a personal cost for this trusted and honoured responsibility. The Oracle was to dispossess herself of all earthly attachments and pursuits, including identity and family. This high priestess was referred to as ‘Sybil’. The Rock of Sibyl can be seen adjacent to the Temple of Apollo, but on a lower terrace. The first prophetess of Delphi was the Sybil Hierophileit. According to legend she stood at the Rock of Sybil to utter her oracles. Her oracles are said to include the fall of Troy. Consequently, every Oracle who followed adopted the same name.
“…there is a rock rising up above the ground. On it, say the Delphians, there stood and chanted the oracles a woman, by name Herophile and surnamed Sibyl. The former Sibyl I find was as ancient as any; the Greeks say that she was a daughter of Zeus by Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, that she was the first woman to chant oracles, and that the name Sibyl was given her by the Libyans.”
— Pausanias
The Greeks believed that the priestess was possessed by Apollo and able to provide inspired direction by divination. The Oracle of Delphi would first purify herself in the Castalian Spring. She would then present herself holding laurel leaves and spring water. The Oracle would sit on a golden tripod and utter frenzied and unintelligible ramblings. These hallucinations were then translated into verse prophecies by priests. The Oracle was never wrong. A failed prediction was always ascribed to a flaw in the interpretation.
The utterances of the Oracle and their interpretation by the priests at the Temple of Apollo were open to manipulation. For example, military leaders and rulers would return to their armies and countries following their inquiry of the Oracle. They would then cite the meaning of the oracle that they personally preferred, justifying the advice as divine.
The prices paid for the oracles were proportional to the status of the supplicant and the weight of the matter. The Temple of Apollo and its treasuries continued to be filled with what the petitioners were willing to pay. The locations of the Oracles in general were not easily accessible for ordinary Greeks and others to reach. Therefore, the clientele of the Oracle of Delphi was usually drawn from the elite.
It has long been held that the Pythia were consulted outside Apollo’s Temple. However, it has recently been proposed that the Pythia operated inside the temple. The ancient historian Plutarch conjectured that the Oracle would become inspired by inhaling aromatic and poisonous vapours that emanated from the domain of the defeated serpent, a chasm beneath the temple.
A Selection of Oracles Uttered by the Oracle of Delphi at the Temple of Apollo
The Oracle of Delphi considered a range of matters from civil to military, as well as matters pertaining to private affairs, including travel, marriage and children. It was accepted that the advice offered would have improved in quality due to the priests accumulating knowledge and experience over nearly a millennium (7th Century BC to 4th Century AD). The following accounts are based on the writings of Pausanias.
Thermistocles
Direction from the Oracle of Delphi was sought by many prominent historical figures. For example, the Delphic Oracle influenced Greece’s defence against the Persian onslaught in 480 BC. Xerxes proceeded in 484 BC determined to avenge his father’s humiliating defeat at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. He gathered a combined Persian land and naval force of 2.3 million men, according to Herodotus. Greece also made defensive preparations which included Leonidas’ consulting the Oracle of Delphi. The Oracle instructed them to defend themselves with “wooden walls”. The Greeks applied the oracle and began strengthening their navy by building more timber ships. It proved to be the correct decision. Although Greece lost the land battle at Thermoplyae, Thermistocles took the naval victory at Salamis.
“Themistocles came to Delphi bringing with him some of the Persian spoils (Salamis) for Apollo … the Pythian priestess bade him carry them from the sanctuary altogether.
The splendid beauty of the Persian’s spoils
Set not within my temple. Despatch them home speedily.
It was from Themistocles alone that the priestess refused to accept Persian spoils … It was said that the god knew that Themistocles would become a suppliant of the Persian king. The Oracle refused to take the gifts so that Themistocles might not by a dedication render the Persian’s enmity unappeasable.”
