Oracles in Ancient Greece

PROPHECY IN ANCIENT GREECE

Consulting the Oracle by John William Waterhouse

Prophecy played an important role the lives and religion of the Greeks. A distinction made by the ancients themselves was between prophecy by art and without art. Prophecy without art was regarded as inspiration of a human being by the divine spirit, and was not dependent on external signs or on the interpretation of an experienced person. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

There were three kinds: 1) ecstasy, in which the gift of prophecy was communicated to a human being without his own assistance by divine strength and power; 2) dreams, in which the gods revealed directly to men their will or coming events; and 3) the oracles, which were of a somewhat different character, being connected with professional prophecy. They were also regarded as direct revelations of the will of the god, so the mode in which this was expressed differed a good deal according to the various oracles; but the questioner was not immediately inspired, as in ecstasy and dreams, but required a mediator, one who was alone able to interpret the revelations of the gods.

Of these three classes, the least important during the historic period is ecstasy; the seers in the real sense of the word, whom we so often meet with in legends, had no importance later on. The second kind, the dream oracle, is of far greater importance. The idea that dreams were communications from the gods, no less than other oracles and signs, was so universally adopted that it not only took firm root in the popular belief, but was shared by educated men, even by those who had more or less discarded the old belief in the gods. The ancient writers give us numerous accounts of portentous dreams; unlucky dreams were averted by religious ceremonies, sacrifices to the gods who could turn away ill fortune, sprinkling with holy water, etc.

It was usual to pray for prophetic dreams, and, as we have already seen, these were specially produced by sleeping in the temple of Aesculapius, though they often required interpretation afterwards at the hands of the priests. It is a very old belief that dreams reveal the will of the gods, not directly and immediately, but in the form of parables or images, which require special comprehension and secret knowledge, and thus the interpretation of dreams became an especial art, which led to a whole literature of dream-books (remains of which have been preserved to us; in particular the dream-book of Artemidorus, dating from the second century A.D.), and to the profession of interpreters, who, although not held in especial honour, were yet greatly sought after by all classes of the community.

Greeks sought guidance from oracles, seen as a direct line of communication with the divine. The gods’ answers to their questions came in different ways, including obscure riddles, omens in the form of birds or lightning, even the rustle of leaves. The oracle at Dodona, in Greece’s rugged northwest, was said to be the country’s first. Here mortals posed questions to Zeus through a sacred oak, while priests interpreted the answers. [Source Caroline Alexander, National Geographic, July 2016]

Oracles were extremely influential in ancient Greece. In Greece and Asia Minor there were several hundred places where oracles were given; this much is common to all of them, that it was not a divinely-inspired human being, but the god himself who announced his will by special tokens, while the priests were only the interpreters of the god’s will; the signs and methods of interpretation differed considerably. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

At some oracles the god revealed his will or the events of the future by signs instead of words, which the priest then had to interpret. This was the case with the oldest and most sacred of all the Greek oracles — that of Zeus, at Dodona in Epirus. These signs were of various kinds: sometimes it was the rustling of the branches in the sacred oak, sometimes the murmuring of the spring at its foot, sometimes the sound given by a brass bowl. The excavations undertaken at Dodona have supplied some information about the nature and variety of the questions, though not about the mode in which the oracle was given. Those who desired an oracular answer had to hand in their question in writing, usually on a tablet of lead, on which it was scratched. This was laid in a vessel and placed in the sanctuary, so that the priestess might learn what the question was; the answer was then given on a similar tablet, sometimes the same on which the question had been written.

Ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma

The examples found of these tablets show that these questions were not always of political import, and sent by whole communities or princes, but that even private affairs were sometimes made the subject of a question. Thus, on the tablet represented in, a certain Lysanias inquires whether the child which his wife is about to bear him is really his own; another inquires whether it would be profitable for him to rear sheep; a third asks who has stolen the cushions he has lost. These questions on leaden tablets were also in use at other places. At the oracle of Apollo-Coropaeus, in the Peninsula Magnesia, in Thessaly, the questioners had to give their names to the temple scribe to be written on the tablet; they were then called in turn and conducted to the sanctuary, where the leaden tablets were handed them. On these they wrote their questions; the tablets were then collected and placed in a vessel, which was sealed with the official seal of the temporal and spiritual officials, and left for the night in the sanctuary. Next morning the seals were broken, the names of the questioners called according to the list, and the tablets given back with the answers.

Among oracles we must mention that of Zeus Ammon, in the Libyan Desert, which enjoyed a great reputation in Greece even in early times; that of Zeus Trophonius, at Lebadia, in Boeotia; that of Amphiaraus, at Oropus, which last was included among the dream oracles, since the mediation of the priests was not required here, and the questioners received their revelation direct from the god. It would be impossible to enumerate all the oracles and the customs observed there; throughout the whole of Greek antiquity they played a very important part in the life of the nation and the individual, and were often decisive in political matters, as well as in trivial details of daily life.

