DELPHI

Sunday 20 July

Temple of Apollo

• In her article, "Delphic Oracles as Oral Performance," Maurazio on the authorship and authenticity of the oracles that have come down to us:

  Since oracles were accepted (or rejected), interpreted (and during the process re-worded), remembered and recited by a community of believers, their author, properly speaking, was the community itself, not the Pythia, nor the author who recorded them in writing. Thus, a recognition of the oral transmission of oracles requires us to revise our notions of authenticity and authorship, two interrelated concepts.

  (Maurazio, Delphic, 333)

• Yet Herodotus tells us when the Athenian emissaries left after asking about how to handle the Persians they wrote down the oracle (Hdt. 7.141). This suggests that some attempt was made to preserve the oracular text as delivered verbatim (And although it is fair to question how Herodotus would know whether a particular oracle was written down, his comment might still reflect a general interest in preserving oracles verbatim). And despite all the talk of an oral culture (which indeed the oracle must have been part of) Athens was highly literate and it does not seem impossible that an attempt was made, at least by some, to preserve oracles verbatim. But perhaps the only interest in this sort of precision was in bringing the text to the “official interpreters” that Herodotus mentions, and thereafter the text became flexible. Herodotus does not always say that the emissaries recorded the oracle after they received it, however, he does for the Lydians reporting to Croesus, and in the context of the story Herodotus tells, it would make sense that Croesus would want the precise language.

• There are lines and line segments shared between epic poetry and the texts of oracular pronouncements. This suggests a connection between bardic poetry and the process of divination. As McLeod puts it:

  This residue is sufficient to establish the existence of a bard in the service of Delphic Apollo

  (McLeod 319)

• In his article, "Oral Bards at Delphi," McLeod observes a few oral formulas that are particular to the Delphic oracle and do not appear in epic poetry more generally. He suggests that, based on this evidence, there may have been a Phocian school of oral poetry which differed some from the Boeotian and Ionian schools, although he admits that it is difficult to know given the tiny size of the oracular versus Homeric and Hesiodic corpora. (McLeod 324)
• We are then faced with the problem of whether the Pythia, who Plutarch tells us was an uneducated peasant woman, would have been capable of composing oracles which contained formulas from oral poetry (Plutarch Moralia 405c). There are a few possible solutions:
  1. Epic poetry was known to everyone regardless of their level of education
  2. By the time of Plutarch the selection of the Pythia had changed (this may be a good explanation since part of the impetus for Plutarch's discussion of the oracle is the decline of the poetic form of oracular pronouncements).
  3. The Pythia herself did not deliver the oracles and was, in fact, assisted by someone who could perform and compose oral poetry. And this is what McLeod has concluded, based partly on Herodotus' mention of a male figure called a 'Prophetes.'

The Temple of Apollo	A View from Delphi

• Courby, M.F. “La Terasse du Temple.” Fouilles de Delphes, Tome II, Topographie et Architecture. Paris 1927.
• Dobson, Marcia. “Herodotus 1.47.1 and the Hymn to Hermes: A Solution to the Test Oracle.” The American Journal of Philology 100.3 (1979): 349-359.
• Maurizio, L. “Anthropology and Spirit Possession: A Reconsideration of the Pythia’s Role at Delphi.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 115 (1995): 69-86.
• Maurizio, L. “Delphic Oracles as Oral Performances: Authenticity and Historical Evidence.” Classical Antiquity 16.2 (1997): 308-334.
• Green, Peter. “Delphic Responses.” Classical Bearings: interpreting ancient history and culture. London 1989. 91-111.
• McLeod, William E. “Oral Bards at Delphi.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 92 (1961): 317-325.
• Østby, Eric. “Delphi and Archiac Doric Architecture in the Peloponnese.” Delphes: cent ans apres la grande fouille - Essai de bilan. Paris 2000.
• Parke, Herbert W. A History of the Delphic Oracle. Oxford 1939.
• Parke, Herbert W. and Wormell, Donald E. W. The Delphic Oracle. Oxford 1956.
• Price, Simon. “Delphi and Divination.” Greek Religion & Society. Easterling & Muir 1985.
• Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane. “The Myth of the First Temples at Delphi.” The Classical Quarterly, New Series, 29.2 (1979): 231-251.