6/23 Delphi

The discussion today began with the kind of transformation the Greeks underwent from an agrarian society to one that flourished with a network of palace economies from 1400-1200BCE, the collapse that ushered in the Geometric Period from 1100-800BCE, the growth of Athens from 800-500BCE, its Classical Period from 500-350BCE, and the Hellenistic Era, which began shortly after that. You can definitely see why it was mostly independent city-states that developed around the mainland of Greece. The setting for Delphi is along the side of a range of nearly inaccessible mountains. It is a wonder at all how all of these peoples ended up speaking the same language. One would assume that they might end up speaking something differently, but the Greek culture has a unique way of remaining tightly knit, even in instances where two city-states have a history of conflict (Athens and Sparta). There are many myths surrounding the ancient city of Delphi: it has claimed to be the center of the world, a veritable navel between the heavens and the underworld. The deity who protected the city was Apollo, and this was manifested in a number of ways: he has temples and shrines built in his honor, there are a multitude of religious ceremonies dedicated to him, and even the famed Oracle of Delphi probably derived some of his spiritual prowess from this great deity. The predictive power of the oracle was also a result of the vapors that emanated from beneath the surface around the area of the ancient city. It was believed that in order to tell someone his future and destiny, the oracle would draw up some kind of spirit from the earth, cleanse himself spiritually, and through this method would speak to whomever sought his wisdom – a process which was referred to as Paedriades.

Starting from the bottom of the site, we were introduced to a new form of classic Greek architectural language: the tholos. The architect for this structure was Theodoros, who is mentioned by name in Vitruvius, who conceived of transforming the rectangular language of entablatures, columns, and plinths into a curved one. It features sculpture that represents various achievements of the Gods and other tribes and is of both the Doric and Corinthian orders. What was interesting to me about this structure was how the vernacular of Greek architecture was interpreted to be circular. So far we have come across temples, stoa, and any number of buildings which are more or less rectangular and have lines of columns which are just that: lines that have two termination points. But to wrap that line back on itself and create a seemingly infinite repetition of the column where no one knows where it begins and ends is quite a different conception and takes an architect who is willing to consider the act of arranging columns in a completely different way.

Further up the site we crossed the boundary of the terminus, which made a clear distinction between the outside and the inside, demarcating these spaces with a clear line of stones. Once you crossed this ancient boundary, you were entering the world of Apollo, and it was assumed that you would give to him gifts to receive his blessing. All along this path, or Heirera Heods, was a series of bronze statues commemorating the victory of the Spartans over the Persians, each new offering attempting to be greater than the last. These offerings would be placed in Thesauri, or treasuries, places for votive offerings that would have acted like a museum does today. Each thesauri was in fact a small temple – the structure would have all the components found in the typical shrine such as columns, walls, pediments, entablatures, etc. The more city-states that contributed to the deity, the more his credibility grew.

Culminating the walk up the site was the great Temple of Apollo, the house of the deity who represents music, light, harmony, logic, and reason. Because this is such an ancient site, the current temple, which is in ruins, is actually the 6^th version to be built along with the fact that this region has very high seismic activity. We can only be sure of the construction method of the 4^th temple, which was said to be made out of stone. It is a hexastyle, 6x15 Doric amphiprostyle temple which represents some of man’s more logical accomplishments. Now contrasting this, the west pediment was actually dedicated to Dionysius, who represented some of the darker side of man’s character: entertainment, dance, emotion, etc. The Greeks sought balance and harmony in all things, and to be too logical and reasonable was never a good thing for them, which prompted the need to let loose every once in a while and worship Dionysius. This back and forth was represented in the changing of the seasons, as Apollo would ‘go away’ during winter time (presumably to just represent the colder weather) and would be replaced by other gods during this time.

Another slightly odd aspect to this whole cult was the idea of Apollo Loxos, or Apollo ‘slanted’, a version of the oracle which would tend to either change its mind or tell the future in some kind of vague way. Fortunes would be told in such an ambiguous fashion that the right outcome would inevitably occur, even if it wasn’t what the participants had anticipated. The ceremony of getting into a trance-like state and translating the words from the gods was taxing for the women who performed this duty. I find this practice really interesting because, in modern times, we can safely say that no one can accurately predict the future. Yet the Greeks relied on these women to tell their fortunes and would be so superstitious as to believe in whatever resulted from the ceremony. This also can branch off into a discussion about how our belief systems have evolved, why we drop some beliefs in favor of others, why we anthropomorphized nature in the past but don’t do so today, etc. It’s partially due to the fact that we have found scientific reasons for the natural phenomena of which the Greeks were naïve about centuries ago. Yet every time we find out something about the universe we should constantly try to ask ourselves if this is the truth and the way in which reality actually performs.