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Delphi and Olympia

Delphi and Olympia. Oracles and Athletes. Delphi (North-Central Greece). Delphi and Parnassos. Site, Tradition, and Myth. Lower Slopes of Mount Parnassos About 2,000 feet above sea-level Traditional connection with Minoans (cf. Delphic Hymn to Apollo (lines 391-99, 514-23)

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Delphi and Olympia

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  1. Delphi and Olympia Oracles and Athletes

  2. Delphi (North-Central Greece)

  3. Delphi and Parnassos

  4. Site, Tradition, and Myth • Lower Slopes of Mount Parnassos • About 2,000 feet above sea-level • Traditional connection with Minoans (cf. Delphic Hymn to Apollo (lines 391-99, 514-23) • Archaeological artifacts from Middle Helladic Period • Growing Importance from Late Eighth Century (Late Geometric)

  5. Sanctuary • Temenos(central area for worship)enclosed by wall • Apollo’s temple • Theater • Twenty Treasuries (various poleis) • Monuments (various poleis) • Sacred Way

  6. Delphi-Sacred Way

  7. Delphi- Theater

  8. Delphi- Temple of Athena Pronoia

  9. Delphi- Athenian Treasury

  10. Oracles, Priests, and Pythia • Omphalos (Navel-Stone): Center of Earth • Site of Apollo’s slaying of chthonian monster (Python) • Questions put by male prophet (?) • Pythia- intoxicated (?) priestess utters responses (possessed by Apollo) • Recorded and interpreted by priests (?) • States and individuals consult (Amphictiony) • War and peace, colonization, law codes • Marriage, childlessness, commercial enterprises, ritual purification

  11. Delphi (Artist’s Reconstruction)

  12. Consulting the Pythia

  13. Pythia inhaling psychotropic vapors

  14. The Delphic OracleJohn William Godward (1899)

  15. Pythia, Adyton (“No Entry”), and Pneuma (“Breath”) • Strabo, Plutarch, and other ancient sources describe a chasm with rising vapors in the room where the priestess (Pythia) pronounced the oracle; the Pythia inhaled vapors and was possessed by Apollo • French archaeologists at Delphi (1892-1903) did not find chasm beneath temple they hoped to find; declared ancient stories about intoxicated priestesses a fiction • John Hale (archaeologist) and Jelle de Boer (geologist) reexamine the site (beginning in 1996); find crossing faults (east-west, northwest-southeast) intersecting at the adyton • Evidence for vaporized petrochemicals (ethylene) in bituminous limestone released by fault activity and rising with spring water along fault lines • For overview, see John R. Hale, Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, Jeffrey P. Chanton, and Henry A. Spiller, “Questioning the Delphic Oracle,” Scientific American (August 2003) 66-73

  16. Observations • Male control (?) • Priests may have posed questions • Priests may have recorded answers (in verse) • Priestess is intermediary • Triumph of Rationality (?) • Apollo conquers chthonian monster • Male (rationality) controls Female (emotion; inspiration) • But cf. the incorporation of Dionysus

  17. Oracles and Ethics • “Know thyself”; “Nothing too much” • Glaucus went to Delphi to consult the oracle. When he asked the oracle if he might steal money by means of an oath, the Pythia went after him...[oracle condemning the suggestion]. When Glaucus heard that, he asked pardon for the god for what he had suggested. But the Pythia said that to tempt the god and to commit the sin were exactly the same thing. (Herodotus, 6.86)

  18. Sacred Games • Pythian (Delphi) • Nemean (Argos-Peloponnesus) • Isthmian (Corinth) • Panathenaic (Athens) • Olympian (Peloponnesus) • Penteteric (four-yearly)

  19. Charioteer at Delphi

  20. Olympia • Sanctuary of Zeus (Peloponnesian Elis) • Evidence for early occupation (Bronze Age pottery and remains of houses) • Tradition: Founded by Heracles or Pelops • First Recorded Olympiad 776 BCE • Temples to Zeus and Hera • Eleven Treasuries (various poleis)

  21. Olympia (North-Western Peloponnesus)

  22. Olympia from the air

  23. Olympia (Artist’s Reconstruction)

  24. Olympiads • Five days long: first day for sacrifices and religious observances; fifth day for sacrifices and banquet • Preserved list of victors from 776 BCE to 217 CE (Eusebius) • Running, jumping, wrestling, horse racing, chariot racing, boxing, pentathlon, pankration • Statues of victorious athletes in Zeus’ temenos • Prize: Garland of Wild Olive • Epinician Odes of Pindar (Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, Isthmian)

  25. Olympia- Training Facility

  26. Myron’s Diskobolos (“Discus Thrower”) Roman Copy

  27. Discussion Questions • Consider the implications of the Panhellenic sanctuaries for questions of power in the Greek polis. Compare and contrast with the Bronze Age Minoan/Mycenaean worlds • In what ways would the sanctuaries at Delphi, Olympia, and other Panhellenic sites have affected the world of the Greek poleis? • Could we talk about this in terms of centrifugal and centripedal forces for and against Panhellenism?

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