DELPHI
Phokis, Greece.
North of the Gulf
of Corinth, with the twin peaks, the Phaidriades, above
it and the valley of the Pleistos river below, the city
(altitude 500-700 m) is superbly situated on the slopes
of Mt. Parnassos (2459 m). From there it overlooks the
meeting of the roads coming from the passes of Arachova
to the E and Bralo to the W, which link the Peloponnese
to the Greek mainland.
History: At the beginning of the 3d millennium the city
of Krisa grew up on the sea coast, on the edge of the
fertile plain formed by the deposits of the Pleistos. Removed ca. 1600 B.C. to the Kriso spur, the city was
destroyed at the time of the Dorian invasion. Delphi itself was settled no earlier than the Late Bronze Age: the
original city, called Lykoreia, was in the region of the
Korykian cave. Mycenaean Delphi, “rocky Pytho,” was
sacred to Athena, Gaia, who spoke oracles through the
mouth of a prophetess, and very probably also to Poseidon, Dionysos, the sacred stones (the Omphalos, the
Stone of Kronos), and the hero Pyrrhos-Neoptolemos.
An avalanche of rocks and mud destroyed the city at the
end of the Late Bronze Age.
Delphi became prosperous once again by the 8th c.
when the first archaeological evidence of the cult of
Pythian Apollo appears. According to the Homeric
Hymn, the god seized the Earth oracle by slaying the
female dragon that guarded the prophetic spring (Kassotis). Purified of this murder by a sojourn in the valley
of Tempe, Apollo spoke his oracles in the Sanctuary of
Gaia through a Pythia who sat on a tripod fastened on
the edge (stomion) of a chasm (chasma ges) from which
issued an inspiring vapor (pneuma). Its first priests were
Cretans from Knossos who disembarked at Kirrha; they
introduced the cult of Apollo Delphinios (dolphin),
brought with them the old wooden idol (xoanon) and
probably gave Pytho the name Delphi. Toward the middle of the century Trophonios and Againedes built the
first ashlar temple. The sanctuary acquired considerable
treasure, arousing the envy of Kirrha, which proceeded
to levy dues on the pilgrims. In the course of the first
Sacred War (600-586), Kirrha was destroyed (590) by
the Amphictyony, a regional association of 12 tribes
(from central Greece, Attika, Euboia, the NE Peloponnese) who previously had been grouped around the Sanctuary of Demeter at Thermopylai and probably at this time chose Delphi as the second federal sanctuary. The
Ainphictyony reorganized and presided over the Pythian
Games, held every four years in the third year of each
Olympiad, and added the chariot race. At this time Delphi
became truly the “navel of the world”: the oracle played
an important moral role in colonization, and its fame
spread as far as the barbarians. In 548, the temple having
been destroyed by fire, the sanctuary was enlarged to its
present size and the temple rebuilt by the Athenian family, the Alkmaionidai, with funds collected throughout
the Greek world, even from Egypt. Offerings and treasure piled up. Miraculously saved from a Persian raid
(480), Delphi received tributes following the Persian
Wars (treasury of the Athenians after Marathon, the
colossal Apollo of Salamis, golden tripod of Plataia,
portico of the Athenians, golden stars of the Aiginetans,
trophy of Marinaria, etc.) and minted silver coins. During the second Sacred War (448-446), the Phokians,
with the support of Athens, seized the sanctuary, but it
was restored to Delphi with the aid of Sparta.
The 4th c. was another golden age for architecture
(Temple and Tholos of Athena Pronaia; gymnasium;
treasuries of Thebes and Kyrene stadium). The Temple
of Apollo, which was ruined in 373, was rebuilt under the
guidance of the naopes with funds provided by Delphi, the
cities of the Amphictyonic League (which levied a poll tax—epikephalos obolos—on their citizens), and the other
Greeks. The building accounts were inscribed on stelai.