— Pausanias
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great, following his ascension to the Macedonian throne in 336 BC, visited the Oracle at Delphi to gain assurance for his intentions to dominate the then world. The legend continues that on the day of his visit to Delphi, Alexander was not permitted to consult the Oracle. Alexander forced a prediction. The Oracle exclaimed in exasperation, “Oh child, you are invincible!” Alexander accepted the Oracle’s exclamation as a prediction of his victories.
Phalanthus
On setting out to found a colony (Tarentum) Phalanthus received an oracle from Delphi. The Orace declared that when he felt rain under a cloudless sky (aethra), he would then win both a territory and a city.
“He (Philanthus) succeeded neither in taking a city nor in making himself master of a territory, but called to mind the impossible oracle for never could rain fall from a clear and cloudless sky. When he was in despair his wife placed her husband’s head between her knees and began to pick out the lice. And it chanced that the wife, such was her affection, wept as she saw her husband’s fortunes coming to nothing.”
— Pausanias
Phalanthus realized the meaning of the oracle for his wife’s name was Aethra (Gr: bright sky). And so on that night he took Tarentum from the barbarians, the largest and most prosperous city on the coast.
“They say that Taras the hero was a son of Poseidon and that both the city and the river were named after him; Taras..”
— Pausanias
The Temple of Apollo would have been a significant profit centre. The Delphic Oracle was consulted by Greeks and foreigners; kings and other rulers. The fees for consulting the Oracle were substantial. The imprecise, ambiguous and even absolutely incorrect direction from the Delphic Oracle filled with treasures both the Temple of Apollo and secondary treasuries.
The influence of the Oracle of Delphi eventually declined in a world of emerging powers and increasing rationalism. Its final demise came with the Roman overrun.
What Really Caused the Oracle of Delphi to Hallucinate?
The cause of the Oracle’s hallucinations are still the subject of contention.
It was mentioned previously that the ancient historian Plutarch conjectured that the Pythia entered her trance by inhaling aromatic, noxious fumes. The fumes were said to have emanated from a chasm beneath Apollo’s Temple. The possibility of the merit of this conjecture is advanced by the knowledge that the Chryssa – Delphi – Arachova region has been frequently faulted. A fault runs right through the Temple of Apollo – although the ‘domain’ of the defeated serpent is not in evidence today. Plutarch’s explanation was given additional support when traces of ethylene were found in the stone walls of the temple. The presence of aromatic ethylene is associated with both natural gas and petroleum. The gas can cause the symptoms experienced by the Oracle – light headedness, confusion and dizziness.
The ethylene hypothesis has been challenged on the basis that ethylene could not exist in nature in sufficient concentrations to induce odour and hallucinations.
A competing hypothesis is that the trances could have been induced by a mixture of small traces of carbon dioxide and methane, the latter having been found in surrounding springs. What is not accounted for is the smell, but it has been proposed this may have been caused by traces of benzene.
So, to this day, the Oracle of Delphi still holds her mysteries.
Our final thoughts on The Temple of Apollo And Oracle at Delphi
The Temple of Apollo as a physical monument is important to our understanding of the skill and religious expression embodied in Greek architecture. The Temple of Apollo is also important to our understanding the mythology and religion of ancient Greece. The hallucinogenic prophecies uttered by the Oracle of Delphi ensured Delphi would become and remain the centre of influence of all of Greece.
References:
Ancient Delphi Archaeological Site Display Boards
Greek Ministry of Culture and Tourism
The Theoi Greek Mythology Website
Description of Greece 10. 1 – 16, Translated by W. H. S. Jones
<https://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias10A.html>
Harald Franzen
Gaseous Emissions at Oracle of Delphi Entranced the Pythia, 2001
Scientific American. New York :Munn & Co., 1845
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gaseous-emissions-at-orac/>
Valkaniotis, Sotirios and Pavlides, Spyros
Late Quaternary and Holocene Faults of The Northern Gulf of Corinth Rift, Central Greece
Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece, 2017/07/27
