The Oracle at Delphi

Walk Old Greece at the Oracle of Delphi

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Today we visit the Oracle at Delphi – to ask our questions and learn the future. I was fascinated with the whole oracle concept when I learned about it in school – and now we get to actually go there! What fun! We’re picked up at our hotel at 8:30am and head out on a 3-hour drive to the north and west for Delphi. Scenery along the way looks amazingly like California – the road, the surrounding hills, the trees and brush. We make only one brief stop at a Shell gas station for a bathroom break. Delphi is located at about 3,000 feet in the hills and the site itself is fairly steep and inaccessible.

We tour the Delphi Museum first. It’s very nicely laid out and has all sorts of interesting pieces from the site. We’re lucky because this is the Christmas holidays and the site itself isn’t crowded at all. The museum houses lots of pieces of freizes from the building exteriors – all placed on drawings that help you see how the whole thing fit together. I’m amazed by the patience it must take to figure out which piece goes where.

When it was ‘re-discovered’, Delphi was completely covered over with plants and debris not to mention a whole functioning village of people. The village was asked to move and they did. Then the excavation of the site began.

The temple complex is a whole series of buildings located on the side of a steep hill. I won’t go into the whole history of how Apollo came to this particular spot; you can check that out yourself if you’re interested. Located at the center (navel) of the known world and blessed by Apollo, Delphi was the holiest site in the world for the ancient Greeks. This is the second most popular tourist attraction (behind the Acropolis) in Greece. During 8th century BC, it became known at the place where you’d go to get answers.

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People came from all over the world to ask both questions of state and personal questions. They would hike up the mountain, perform some ritual washing, offer some gifts to Apollo and then wend their way up to the temple to ask their question. Supplicants didn’t actually enter the temple. They stood outside and yelled their question in through the front door. The woman acting as the Oracle (at some times this was a 15-year old maiden; at others, a 50-year old woman) was sequestered inside the temple chewing laurel leaves and drinking from the sacred spring. (Probably in some sort of mind-altered trance.) The oracle would shout an answer back – always on the vague side – never a “yes, you’re going to get married next year.” If you didn’t quite understand the response, there were a bevy of priestesses around the temple entrance who would interpret it for you. Fortune-telling on demand!

But another important aspect of the whole Delphi experience is that as Greeks from various city states all over Greece came to ask questions, they learned about each other and discovered that they had language, gods, customs in common. So, it was important on many levels. There is a theater there and the Romans actually built a stadium up on the very top. A happening place. Also, it was at the entrance to the Delphi Temple that the two quintessential Greek themes are inscribed: “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess.”

After a reasonably strenuous walk up to the top, we were ready for lunch. We drove to the charming town of Delphi just down the road for lunch at the Taverna Kovchos. Again, a large lunch: 2 sets of appetizers plus a salad preceded the main course. I had roast chicken and JB had rabbit in a very tasty sauce. And then, of course, Greek sweets for dessert.

Then the 3-hour ride back to Athens. It rained on and off all day, but fairly gentle. Lunch leftovers in the room constituted dinner supplemented by the wine from the mini-bar.