Delphi (12 page)

Gods! What may not come true, what dream divine,

If thus we are to drink the Delphic wine!

—Leigh Hunt, Epistle to Lord Byron on his departure for Italy and Greece (published in the
Examiner
28th April 1816

4

REBIRTH

In 590
BC
, tension boiled over at Delphi. According to the ancient sources, inhabitants of one of the other settlements on the plain leading from the sea up toward Delphi, the town of Crisa, had not only been attacking those en route to the oracle, but had also been extracting heavy tolls from pilgrims arriving by sea, and even making raids on Delphi itself (see
map 3
).
¹
The priests of the oracle at Delphi were said to be desperate to escape Crisa's malign and damaging influence. At the same time, a religious association of several cities and states, known as the Amphictyony, decided to come to Delphi's aid. Consulting the oracle over what they should do, they received this reply: “that they must fight against the Crisans day and night, and utterly ravage their country, enslave their inhabitants, and dedicate the land to Pythian Apollo, Artemis, Leto, and Athena Pronaia, and that for the future it must lie entirely uncultivated—they must not till this land themselves nor permit any other.” Acting, according to some of the ancient sources, on the advice of Solon (the famous lawmaker of Athens), the Amphictyony, spearheaded by particular members (Thessaly, Athens, and Sicyon), launched a war against Crisa, which was said to have lasted as long as the Trojan War. The campaign was led, according to differing sources,
either by Alcmaeon (head of the Alcmaeonidai family from Athens), by Cleisthenes (the tyrant ruler of Sicyon), or by Eurylochus (the Thessalian). Some sources report that the Pythia herself gave the lead on how to defeat Crisa, others that the Amphictyonic forces, after a long and protracted conflict, resorted to their own form of Trojan horse: they introduced hellebore into Crisa's aqueducts, subsequently rendering the city's inhabitants helpless thanks to the poison produced by the plant.
²

Finally Crisa was destroyed, and the entire territory of the plain below Delphi was dedicated to the gods as sacred land (see
map 3
). The ancient sources trumpet how the oracle at Delphi was saved as an institution, freed from malign influence for all of Greece, and instead came under the influence of the Amphictyony, whose members not only safeguarded the sanctuary but instituted a series of athletic and musical games in honor of Pythian Apollo at Delphi, the prizes for the first of which were paid for with the booty seized from ravaged Crisa.
³
Delphi, in the first two decades of this new century, had been reborn, not only as a sanctuary free from the influence of any one city or state and instead under the protection of an multiregional association, but also as a sanctuary with games that would soon come to be considered on a par with the Olympics.

This war—known as the First Sacred War—has long been considered a watershed moment in Delphi's history. Yet in 1978, historian Noel Robertson challenged its existence, arguing that the war was an invention of the fourth century
BC
(at a time when Delphi was “once again” embroiled in a—now its third—Sacred War). His argument was strong: apart from possible allusions to the war in the
Homeric Hymn to Apollo
(in which, as we saw in earlier chapters, Apollo warns his priests against hubristic profiteering from the sanctuary) and the Hesiodic
Aspis
, the first reference to this great conflict is from fourth-century orator Isocrates (
Plataikos
c. 373
BC
); followed by a cluster of material in the 340s
BC
(such as Speusippos's
Letter to Philip
8–9; fragments from lost historians; as well as Aeschines in
On the Embassy
and
Against Ctesiphon
). Further references can be found in Diodorus Siculus (who quotes a lost fourth–century
BC
historian Ephorus) and Strabo, followed by nothing until the second century
AD
when the war resurfaces again in Pausanias.
Indeed, the most detailed narrative of the war comes from the Scholia to Pindar and Hypothesis to the
Pythian Odes
(II 1–5 ed. Drachmann).
⁴

There is a dilemma here. Is the First Sacred War—the moment when Delphi was brutally reborn, at the expense of other settlements in the regions, as a sanctuary with international backing dominating a massive, and now off-limits territory—a necessary and important fiction used as justification for events in later Delphic history, or a later retelling (and potential enlargement) of an event that has its roots in historical truth? Most likely, it is the latter, and as such, we need to be careful in distinguishing between what we can known of what went on in Delphi in the early sixth century
BC
, from what later centuries portrayed as having happened for their own purposes. The circumstances surrounding the emergence of this First Sacred War in the fourth-century sources will be dealt with in detail in later chapters. For now, our focus is on what we can know to have happened in the early sixth century
BC
.

