Delphi

by Scott, Michael

  And yet, between 353 and 351 BC, the committee for the reconstruction of the temple met each year at Delphi to discuss the rebuilding, which was supposedly still under way.32 Similarly, at least the pro-Phocian states seem to have continued to relate issues to the oracle. Dating from the middle of the fourth century BC, there is a series of inscriptions relating to changes in ritual practice in Athens, all of which seems to indicate backing from a Delphic consultation. At the same time, however, these consultations may have been cloaked in a degree of suspicion about Delphic bias. It is not without irony that the fullest contemporary report we have of the process of decision making involved in consulting the Delphi oracle comes from Athens at exactly the time when Delphi is experiencing one of the oddest periods in its history. In 352 BC, according to inscribed reports in Athens, the Athenians were debating what to do with sacred lands belong to the sanctuary of Demeter and Core at Eleusis, which were subject to long-running disputes over ownership between the Athenians and Megarians. They could not decide whether or not to allow cultivation of the sacred land, and referred the issue to Delphi. But instead of simply sending their ambassadors to Delphi with this question, they recorded in the inscription that they had written out the two options (to cultivate or not to cultivate) on sheets of tin. These sheets were subsequently wrapped in wool, then placed in a bronze jug, shaken around, and one was placed inside a gold jug, the other inside a silver jug. Both jugs were then sealed, so that no one knew which jug contained which option. The question the Athenians decided to put to the oracle was simply which jug they should pick. This is an extraordinary procedure and without parallel: that the Athenians chose to inscribe and publicly display the complex lengths they went to in order to ensure that no one—in Athens or at Delphi—could influence the response from the god. Only the god would know what was in each jug and indeed what the real question was in the first place. The answer came back that they should leave the land uncultivated, and the Athenians subsequently obeyed.33

  We know too that during this period of occupation, a number of Delphic festivals continued. In the period 356–46 BC, the Thyades, female worshipers of Dionysus from Delphi, joined the Thyades from Athens who had processed from their city to the sanctuary, in order to take part in their regularly held (every two years) joint festival in honor of Dionysus. This ritual celebration took place not in the sanctuary of Delphi, but high in the wilds of the Parnassian mountains. The Delphian and Athenian celebrants processed together from the sanctuary by torchlight up into the mountains to take part in a series of Dionysiac revels. In this particular period, at the end of one such celebration, the Thyades lost their way returning down from the mountains to Delphi and strayed into Amphissan (enemy) territory. The women of Amphissa, keen to ensure the lost female worshipers were not maltreated, looked after the group and made sure that they found the path that would take them home.34

  This was not the only festival in honor of Dionysus celebrated at Delphi. Plutarch in the first century AD tells us of several others (which will be examined in a later chapter). The difficulty, as always, is with knowing whether Plutarch’s testimony should be extrapolated back in time. Despite the fact that Dionysus may always have been worshiped at Delphi, it is only now in the fourth century BC that his cult can be archaeologically attested to. From the middle of the century, dedications appear to Dionysus in an area just to the east of the Apollo sanctuary that would become (or indeed may have been already) the established cult location of the god (see plate 1). In 339–38 BC, a paean was written by Philodamus honoring Dionysus at Delphi, and complemented by the introduction of a statue of the god offered by the Cnidians set up in the area of the theater (see plate 2).35 And Dionysus even made it on to the temple of Apollo itself. The temple construction, interrupted by the different wars of the fourth century, would finally be completed in the 320s BC. The new pedimental sculptures adorning it were the work of Athenian sculptor Praxias and finished (probably by c. 327 BC) by another Athenian, Androsthenes. Made in Pentelic (Athenian) marble, the east pediment displayed Apollo, hunched on his tripod, while the west pediment portrayed an Apollo-like Dionysus, playing the lyre (fig. 7.1). Much scholarly ink has been spilled over the meaning of the sculptural choice for these pediments, and particularly the elevation of Dionysus to equal billing with Apollo. Some have seen it as a result of Macedonian influence, others of Athenian. Yet what it reflected above the politics of influence was the increasingly wide and public scope of worship at Delphi, with major cult areas dedicated not only to Dionysus but also to Asclepius and Hermes in the fourth century, alongside the continued worship of a variety of other gods.36

  Figure 7.1. Statues of the gods Apollo (left) and Dionysus (right) from the east and west pediments, respectively, of the fourth century BC temple of Apollo in the Apollo sanctuary at Delphi (Museum at Delphi).

