Delphi (9 page)

Even if we are not willing to make such a close link between the literature and the archaeology, it is clear that the last thirty years or so of the eighth century
BC
were a dynamic time in Delphi's history, quite apart from its fiery destruction. The settlement during the eighth century had grown considerably, covering most of the area of the later Apollo sanctuary. By Iron Age standards, Delphi was, at century's end, a large and important site in its own right. But it was not the only settlement that developed in the area at this time. In fact, in the last quarter of the eighth century
BC
, a number of new sites seem to have been established across the Itean plain, helping to connect Delphi—somewhat isolated high up on the mountainside—to the other old settlements along the coast (such as Medeon; see
map 3
).
³
One of these new sites—now the modern town of Amphissa—was founded at the foot of the most easily accessible corridor through the mountains to the north. A northern presence has been noted at Delphi since its earliest history, and its links to Thessaly may have been part of the reason for Corinth's expansion into the area at the beginning of the eighth century as it sought to exploit these connections for trading purposes. Now, in the last quarter of the eighth century, the tables were turned. The increasingly strong trading network with Thessaly and the North, fueled by Corinthian interest and facilitated by the development of new settlements along the route, acted as a catalyst for Delphic growth. Whereas Corinth may have originally come to Delphi to feed off its northern contacts, now Delphi was feeding off the increasingly strong north-south trading network. This whole area of the Phocian coast was increasingly drawn into a pattern of trading traffic, extending from across the Gulf of Corinth, through the Itean plain, north to Thessaly, and even into the Balkans (see
maps 1
,
2
). And Delphi seems to have benefited most. By the beginning of the seventh century
BC
, other, previously more affluent settlements on the coast, such as Medeon, were suffering thanks to Delphic expansion. Delphi had begun to warp the local landscape, a process that would eventually lead to the total decline of its local competitors.
⁴

Yet Delphi was expanding not only thanks to its place in an increasingly affluent and important trading network. The excavations have
revealed a vast increase in objects in the last quarter of the eighth century
BC
that can be securely tied to cult activity. This expansion was both in terms of type (new kinds of tripod dedications) and also origin. Attic and Cretan metalwork, for example, began to arrive at the site, and pottery, which had been overwhelmingly Corinthian, was now coming from Achaia, Attica, and Boeotia as well as from Euboea, Thessaly, and Argos. It was also in the last quarter of the eighth century
BC
that the Corycian cave, seemingly abandoned since the fourteenth century
BC
, received material again, which was increasingly votive in character, suggesting the establishment of the cave as a rural shrine.
⁵

Delphi at the end of the eighth century
BC
thus seems to have taken a quantum leap, both as a settlement on an increasingly affluent trade network, and as a place of cult activity that attracted an increasing variety of rich offerings associated with a widening number of important civic centers themselves in the throes of ever-rapid social and political change. How these two aspects affected one another, we may never know in detail. Did Delphi's position in a trade network help bring the settlement to the attention of more long-distance civic centers that in turn began to deposit increasingly rich offerings at the sanctuary's hitherto local (and still very much unelaborated) cult center? Or should we see the two as relatively independent, with Delphi's increasingly international cult activity more the result of the growing fame of, and need for, its (perhaps long-established or perhaps only recently instituted) oracle?

No archaeological evidence exists to prove there was a functioning oracle at Delphi at any time up to the late eighth century
BC
(and it is difficult, if not impossible, in these early periods, to distinguish between what is a “secular” and what is a “cult” object). As we saw at the end of the last chapter, some scholars argue for the possibility of a local oracle existing at Delphi all the way back into the second millennium
BC
. Others argue that the arrival of tripod dedications from the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the eighth signifies an oracular presence (based on the tripod as a symbol of the oracle who, in later representations, sat on a tripod when giving her responses).
⁶
Others argue for the oracle's inception, and certainly its growth (or rather the beginning of
its use not just by locals but by elites of different states) in the last quarter of the eighth century. Their reasoning is based largely on linking the sudden increase at Delphi in this period to the many elite/state level offerings given for consultation with the oracle, although again the link is considered by some not to be without its problems.
⁷
In short, we cannot, with the present archaeological evidence, prove the date of the origin of Delphi's oracle, or, in more positive terms, as the French archaeologist Jean-Marc Luce has put it, the “question remains open.”
⁸

But the observable quantum leap that Delphi underwent in the late eighth century and on into the seventh century does coincide with a growing need identified by several scholars among the developing political communities in Greece for new ways of solving emerging community problems (which the oracle may have provided), and with the many literary and historical sources that focus on the oracle's increasingly important role in three major aspects of the development of Greek society during the late eighth–sixth centuries
BC
: colonization, constitutional reform, and tyrannical power. Thus while we cannot prove when the oracle at Delphi started, we can investigate the extent to which, from the late eighth century, it seems to have acquired a new kind of purpose as well as audience.

