Editing Pythia (section)

==Origins==
[[File:Temple of Apollo at Delphi (15491374857).jpg|thumb|235x235px|The [[Temple of Apollo (Delphi)|Temple of Apollo at Delphi]]]]
The Delphic [[oracle]] may have been present in some form from 1400 BC, in the middle period of [[Mycenaean Greece]] (1750–1050 BC).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dietrich |first=Bernard C. |date=1992-01-01 |title=Divine Madness and Conflict at Delphi |url=https://journals.openedition.org/kernos/1047 |journal=Kernos - Revue internationale et pluridisciplinaire de religion grecque antique [Kernos - International and multidisciplinary review of ancient Greek religion] |language=en |issue=5 |doi=10.4000/kernos.1047 |issn=0776-3824 |doi-access=free |access-date=2023-03-10 |archive-date=2023-03-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310161908/https://journals.openedition.org/kernos/1047 |url-status=live }}</ref> There is evidence that Apollo supposedly took over the shrine with the arrival of priests from [[Delos]] in the 8th century, from an earlier dedication to [[Gaia]].<ref>Fontenrose, Joseph (1959). "Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins". New York, Biblio & Tannen.</ref> The 8th-century reformulation of the Oracle at Delphi as a shrine to Apollo seems associated with the rise in importance of the city of [[Corinth]] and the importance of sites in the [[Gulf of Corinth|Corinthian Gulf]].<ref>Forrest, W.G. (1957), "Colonisation and the Rise of Delphi" (Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte Bd. 6, H. 2 (Apr., 1957), pp. 160–175)</ref>

The earliest account of the origin of the Delphic oracle is provided in the [[Homeric Hymn]] to Delphic Apollo, which recent scholarship dates within a narrow range, c. 580–570 BC.<ref>Martin L. West, ''Homeric Hymns'', pp 9–12, gives a summary for this dating, at or soon after the inauguration of chariot-racing at the [[Pythian Games]], 582 BC; M. Chappell, "Delphi and the ''Homeric Hymn to Apollo''", ''Classical Quarterly'' '''56''' (2006:331-48)</ref> It describes in detail how Apollo chose his first priests, whom he selected in their "swift ship"; they were "[[Cretans]] from [[Minos]]' city of [[Knossos]]" who were voyaging to sandy [[Pylos]]. But Apollo, who had {{Lang|grc-latn|Delphinios}} as one of his cult epithets,<ref name="autogenerated1">As Robin Lane Fox observes in discussing this origin of the Delphic priesthood, in ''Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer'', 2008:341ff.</ref> leapt into the ship in the form of a dolphin ({{Lang|grc-latn|delphys}}, gen. {{Lang|grc-latn|delphinos}}). Dolphin-Apollo revealed himself to the terrified Cretans and bade them follow him up to the "place where you will have rich offerings". The Cretans "danced in time and followed, singing {{Lang|grc-latn|Iē Paiēon}}, like the [[paean]]s of the Cretans in whose breasts the divine Muse has placed "honey-voiced singing".<ref name="autogenerated1"/> ''"Paean"'' seems to have been the name by which Apollo was known in [[Mycenae]]an times.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}}

[[File:Omphalos museum.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[omphalos]] in the museum of [[Delphi]]]]

G. L. Huxley observes: "If the hymn to (Delphic) Apollo conveys a historical message, it is above all that there were once Cretan priests at Delphi."<ref>Huxley, "Cretan ''Paiawones''". ''Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies'' '''16''' (1975:119-24) p. 122, noted by Fox 2008:343.</ref> [[Robin Lane Fox]] notes that Cretan bronzes are found at Delphi from the eighth century onwards, and Cretan sculptures are dedicated as late as c. 620–600 BC: "Dedications at the site cannot establish the identity of its priesthood, but for once we have an explicit text to set beside the archaeological evidence."<ref>Fox 2008:342.</ref> An early visitor to these "dells of [[Parnassus]]", at the end of the eighth century, was [[Hesiod]], who was shown the ''[[omphalos]]''.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}}

There are many later stories of the origins of the Delphic Oracle. One late explanation, which is first related by the 1st century BC writer [[Diodorus Siculus]], tells of a [[goatherd|goat herder]] named Coretas, who noticed one day that one of his goats, who fell into a crack in the earth, was behaving strangely. On entering the chasm, he found himself filled with a divine presence and the ability to see outside of the present, into the past and the future. Excited by his discovery, he shared it with nearby villagers. Many started visiting the site to experience the convulsions and inspirational trances, though some were said to disappear into the cleft due to their frenzied state.<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]] 16.26.1–4.</ref> A shrine was erected at the site, where people began worshipping in the [[late Bronze Age]], by 1600 BC. After the deaths of a number of men, the villagers chose a single young woman as the liaison for the divine inspirations. Eventually, she came to speak on behalf of the gods.{{sfn|Broad|2007|p=21}}<ref>It was also said that the young woman was given a tripod on which to be seated, which kept her from falling during her frenzied states.</ref>