  By 351 BC, the Phocian cause looked almost lost, although they managed to hang on to control of Delphi until 346 BC. They were supposedly so desperate for money by this time that one of their last commanders, Phalaecus, even resorted to following lines from Homer’s Iliad that intimated there might be wealth beneath the temple of Apollo. He set his soldiers to work digging up the area around the sacred hearth and tripod, but to no avail.37 What finally brought their occupation of Delphi to an end, however, was not so much the absence of money, as the arrival of one man: Philip, king of Macedon.

  Philip had in fact already been involved with Delphi in the first year of the Phocian occupation. In his dealings with the Chalcidians in 356 BC, he had negotiated a treaty, which he called on the oracle at Delphi to put its stamp of approval to; a copy of this was later set up at the sanctuary.38 Now, however, at the request of the Amphictyony, he came with his forces to expel the Phocians from the sanctuary. This he did in 346 BC, having first successfully neutralized Athens’s support for Phocis through another peace treaty of his own with Athens.39 The Phocians were expelled from the temple and the Amphictyony. Those who had fled abroad were put under a curse, as was anyone who had touched the money that came from the melting down of the sanctuary’s treasures. Those who remained were forced to break up their cities within Phocian territory into villages of not more than fifty houses. Phocis was handed an enormous fine—an annual tribute of sixty talents—until such a time as they had repaid everything they had destroyed at the sanctuary (valued by Diodorus Siculus at ten thousand talents). The sanctuary was given back to the Delphians. The pro-Phocian families (including that of Astycrates) were once again expelled, and those exiled by the Phocians were allowed to return. In a statement of the seriousness of Phocian actions, the statues of their generals dedicated in the sanctuary during their occupation were targeted for removal and destruction: the only instance of such a decision in Delphic history.40

  In contrast, Philip of Macedon was feted as the savior of Delphi. Even though Thebes had borne the brunt of the conflict, Philip took the glory. He presided over the Pythian games in 346 BC and was given the seats on the Amphictyony formerly occupied by the Phocians. Indeed in the lists of attendees at their meetings, his representatives came second, while the Thessalians, who presided over the council, came in first (the latter were pro-Macedonian in any case). Philip was voted promanteia by the Delphians, and a statue of him was erected in the Apollo sanctuary, possibly by the Amphictyony themselves. In turn, the Amphictyony was later said to have proclaimed itself at the center and beginning of a new era, an era of koine eirene—“common peace.”41

  Athens—increasingly wary of Philip’s actions—especially after their peace treaty with him had not delivered the rebalancing of power in central Greece they had hoped for, boycotted the Pythian games celebrated by Philip in 346 BC, lost their right of promanteia with the oracle (just as Philip got his), and even considered going to war against Philip and the Amphictyonic league. Demosthenes, the famous Athenian orator whose anti-Philip stance would eventually convince Athens to face Philip in battle at Chaeroneia in 338 BC, characterized life at Delphi du
ring the 340s under Philip’s auspices by saying that the new government at Delphi was so tyrannical that if anyone mentioned the sacred treasures, they were thrown off a cliff. And Philip, Demosthenes argued, was so intent on holding on to to authority at Delphi that, if he could not be there to celebrate its games, rather than allowing another city to do it, he would send his slaves.42