There was a tremendous amount of change and growth in Greek society during the eighth century. By its end, the resultant increased opportunity and dynamism within the organization of different communities had created a significant amount of social instability. The seventh century would provide no letup. Fundamental to the process was the continued development of community self-definition, which led, in turn, to a variety of changes in the nature of warfare (the development of the hoplite phalanx based on cohesive group attack rather than on individual elite warriors); the nature and regulation of power exercised within political communities (the development of civic constitutions as an attempt to referee the power play between community elites and the emergence of an individual elite, tyrannical ruler); the expansion of communities into new landscapes (through trade, force, and active foundation); and a more clearly articulated set of relationships between the human and the divine (the development of identifiable myths, the
investment in sanctuaries, the development of human figure sculpture and stone temples).
⁹

Surviving within this increasingly dynamic and unstable melting pot often required a response from developing communities to problems not encountered before. Within a world that was, at the same time, firmly of the belief that the gods were in charge of everything, the attraction of a system of oracular consultation, which allowed for divine confirmation of community decisions, and therefore the ability to ensure the development of a consensus of opinion for particular courses of action, is eminently understandable.
¹⁰
That is, the oracle at Delphi—whether a longtime local practice or a recent institution—came into focus and importance at this time because it provided a new solution ideally suited to the particular and unfamiliar circumstances created by Greek social and political development. Not as an instrument simply for “revealing the future,” but rather as an instrument for the adjudication of civic problems and the authorization of new solutions. As argued in the last chapter, we thus need to see the oracle at Delphi as more of a management consultant than a fortune-teller.

But before we look at the literary and historical evidence for consultation of the Delphic oracle during the late eighth and seventh centuries
BC
, we need once again to turn our attention to the warning label that comes with it. In most cases, the evidence for a particular consultation comes from sources dated several centuries after the consultation took place. At the same time, the events with which a consultation is associated are often themselves unclear and subject to metamorphosis in the different sources over time. As a result, a lake of scholarly ink has been spilled over the question of which consultations are “real” and which “fake,” or which have been expanded and reworked over time. Some scholars go so far as to judge as false all accounts of oracular consultation from this period. Others are happy to accept some but not all. In what follows, this middle course has been adopted, with the understanding that all the evidence, just as with Delphi's earliest foundation myths, tells us as much about how Greeks of later centuries sought to understand Delphi's early history than it does about the early history itself.
¹¹

Strongly supporting the picture of the Delphic oracle coming to international attention when it did as a new way of resolving new community problems and tension is the fact that the first communities posited in the literary sources (and which we can be fairly sure are historical) to consult the oracle were all in regions that were in some way exceptional in the pace and nature of their development and the circumstances they had to confront: Sparta, Corinth, and Chalcis in Euboea.
¹²

Sparta has often been highlighted for its close connection with the Delphic oracle. Herodotus (6.57.2) tell us that Sparta had special advisors to its kings, called
pythioi
, who were responsible for the relations between the city and the oracle. At some point between the late eighth and mid-seventh century
BC
(the date is the subject of much dispute), a new constitution came into force in Sparta; known as the Great Rhetra, this constitution was, by the fifth century
BC
, associated directly with Sparta's infamous lawgiver Lycurgus. This constitution is fundamental to understanding the unique nature of Spartan society: it regulated everything from the setting up of new temples, to the division of the Spartan population, the regulations of its council, and the power of its kings. Its adoption by Sparta, according to the later evidence for oracular consultation, was directly linked to approval from the Delphic oracle (who, in some versions, is even said to have dictated the constitution herself).
¹³
But while we cannot know exactly the extent to which Delphi was involved, we do know, thanks to a surviving fragment of the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus from the mid-seventh century
BC
, that, already by this time, the Spartan link with Delphi was strong:

They heard the voice of Phoebus Apollo and brought home from Pytho the oracles of the god and words of sure fulfilment, for thus the lord of the silver bow, Far Shooting Apollo of the golden hairs, gave answers from out his rich sanctuary … for this has Phoebus declared unto their city in these matters.
¹⁴

Indeed Sparta, it seems, from the evidence for further oracular consultations, was somewhat obsessed with the oracle, using it to confirm its social and political process, its pattern of oath swearing, and its system of
land allotment. The oracle had even supposedly warned Spartans about their public morality and that their love of money would one day destroy them.
¹⁵
Yet the sources also indicate that Sparta had involved the oracle in its decision to expand its territory through conquest in what have become known as the first and second Messenian Wars (the second half of the eighth century through the first quarter of seventh century
BC
), resulting in the annexation of Messenia by Sparta and the subjugation of its native population as Spartans slaves, or
helots
. The surviving sources tell of oracular consultations at key points in the campaign: on the justification for its commencement, and on how best to improve their fortunes during (both the first and second) war.
¹⁶
Yet what is fascinating here is that Delphi also seems to have been consulted by the other side, Messenia, in both of these conflicts: on how best to maximize its chances of victory, on how to conduct itself during the war, and with desperate requests for tips on salvation as the end drew near (such help was not forthcoming).
¹⁷
The association between Sparta and the oracle about the former's expansion plans continued during Sparta's later attempt to take all of Arcadia, with the oracle consulted at the outset of the campaign and throughout, regarding revision of its goals and the best ways to proceed.
¹⁸

For Corinth, whose economic and trading influence swept over Delphi and the surrounding region during the eighth century, the oracle provided a very different sort of management consultant role. Sometime in the first half of the seventh century
BC
, the Bacchiad ruling family of Corinth was confronted with a perhaps unsolicited warning from the oracle that they should take note of a “lion, strong and flesh-eating” who was to be born from an eagle. Sometime later, a man, Aetion, consulting the oracle on his inability to produce a child, was warned that his wife would conceive and that the baby would be a “rolling stone, which will fall upon the absolute rulers and will exact justice from Corinth.” In the second half of the seventh century, when that child, Cypselus, was on the brink of seizing power as tyrant of Corinth, he was greeted by the oracle with another warning: “blessed is the man who enters my house, Cypselus, son of Aetion, king of famous Corinth, he himself and his sons, but his sons' sons [i.e., his grandchildren] no longer.”
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