According to earlier myths,<ref>Smith's ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]'' notes on this point Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' i. 321, iv. 642; Apollonius Rhodius, ''Argonautica'' iv. 800; Servius, commentary on the ''Aeneid'' iv. 246; pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheke'' i. 4. § 1; Pausanias x. 5. § 3; Aeschylus, ''The Eumenides'' opening lines; see excerpts in translation at [https://web.archive.org/web/20051120211952/http://theoi.com/Titan/TitanisThemis.html Theoi Project: Themis].</ref> the office of the oracle was initially possessed by the goddesses [[Themis]] and [[Phoebe (mythology)|Phoebe]], and the site was initially sacred to [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]]. Subsequently, it was believed to be sacred to [[Poseidon]], the god of earthquakes. During the [[Greek Dark Age]], from the 11th to the 9th century BC,<ref>D. S. Robertson, "The Delphian Succession in the Opening of the Eumenides" ''The Classical Review'' '''55'''. 2 (September 1941, pp. 69–70) p. 69, reasoning that in the three great allotments of oracular powers at Delphi, corresponding to the three generations of the gods, "Ouranos, as was fitting, gave the oracle to his wife Gaia and Kronos appropriately allotted it to his sister Themis." In Zeus' turn to make the gift, however, Aeschylus could not report that the oracle was given directly to Apollo, who had not yet been born, Robertson notes, and thus Phoebe was interposed. However, the usual modern reconstruction of the sacred site's pre-Olympian history does not indicate dedications to these earlier gods.</ref> a new god of prophecy, Apollo, was said to have seized the temple and expelled the twin guardian serpents of Gaia, whose bodies he wrapped around the [[caduceus]]. Later myths stated that Phoebe or Themis had "given" the site to Apollo, rendering its seizure by priests of the new god justified, but presumably having to retain the priestesses of the original oracle because of the long tradition. It is possible that the myths portray Poseidon as mollified by the gift of a new site in [[Troizen]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}}

[[Diodorus]] explained how, initially, the Pythia was an appropriately clad young [[virgin]], for great emphasis was placed on the Oracle's [[chastity]] and purity to be reserved for union with the god Apollo.{{sfn|Broad|2007|p=30-31}} But he reports one story as follows:<ref>Diod. Sic. 16.26.6</ref>

{{quotation|[[Echecrates of Thessaly|Echecrates the Thessalian]], having arrived at the shrine and beheld the virgin who uttered the oracle, became enamoured of her because of her beauty, carried her away and [[rape|violated]] her; and that the Delphians because of this deplorable occurrence passed a law that in the future a virgin should no longer prophesy but that an elderly woman of fifty would declare the Oracles and that she would be dressed in the costume of a virgin, as a sort of reminder of the prophetess of olden times.}}

The scholar [[Martin Litchfield West]] writes that the Pythia shows many traits of [[Shamanism|shamanistic]] practices, likely inherited or influenced from [[Central Asia]]n practices, although there is no evidence of any such association at this time. He cites the Pythia sitting in a cauldron on a tripod, while making her prophecies in an ecstatic trance state, like [[Shamanism|shamans]], and her utterings unintelligible.<ref>[[Martin Litchfield West]], ''The Orphic Poems'', p.147. "The Pythia resembles a shamaness at least to the extent that she communicates with her [deity] while in a state of trance, and conveys as much to those present by uttering unintelligible words. [cf. Spirit Language, Mircea Eliade].

It is particularly striking that she sits on a cauldron supported by a tripod, reiterating the triad of the great goddess. This eccentric perch can hardly be explained except as a symbolic boiling, and, as such, it looks very much like a reminiscence of the initiatory boiling of the shaman translated from hallucinatory experience into concrete visual terms. It was in this same cauldron, probably, that the Titans boiled Dionysus in the version of the story known to Callimachus and Euphorion, and his remains were interred close by".</ref>

According to William Godwin, the tripod was perforated with holes, and as she inhaled the vapors, her figure would seem to enlarge, her hair stood on end, her complexion changed, her heart panted, her bosom swelled, and her voice became seemingly more than human.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/livesnecromance04godwgoog|title=Lives of the Necromancers|author=William Godwin|year=1876|page=[https://archive.org/details/livesnecromance04godwgoog/page/n169 11]|publisher=London, F. J. Mason|ref={{sfnref|Godwin|1876}}}}</ref>