  The impression one gets of Delphi through the speeches of Athenian orators like Demosthenes is of a place of critical importance not only due to the authority of its oracle, but also to its own long existence and long-standing interaction with Athens over that time. Delphi was a source of authority and tradition, an important element of Greek society, which the orators, especially Demosthenes, increasingly portrayed as besmirched by Philip.43 And at the same time as Delphi was characterized in this way by the Athenian orators, Athens’s physical involvement with Delphi was very selective: the Athenians were boycotting its games, offering no civic dedications in the sanctuary, and refusing to contribute financially to the reconstruction of its temple. Yet the Athenians were active as part of the commission tasked with overseeing the rebuilding (as naopoioi), and as craftsmen and suppliers for it. Nor is this patchwork approach to Delphic interaction only true for Athens, the plentiful inscriptional evidence from this period allows us to form a picture in which many different cities and states made particular decisions about what kinds of activities at Delphi they wanted to be involved in.44 And at the same time, the inscriptional evidence reveals the degree to which individuals throughout the Greek world sought to be part of the construction: many individuals gave small amounts, most half a drachma (about a day’s wage for an Athenian juror), but some gave only enough to cover the cost of their donation being inscribed (and sometimes even less than that). Donating was, however, clearly a huge source of pride: Clearistus of Carystus brought his children to Delphi in order to donate to the reconstruction fund and, while there, showed them the statue of his grandfather Aristocles of Carystus, who was represented on the monument to Spartan victory at Aegospotamoi.45

  In the years after 346 BC, the rebuilding of the temple and sanctuary moved forward apace, reinfused as it was with energy and money thanks in no small measure to the Phocian fine flowing annually into Delphi’s coffers. The renovations were extensive: the terracing wall to the temple terrace was raised in height, the entire floor plan of the temple was moved farther north, necessitating excavation and rebuilding of the terracing wall to the north to create extra space. Sets of stairs were inlaid into this new terracing wall to lead to the area later occupied by the theater. There was significant investment in systems to channel water as it flowed down the mountainside around and underneath the temple platform. A new temple was planned with new pedimental sculpture, so the surviving pedimental sculpture from the previous Apollo temple, like the famous charioteer statue, was buried just to the north of the temple terrace, along with dedications damaged in the 373 BC earthquake. New access routes were laid out above these burials between the north of the sanctuary and the temple terrace, with previous dedications moved around and repositioned to line these routes, and at the same time areas of cult worship to a variety of deities and heroes were likely more fully developed, for instance, the cult area around the “tomb” of Neoptolemus just to the north of the temple (see plates 1, 2; figs. 1.4, 7.2).46

  But the Phocian fine, it seems, had encouraged the Amphictyony to develop their plans even further. Some of the dedications that were melted down by the Phocians (particularly Croesus’s gold and silver craters) were remade. Money was also put to use to create new structures at Delphi: a gymnasium and stadium, for instance, to provide better facilities for its increasingly popular Pythian games (fig. 7.3). The stadium, dramatically positioned now up above the Apollo sanctuary, had copies of its older rules and regulations laid into its stone walls (see plate 1). One inscription, still in place today, forbids the taking of sacrificial wine out of the stadium on pain of a large fine. It seems that those tasked with the reinscribing of this old rule were uncertain how to render it in fourth-century style. The result is an inscription in which the letter forms are a curious mix of centuries: an archaic theta but a fourth-century alpha, for example, and even a misspelling of the word “wine” because, by then, an entire letter that used to be in the word (the digamma) had slipped out of usage and was unrecognizable to the fourth-century letter cutters.47

  Figure 7.2. The fourth century BC temple of Apollo in the Apollo sanctuary at Delphi as seen today from the theater above it (© Michael Scott)

  Figure 7.3. A reconstruction of the gymnasium at Delphi (aquarelle de Jean-Claude Golvin. Musée départemental Arles antique © éditions Errance). 1 Covered running track. 2 Outdoor running track. 3 Roman baths. 4 Washing pool. 5 Palestra.

  The gymnasium, on the other hand, was built nearer the Castalian fountain, next to the Athena sanctuary, on land mythically considered the location where Odysseus had been wounded in the thigh by a boar (see plate 1, fig. 7.3). It was one of the first architecturally complex gymnasiums built in Greece, putting Delphi at the forefront of Greek architectural and athletic development, and it consisted of both a covered and outdoor running track, a wrestling area, and bathing facilities. The Pythian games benefited from the building of these new facilities: additional events were added to the games in the fourth century, and it is now, in the late 340s and 330s, that the first attempts are made—by Aristotle and his nephew Callisthenes no less—to record a list of all the Pythian victors stretching back to the beginnings of the games in the sixth century, a list eventually put on display in the sanctuary, and for which laborious effort Aristotle and Callisthenes received honors from the Delphians.48

