by Laura Gill
The Delphi visited by tourists today was founded around Homer’s time, but archaeologists have found remains going back to Neolithic times, and there is evidence of Mycenaean cult activity on the site. Apollo was known to and worshipped by the Mycenaeans; one of his epithets, Pa-wa-jo-ne, or Paian, was found on a Linear B clay tablet dating from the thirteenth century B.C. Delphi might have been the cult center of an earlier goddess cult, traces of which could have survived in the Pythia, who became Apollo’s oracle, and the legend of Apollo defeating the serpent Python.
Later, Classical plays portrayed Orestes as a raving lunatic and psychopath. In Euripides’ Orestes, Orestes, Pylades, and Elektra attempt to deflect attention from the murder of Clytaemnestra and revenge themselves on Menelaus, who refuses to help them, by murdering Helen and her daughter Hermione. Helen escapes their grasp, but Orestes manages to seize Hermione and hold a sword to her throat while the palace of Sparta goes up in flames around them.
In more recent fiction, Orestes has been written as everything from a foaming-at-the-mouth madman to a homicidal brute. The historical Orestes would have been both ambitious and ruthless, for such was the nature of Mycenaean kings in the thirteenth century B.C. According to legend, at the end of his long life, he ruled over Mycenae, Argos, and Sparta as High King, claimed tribute from Arcadia, Achaea, and Messenia, and repelled at least one invasion attempt by the Herakleidai and their Dorian allies. A brutish and unstable madman could not have accomplished these things. If Orestes suffered severe pangs of conscience and went mad following the murder of his mother, and he was later able to resolve that madness through the rites of purification, then his ailment is more likely to have been post-traumatic stress disorder than a congenital mental or emotional defect.
About the Author
Laura Gill has a passion for Mycenaean and Minoan culture. She has a Master’s Degree in English Literature from California State University, Northridge, and has worked as a secondary school teacher and florist. She lives in Southern California with her mother and cats. She is also the author of The Young Lion and Helen’s Daughter.