Key changes did take place at Delphi in the first half of the sixth century. The Amphictyony certainly came to have a heavy involvement there by, at the very latest, 548
BC
.
⁵
The Pythian games were hosted for the first time in this period, although the date of their inception varies between 591/90
BC
(according to the Parian Marble inscription) and 586
BC
(according to Pausanias 10.7.4–5), with the first festival in which the laurel wreath was a prize occurring in 582
BC
.
⁶
And the motivation for their inception is not, either, agreed upon in the ancient sources: some claim they were a celebration of the Amphictyony's victory in the First Sacred War, others that they celebrated Apollo's arrival at Delphi or Apollo's slaying of the serpent (their origins in the latter thus portrayed as funeral games).
⁷

As well, the decision was made to leave the vast plain below Delphi uncultivated around this time, which, given its fertility and thus potential for profit, can only be explained by a significant turn of events like a Sacred War.
⁸
Coupled with this are stories in some literary sources from this period referring to bandits preying on Delphic pilgrims, which seem to echo elements of the Sacred War narrative. Moreover, some scholars have argued for a shift in the ideology underlying oracular responses
from favoring Dorian powers to a more even-handed approach possibly tied with Delphi's rebirth as a “free” international sanctuary. And finally, there are a number of recognizable changes in the archaeological record at Delphi before and after this period that could be explained by the war: Cretan influence at Delphi, for example, which, as we have seen through the eighth and seventh centuries
BC
had been strong, tapered off by the beginning of the sixth century. Likewise, representations of scenes of Heracles stealing the Delphic tripod—a favorite used to epitomize conflict at (and over) Delphic—become extremely popular in vase painting 560–540
BC
in the aftermath of the assumed occurrence of First Sacred War.
⁹

Yet the most critical evidence for change at Delphi in the early decades of the sixth century
BC
has only recently come to light. As part of the excavations that revealed the series of houses (maison jaune, noire, and rouge) dating back to Delphi's earliest past, the excavators were able to date the first perimeter wall of the Apollo sanctuary (see
fig. 3.2
). As was stressed at the end of the last chapter, despite Delphi's increasingly important and international oracular and dedicatory record during the seventh century
BC
, there was still no separation between secular and sacred space, no bounded sanctuary or probably temple of Apollo during that time. The latest excavations show that all this changed in 575
BC
, with the destruction of the maison rouge, and the building of the Apollo sanctuary's first perimeter wall over it, to which time should also probably be associated the building of a temple to Apollo (or at the very least the major elaboration of a structure that did not much predate it—see
fig. 3.2
).
¹⁰
By 575
BC
, therefore, something had happened at Delphi to push the sanctuary headlong into a complete renovation and rearticulation of the settlement, which privileged the definition of a sanctuary space and prioritized the building of structures to worship Apollo.

The narrative of the First Sacred War fits neatly as an explanation for all these changes. Yet while recent scholarship has again become comfortable with the idea of conflict at Delphi in the early sixth century, it has sought to limit its scale and international nature. In particular, scholars have sought to emphasize the particular interests in Delphi of those
Amphictyonic members who took the lead in the war (Thessaly, Athens, Sicyon), and the corresponding absence of Amphictyonic members who were less directly related to the sanctuary.
¹¹
Thessaly's long-term interest in Delphi has been noted in previous chapters, but, as a result of this conflict in the early sixth century, the Amphictyony (in which Thessaly held a prime role) became ensconced at Delphi, ensuring that Thessaly also maintained a say in affairs south of its own territory for the future.
¹²
Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, is equally argued to have become involved in the war over Delphi because it offered a unique opportunity to challenge the supremacy of Corinth, itself long implicated in the sanctuary and surrounding area (not least as an ally of Crisa). This effort resulted not only in Sicyon fighting for the sanctuary, but in its dedicating substantial monuments there during the first half of the sixth century.
¹³
A number of groups in Athens (especially the Alcmaeonid family) have been argued to have been keen, given their rather difficult relationship with the oracle as a result of its involvement in Alcmaeonid as well as Athenian affairs, to reshape Delphi more on their own terms.
¹⁴