Philip of Macedon took advantage of the endless quarrel
between Delphi and Phokis (third Sacred War, 356-346)
and between the Amphictyony and the Lokrians of Amphissa (fourth Sacred War, 340-338) to establish his
dominion in Greece and occupy the Phokians' two seats
in the Ainphictyonic League. At his instigation silver
staters were minted at Delphi; on one side they showed
Apollo with the Omphalos and on the other Demeter,
veiled.
In 278 the Aitolians repulsed a Gallic invasion (the
victory was commemorated by Soteria) and exercised
hegemony over the League. The kings of Pergamon
showed a pious interest in the sanctuary: Attalos I, having conquered the Gauls in Asia Minor, built a collection
of monuments (a portico decorated with paintings, groups
of statues, an oikos, a vaulted exedra); Euinenes II and
Attalos II gave funds for the schools, for the completion
of the theater, and the organization of the Euinenia and
Attalaia. In 191 the Romans took the place of the
Aitolians as masters of Delphi (the Romaia were instituted at this time). In spite of this powerful protection
the sanctuary gradually declined; it was plundered by
the Maides of Thrace in 91 and by Sulla in 86. Augustus
reorganized the Amphictyony and it was probably in his
reign that Delphi instituted a cult of the emperors in the
Tholos of Athena. In A.D. 51 Galenus sought Claudius'
aid in repopulating the impoverished, half-deserted city.
Nero carried off 500 statues, but Doinitian restored the
temple. A priest of Apollo from 105 to 126, Plutarch
strove to revive the weakened religious life of the city,
as did Hadrian and Antoninus later. Herodes Atticus covered the stadium with stone tiers, and in about 170 Pausanias visited the sanctuaries, finding them already dilapidated but still rich in works of art. These, however,
were later plundered by Constantine and Theodosius,
whose edict of 381 dealt the cult of Apollo its coup de
grace. A Christian settlement was built on the ruins.
Institutions: The Amphictyony met twice a year, in
the spring (the month of Bysios) and autumn (Boucatios). Each meeting, or pyle, entailed two sessions, one
at Thermopylai, the other at Delphi. Consisting of 24
hieroinnemons (two to each people), who if need arose
were assisted by pylagorai, the council could in emergencies hold a plenary session (ecclesia) which was open
to all the citizens of the Amphictyonic cities. The Amphictyony organized the Pythian Games and, together
with Delphi, administered the sanctuary.
Under an oligarchic constitution, political rights being
reserved for the demiurges, Delphi was governed by a
yearly college of nine (?) prytaneis (the archon eponymus being probably one of them), a Boula, or council,
of 15 members in charge during six months, and a popular assembly (ecclesia). The city was responsible for
the oracle; it recruited the Pythia, the two priests of
Apollo, the two (?) prophets, the five hosioi; collected
the consulting taxes (pelanos); assigned the privilege of
the promantie (consultation priority); and organized the
consultations.
The Oracle: Originally, usual consultations took place
only once a year on the seventh day of the month of
Bysios (February-March); then at an undetermined time
they became monthly (the seventh of each month). The
oracle could be questioned every day in special consultations, if the signs were favorable, by those whose cities
were officially represented at Delphi by a proxenus. The
suppliant first paid the pelanos and provided victims for
the preliminary sacrifice and the sacred table, then, following the order fixed by protocol and the drawing of
lots, was led into the megaron, in the rear of which was
a gap in the stone floor through which the surface of Mt.
Parnassos could be seen. This was the place of the oracle
(adyton, manteion, chresterion). Here were the tripod,
set over the mouth of the prophetic cleft or chasma ges,
the Omphalos, the sacred laurel, the suppliants' waiting
chamber, Dionysos' tomb, and the golden statue of
Apollo. Purified at Castalia, having drunk the water of
the Kassotis and chewed laurel leaves, the Pythia, assisted by a prophet and some hosioi, took her place on
the tripod and under the influence of the pneuma gave
the oracle, either in words or by cleromancy (drawing
of lots).
The Monuments: These are in two zones, one E (the
Sanctuary of Athena, the gymnasium) and the other W
(Sanctuary of Apollo, stadium) of the Kastalian Fountain (altitude 533 m) that gushes forth from the two
Phaedriades, Phlemboukos and Rhodini. Traces of two
fountains can still be seen, one at the spring itself, cut in
the rock, the other (6th c.) built at the edge of the
ancient road.
The Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia, in the area called
Marmaria, stands on a terrace that was enlarged several
times. In the 4th c. the terrace measured about 150 m
E-W and 50 in at most N-S. The main entrance is to the
E not far from the trophy (now gone) dedicated to Zeus
after the defeat of the Persians (480). Beyond altars consecrated to Athena (Pronaia, Zosteria, Ergane, Hygieia),
Eileithyia, and Zeus (Polieus, Machaneus) are six monuments oriented S: the Temple of Athena, a Doric peripteral (6 x 12 columns) building of tufa, was built about 500 on the site of a 7th c. temple erected over the
Mycenaean sanctuary; it was in ruins in Pausanias' time.
The Doric treasury, of unknown origin (c. 480) and the
Aiolic treasury of Massalia, later known as the treasury
of the Massaliots and the Romans (after the capture of
Veii in 394?); both of them, of marble and distyle in
antis, were decorated with sculptures. About 390-380,
with the “money of the sacrilegious ones” who had massacred suppliants in the sanctuary, the archaic two-cella
Temple of Arteinis and Athena (6th c.) was replaced
by the Doric limestone temple and marble Doric tholos
(with Corinthian interior); the tholos was very likely
consecrated to all the gods of Marmaria and later was
assigned to the cult of the Roman emperors. The hoplotheca (for arms consecrated to Athena) and the Heröon
of Phylakos near the sanctuary have not been identified.
The gymnasium (4th c., rebuilt in Roman Imperial times)
is on two terraces, one above the other, one bearing the
covered portico (xystos) 177.55 in long; the other, the
palaestra with its pool. Nearby was a Sanctuary of
Deineter and the Heröon of Autonoos (not identified).
The Sanctuary of Pythian Apollo is surrounded by a
trapezoidal enclosure wall (195 in maximum N-S, 135 m
maximum E-W) of the 6th c. (repaired in the 5th and
4th c.). Its artificial terraces (altitude: 538-601 in approximately), which form tiers on the steep mountainside
are linked by the Sacred Way. It was enlarged in the 3d c.
when the W portico (Aitolian? 74 m long) and terrace
of Attalos I to the E were added. It overflowed with
works of art (at least 100 statues lined the first 35 m
of the Sacred Way) of marble, bronze, ivory, gold, and
silver (offerings of Croesus listed by Herodotos; archaic
chryselephantine statues discovered in 1938 underneath
the Sacred Way; golden tripod from Plataia, etc.). These
were votive offerings commemorating not only Greek
victories over the barbarians (Messapii, Persians, Gauls,
etc.) but also victories of Greeks over Greeks. “Treasuries” abound at the first turning of the Sacred Way:
those of the Sikyonians (ca. 500), Siphnos (ca. 525; admirable sculptures), Thebes (370), Athens (post-490:
fine sculptures; Syracuse, “Etruscan” treasury, etc.).
Passing in front of the Rock of the Sibyl and the bouleutenon (6th c.), the Sacred Way crosses the “threshing
floor,” the ancient meeting-place of the ecclesia not far
from the prytaneum, where the prytanes gathered. The
sphinx of the Naxians and the Treasury of Corinth (end
of 7th c.) stand close by the Portico of the Athenians in
which were kept the bronze prows and flax cables taken
from the pontoon bridge that Xerxes threw over the
Hellespont. Many statues were perched on the crest of
walls (20 Apollos of the Liparaians), on pillars (the
Messenians, Paulus Aemilius, the kings of Pergainon,
Prusias), on columns or the two-columned monuments
typical of Delphi (Charixenos, the Lykos-Diokles family, etc.); they formed a “crown of bronze” over the
sanctuary whose splendor dazzled the invading Gauls.
