Delphi

Delphi (now Kastri), an ancient Greek town in Phocis, celebrated chiefly for its famous oracle of Apollo, was situated about 8 miles N. of an indentation in the northern shore of the Gulf of Lepanto, at the southern base of Parnassus. Its original name, and that by which Homer invariably speaks of it, was Pytho. It stood in the centre of a district renowned for its classical associations. Occupying the vale of the Pleistus, it was seated in a semicircle like the area of a grand natural theatre, backed towards the north by two lateral spurs of Parnassus. These lateral ranges extend east and west around Delphi, and give rise also, from the point at which they approximate, to the famous fountain of Castalia, the holy water of the Delphian temple. The earliest inhabitants of Delphi are said to have come from Lycorea, a town upon one of the slopes of Parnassus, the inhabitants of which are supposed to have been Dorians. From the Delphian nobles were at first taken the chief magistrates and the priests of the temple, while the Pythia or priestess who delivered the oracle, at first always a young maiden, but latterly always a woman not younger than fifty, was usually selected from some family of poor country-people. In the centre of the temple was a small opening in the ground, whence arose an intoxicating vapour, believed to come from the well of Cassotis; and the Pythia having breathed this, sat down upon the tripod or three-legged stool, which was placed over the chasm in the ground, and thence delivered the oracle, which, if not pronounced at first in hexameters, was handed over to a poet, employed for the purpose, who converted it into that form of verse. As the celebrity of the Delphic oracle increased, Delphi became a town of great wealth and importance, famous not only in Hellas, but also among the neighbouring nations. Here the Pythian games were held, and it was one of the two places of meeting of the Amphictyonic Council (q.v.). The fourth temple, though the first built of stone, was destroyed by fire in 548 B.C., and during the succeeding century a fifth and last one was built by the Amphictyons at the cost of 300 talents, or £115,000. It was hexastyle, fronted with Parian marble, and adorned with statuary by Praxias and Androthenes. In 480 B.C. Xerxes sent a portion of his army to plunder the temple; but as they climbed the rugged path that led to the shrine, a peal of thunder broke overhead, and two huge crags tumbling from the heights crushed many of the Persians to death, while their comrades, struck with terror, turned and fled. It was plundered by the Phocians during the Sacred War, and was attacked by the Gauls in 279 B.C., who were said to have been repulsed like the Persians by portents. The splendour of Delphi subsequently excited the rapacity of many conquerors, and suffered severely by their attacks. Nero carried off from it 500 bronze statues; Constantine also removed many of its works of art to his own capital. In the time of Pliny, the number of statues in Delphi was not less than 3000, and within the temple for a long time stood a golden statue of Apollo. The modern town of Kastri now occupies the site of Delphi, in the neighbourhood of the source of the still flowing Castalian spring. See A. Mommsen's Delphika (Leip. 1878), vol. iii. (1880) of Bouché-Leclercq's Histoire de la Divination dans l'Antiquité, and the Cornhill Magazine (1882).