Thus, while the conflict at Delphi in the early sixth century
BC
was most probably not on the scale of a Trojan War, which saw an international association fight for the freedom of Delphi (as those active in later centuries were keen to portray it), there does seem to have been conflict over Delphi at this time that arose because Delphi was an increasingly important and rich settlement that was not within a particular city's power but was on a vital trade corridor. The conflict was also the result of Delphi's being home to an oracle of increasing strategic power and value to an increasing number of city-states and communities with their own agendas. As a result, this conflict had the important effect of drawing Delphi into the auspices of the Amphictyony, potentially motivating the annexation of an extraordinarily fertile territory (the “untouchable” possession of the Delphic gods), most probably kick-starting the celebration of Pythian games, and, most importantly, prompting the final articulation of the Apollo sanctuary space through the building of a perimeter wall and the construction of a temple to Apollo—most likely by the Amphictyony themselves.
¹⁵

Such an interest from developing city-states in the fortunes of a place like Delphi underscores an important shift in the nature of Greece during the sixth century
BC
. Internal civic development was still taking place at a scorching, sometimes brutal, rate: Athens suffered a coup, civic crisis, rebirth, and eventual tyranny, all in the last quarter of the seventh century through to the mid-sixth century
BC
. But that internal combustion was coupled with a perceived need to interact on a larger, comprehensive community scale within an ever-widening Mediterranean world. As a result, there was an increasing desire to have a stake in larger occasions and more international locations through which symbolic capital could be earned by city-state players. This is to say, the sixth century
BC
would become
the
century for the development of pan-Greek community occasions and locations. The use of long-known and increasing international, but still architecturally fledgling, sanctuaries like Delphi, Isthmia, and Nemea for a range of interactions (as worshipers, dedicators, and visitors) made increasing sense and was increasingly attractive to Greeks in the sixth century because they provided opportunities for interaction and an accretion of symbolic capital outside the city-state arena. It is no surprise, then, that it was during the first half of the sixth century
BC
that Delphi's fledgling Pythian games were joined by those of the sanctuaries at Isthmia and Nemea, and were all linked to the long-standing games at Olympia forming the Panhellenic
periodos
circuit (see
map 2
). And crucially, the prize for victory at each of these games was not money but a wreath made with branches of a plant sacred to the particular sanctuary and, with it, assured international renown and civic pride.
¹⁶

The results of this increasing desire for action and interaction on the international stage were multiple. As we have seen, because communities now had, and sought a stake in, places like Delphi, such locations could expect to be the centers of more major investment and conflict. It is unlikely, for example, that there would have been the enthusiasm for a Sacred War over Delphi in the seventh or eighth centuries
BC
. As well, this new interest in international interaction provoked a tighter and more complex cultural and political network inside the Greek world. There
was a noticeable increase in the development and uptake of a wider number of formal associations, agreements, and alliances between cities, and groups of cities, at this time. Such networks, however, also meant that individual city-states, and individual players within them, found themselves not only involved with the wider Greek world, but also occasionally at the mercy of it (as Crisa found to its cost). And at the same time, the increasing levels of interaction at places like Delphi and elsewhere ensured a growing cultural homogeneity within the Greek world. Regional pottery styles went into decline during the sixth century
BC
. In the early sixth century, artistic styles converged around the
kouros/kore
style of free-standing sculpture, and the construction of temples became de rigueur across the Greek world, with architectural sculpture starting to coalesce around a certain number of accepted themes. Coinage, too, first known at Ephesus c. 560
BC
, began to diffuse across the Greek world during the course of the sixth century as an accepted style of financial interaction (if still with heavy local attachment, each city minting its own).
¹⁷