The Sacred Way leads up to the Altar of Chios (6th c.,
repaired in the 3d and 1st c.) and the temple piazza. The
latter is bounded to the N by the ischegaon (4th c., rebuilt in Roman Imperial times) and to the S by the great
polygonal wall (6th c.), which is covered with over 700
inscriptions, most of them records of emancipation of
slaves. The 4th c. temple, which is Doric peripteral with
6 x 15 columns, was rebuilt after 373 on the consolidated and enlarged foundations of the one before it (end
of the 6th c.). In the pronaos, among other things, were
the Maxims of the Seven Sages engraved on hems, and
in the megaron, the Altar of Hestia, the common hearth
of all Greeks, that of Poseidon, and the adyton of the
oracle described above. The prophetic Fountain of the
Earth and the Muses, Kassotis, part of which was incorporated in the foundations of the archaic temple, was
moved for reasons of safety N of the piazza, which was
ringed with offerings: the Apollos of Salamis and Sitalcas, both colossal; the tripod of Plataea, the chariot of the
Rhodians (4th c.), the Column of the Dancing Maiden
(end of the 4th c.), the Family of Daochos of Thessaly
(by Lysippus), the chariot of Polyzalos of Gela (whence
the “Charioteer,” ca. 475), etc. The upper region was
taken up by the theater (3d-2d c.) with its 5,000 seats,
the lesche (club) of the Cnidians (5th and 4th c.), the
Stone of Kronos, and the Temenos of Neoptolemos at
the edge of a sacred grove. At the top of the site, a few
minutes' walk from the sanctuary, is the stadium. Its
7,000 seats and 178 m of track were used for the Pythian
gymnastic contests as well as musical contests before
there was a theater. Chariot races were held in the hippodrome down in the plain (not found).
The excavations at Delphi have yielded one of the
richest collections of epigraphic material. The museum
houses the most important finds, in particular a fine
collection of sculpture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Tournaire,
Fouilles de Delphes:
Relevcés et Restauration (1902)
PI (hereinafter
Fouilles de Delphes = FD); E. Bourguet,
Les ruines de Delphes
(1914)
PI; G. Daux,
Pausanias à Delphes (1936)
P; P. de La Coste-Messelière et G. de Mirè,
Delphes (1943)
PI.
History: E. Bourguet,
De rebus delphicis imperatoriae
aetatis (1905);
L'administration financière du sanctuaire
pythique (1905), amended by G. Roux, q.v.; G. Daux,
Delphes au II et au Ie siècle avant notre ère (1936); P. de La Coste-Messelière,
Au musée de Delphes (1936)
PI; L. Dor et al.,
Kirrha (1960)
MPI; G. Roux, “Les comptes du IV
e siècle et la reconstruction du temple d'Apollon,”
RA (1966) 245ff; id., “Problèmes delphiques d'architecture et d'épigraphie,”
RA (1969) 47-56; id., “Les prytanes de Delphes,”
BCH 94 (1970) 117-32; Cl. Vatin, “Damiurges et Épidamiurges à Delphes,”
BCH 85 (1961) 316-66; id., “Les empereurs du IV
e s. à Delphes,”
BCH 86 (1962) 229-41.
Oracle & Cults: P. Ainandry,
La mantique apollinienne
à Delphes (1950)
I; H. W. Parke & D.H.W. Wormell,
The Delphic Oracle (1956); J. Fontenrose,
Python
(1959); id.,
The Cult and Myth of Pyrrhus at Delphi
(1960); W. Fauth, “Pythia,”
RE XXIV (1963); G. Roux,
Delphi (1971)
MPI.
Monuments: 1. Marmaria: R. Demangel & G. Daux,
FD: Les temples de tuf; les deux trésors (1923), cf.
BCH
63 (1939) 220-31; Demangel,
FD: Topographie du
sanctuaire (1926); J. Charbonneaux & K. Gottlob,
FD:
La tholos (1925), cf.
BCH 64-65 (1940-41) 121-27; 76
(1952) 141-96; G. Roux, “Pausanias . . . et les énigmes
de Marmaria à Delphes,”
REA 67 (1965) 48-52
P; J. P. Michaux,
FD: Le temple de calcaire (en préparation).