  If all this was not enough, the Phocian fine was also channeled by the Amphictyony toward their other sanctuary, that of Demeter at Anthela, and used to produce the Amphictyony’s first, and only, currency (fig. 7.4). The one place conspicuously not to benefit from the fine seems to have been the sanctuary of Athena at Delphi (although its damaged tholos and temple were repaired). At the same time, its two treasuries seem to have been converted for use in some kind of civic/private function and were surrounded by inscribed steles documenting civic affairs, perhaps an indication that this sanctuary had come more recognizably under the control of the Delphic polis at a time when relations between the Amphictyony and Delphi must have been strained (see plate 3).49

  Figure 7.4. Coinage issued by the Amphictyony at Delphi between 336 and 335–35 BC. This stater coin has Demeter on one side (due to the Amphictyony’s responsibility for the sanctuary of Demeter at Anthela), and Apollo sitting on the omphalos on the other. “Amphictyony” is spelled out on the coin around the rim (© EFA/Ph. Collet [Guide du site fig. 2.f])

  Despite tense relations at Delphi, this burst of building activity and reflowering of the Amphictyony, coupled with the ongoing articulation in the literary sources at this time of the events surrounding the First Sacred War in the early sixth century, seems to have once again encouraged dedicators to invest in the sanctuary. The Cnidians returned to spruce up their lesche and the surrounding area. The Thebans and Boeotians celebrated the outcome of the war with new dedications. The Cyreneans, fundamentally tied to Delphi throughout their history, and now contributors to the fund to rebuild the temple, returned to dedicate a marble treasury in the Apollo sanctuary (see plate 2), for which they were awarded promanteia, to complement their other fourth-century dedication: a chariot sculpture with a figure of the god Ammon. Likewise, the Rhodians, chose to build a sculpture of the god Helios with his sun chariot, which was placed atop a high column on the eastern edge of the temple terrace, directly on the axis of the new temple (see fig. 1.3).50

  But it was this temple that was soon again to spark controversy. By 340 BC, it was complete enough for the Athenians, still spoiling for a fight having felt cheated by Philip of Macedon in the peace agreed in 346 BC, to rehang the Persian shields the Athenians had placed on the metopes of the previous temple after their grea
t victory against the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC. In a sanctuary already teeming with examples of the rewriting of history to suit present circumstances, this was one in which history was deliberately not rewritten to make a point. The rehanging of the same old shields pointed to the continued glory of Athenian history, but also, more specifically, to the past misdemeanors of Thebes, a city now enjoying considerable influence, but which, according to the inscriptions on the shields, had fought with Persia against Greece back in the fifth century BC.51

  Such an undiplomatic slap in the face could not go unnoticed. At a meeting of the Amphictyonic council in 340 BC, the representative of the Ozolian Locrians accused the Athenians (without doubt, pushed by Thebes and Philip) of impiety for not performing the proper rituals before erecting the shields. Athens’s man at the council was Aeschines, an orator who, in Athens, was a natural supporter of Philip (and thus archenemy of Demosthenes), but who now was called on to defend Athens on a larger stage against Philip’s machinations. His speech to the assembly, as he himself later recalled, brilliantly turned the tables on Athens’s accusers. The Locrians were guilty, he argued, of a greater impiety in cultivating sacred land. His rhetoric was enough to spark a military attack then and there against the Locrians, an attack the Locrians easily repelled because neither the Amphictyony nor the city of Delphi had a proper standing army. As 340 gave way to 339 BC, the Amphictyony called a special meeting to organize a proper military force. But by this time, Athens had realized that pushing this war was not in their best interests long-term: the city was conspicuously absent from the emergency meeting, as were the representatives of their main enemy Thebes. The result was that the paltry forces of the Amphictyony were able to evict the Locrians—and particularly the citizens of Amphissa—from the sacred land, but unable to enforce any kind of permanent solution. In exasperation, the Thessalian commander of the Amphictyonic forces turned (once again) to Philip of Macedon.52