2. Gymnasium: J. Jannoray,
FD: Le gymnase (1953).
3. Fountain: A. K. Orlandos, “La fontaine . . . à
Delphes,”
BCH 84 (1960) 148-60
PI.
4. Sanctuary of Apollo: J. Audiat,
FD: Le trésor des
Athéniens (1933); J. Bousquet,
BCH 64-65 (1940-41)
128-45; id.,
FD: Le trésor de Cyrène (1952); P. de La
Coste-Messelière, “Le socle marathonien de Delphes,”
RA (1949) 522-32; id., “L'offrande des Tarentins ‘du
bas,’”
RA (1942-43) 5-17; id., “Topographie delphique,”
BCH 93 (1969) 730-58; P. Amandry,
FD: La colonne
des Naxiens et le portique des Atheniens (1953); E.
Hanson, “Les abords du tresor de Siphnos,”
BCH 85
(1961) 387-433; J. Pouilloux et G. Roux,
Enigmes à
Delphes (1963): contains the only complete plan of the
sanctuary now published; J. P. Michaux,
FD, Le trésor
de Thèbes (1973).
Terraces, etc.: E. Bourguet, “Le char des Rhodiens,”
BCH 35 (1911) 457-71; F. Courby,
FD: La terrasse du
temple (1915-27); A. Plassart, “Eschyle et le fronton est
du temple,”
REA (1940) 293-99; P. Amandry, “Notes
. . . d'architecture delphique,”
BCH 70 (1946) 1-17; 73
(1949) 447-63; 78 (1954) 295-315; 93 (1969) 1-38;
G. Roux, “La Terrasse d'Attale I
e,”
BCH 76 (1952) 141-96;
Delphi (1971) 88-134
MPI; L. Robert, “De Delphes à l'Oxus,”
CRAI (1969), 416-57.
North Region: J. Pouilloux,
FD: La réigion nord du
sanctuaire (1960); L. Lerat, “Fouilles à Delphes,”
BCH 85 (1961) 316-66.
Theater: G. Roux,
Delphi (1971) 162, n. 309.
Epigraphy: List of published volumes in R. Flacelière,
FD III, 4, 178 (1954); A. Plassart,
FD III, 5:
Inscriptions
du temple (1970).
Un Corpus des Inscriptions de Delphes
(in preparation).
Sculptures, Bronzes, miscellaneous objects: P. Perdrizet,
FD: Monuments figurés, petits bronzes . . . (1908)
I;
Th. Homolle,
FD: Art Archaïque (1909); P. de La Coste-Messelière & Ch. Picard,
Sculptures de Delphes (1926)
I; P. de La Coste-Messelière,
FD: Sculptures des temples (1931); id.,
Sculptures du trésor des Athéniens (1957); F. Chamoux,
FD: L'Aurige (1955); id., “Un portrait de Flamininus,”
BCH 89 (1965) 214-24; J. Marcadé, “Sculptures inédites de Marmaria,”
BCH 79 (1955) 379-406
I;
Marcadé & P. Bernard, “Sur une métope de la tholos,”
BCH 85 (1961) 447-73
I; P. Amandry, “Rapport sur les statues chryséléphantines de Delphes,”
BCH 63 (1939) 86-119
I; id., “Statuette d'ivoire d'un dompteur de lion,”
I Syria 24 (1944-45) 149-74; id., “Plaques d'or de Delphes,”
AthMitt 77 (1962) 35-71
I; Ch. Le Roy et J. Ducat,
FD: Terres cuites architecturales (1967), additional bibliography in P. Amandry, “Recherches à Delphes (1938-1953),”
Acta congressus Madvigiani (1958) 325-40; J. F. Crome, “Die goldene Wagen der
Rhodier,”
BCH 87 (1963) 209-28
I; id., “Die Marmor-Standbilder des Daochos-Weigeschenks,”
Antike Plastik
8 (1968) 33-53
PI; Cl. Rolley,
FD: Les statuettes de
bronze (1969)
I.
G. ROUX