Oracles of Apollo

The oracles of Apollo were far the most celebrated, since he was specially the god of prophecy; among these, the oracle of Delphi surpassed all others in importance. Here the medium through which the god revealed his will to mankind was the holy priestess called Pythia; a vapour which rose from a cleft in the earth produced ecstasy in the Pythia, who had previously purified herself by chewing laurel leaves and drinking from the sacred spring, and clad in rich garments with a golden head-dress, long flowing robes, and buskins, and had taken her place on a tripod over the cleft. In this condition she uttered the oracles, which were, as a rule, incomprehensible to ordinary people. It was then the duty of the priests who were present during the ecstasy with the questioners, to discover the real meaning and sense of the senseless sounds, and arrange the answer in poetic form, usually in hexameters, which were, as a rule, cunningly arranged so as to have a two-fold meaning.

At first this took place only once a year, but when the reputation of the oracle increased, and thousands of people came every year to Delphi, or sent messengers with questions to the temple, it became the custom to supply answers all the year round, and, in consequence of the great numbers, two Pythiae had to mount the tripod alternately, while a third was at hand to take their place occasionally. Only a few days in the year were regarded as unlucky, and then no oracles were given. At the time of the Empire, when the influence of the Delphic oracle had considerably diminished, it was only accessible once a year. The order in which the suppliants were to enter was generally decided by lot; in some few cases it may have been determined by rank. Prayer and sacrifice of course preceded the sacred ceremony; goats were chiefly offered, because, according to the legends, the discovery of this miraculous vapour was due to a goat.

At the other oracles of Apollo the proceedings were different: at Hysiae, in Boeotia, the prophet sought his inspiration in a well; at Argos, in the blood of a victim; at the Clarian temple of Apollo, at Colophon, a priest descended into the sacred cave and drank holy water, whereupon the gift of prophecy was granted to him; at the sanctuary of the Branchidae, at Didymae, near Miletus, the oracles were given by a priestess, who moistened the hem of her garment and her feet at a well, and then let the rising vapour act upon her.

Oracle of Delphi

20120219-Oracle of Delphi Omphallos, naval of teh world.jpg
Naval of the world
The Oracle at Delphi was a woman. She was required to be a virgin over the age of 50 but dressed as a maiden. When she performed her prophecies, she drank from a sacred spring, enveloped by vapors, and then returned to a basement in the temple, where she sat on a three-legged stool and chewed sacred laurel leaves. She received her messages from a mythical snake and chanted in a language that was interpreted by a priest and believed to be the words of the god Apollo.

The oracles had a reputation for saying what their customers wanted to hear. The scholar Michael Grants wrote that he Oracle's prophecies were conservative and flexible. "Some have...preferred to ascribe the entire phenomenon to clever stage management, aided by an effective information system," he said. .Xenophobe reportedly ignored the advice of the Oracle of Delphi and took his troops deep into Persian territory, where they were trapped and massacred.

James Romm wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “The Delphic priests themselves were among history's savviest salesmen. They happily took cash in exchange for favorable prophecies. Lacking an army, they spread legends suggesting that the gods would bring disaster on any who raided their shrine. The tactic worked — until it didn't. Much of Delphi's treasure ended up coined to hire soldiers, after a neighboring city-state seized the site in the 4th century B.C. . [Source: James Romm, Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2012. Romm is a professor of classics at Bard College and author of "Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire."]

Oracle of Trophinos at Lebadeia

There were other seers and oracles. The one in Aegira drank bull's blood before predicting the future. The one in Argos drank lamb blood. Seers also looked for omens in the way birds flew, spiders walked and chickens pecked. Pausanias wrote in “Description of Greece” 9. 23 - 40 (A.D. 160): “On the side towards the mountains the boundary of Orchomenus is Phocis, but on the plain it is Lebadeia. Originally this city stood on high ground, and was called Mideia after the mother of Aspledon. But when Lebadus came to it from Athens, the inhabitants went down to the low ground, and the city was named Lebadeia after him. Who was the father of Lebadus, and why he came, they do not know; they know only that the wife of Lebadus was Laonice. The city is no less adorned than the most prosperous of the Greek cities, and it is separated from the grove of Trophonius by the river Hercyna. They say that here Hercyna, when playing with the Maid, the daughter of Demeter, held a goose which against her will she let loose. The bird flew into a hollow cave and hid under a stone; the Maid entered and took the bird as it lay under the stone. The water flowed, they say, from the place where the Maid took up the stone, and hence the river received the name of Hercyna. [Source: Pausanias, “Description of Greece,” with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D. in 4 Volumes. Volume 1.Attica and Cornith, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1918]

On the bank of the river there is a temple of Hercyna, in which is a maiden holding a goose in her arms. In the cave are the sources of the river and images standing, and serpents are coiled around their scepters. One might conjecture the images to be of Asclepius and Health, but they might be Trophonius and Hercyna, because they think that serpents are just as much sacred to Trophonius as to Asclepius. By the side of the river is the tomb of Arcesilaus, whose bones, they say, were carried back from Troy by Leitus. The most famous things in the grove are a temple and image of Trophonius; the image, made by Praxiteles, is after the likeness of Asclepius. There is also a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Europa, and a Zeus Rain-god in the open. If you go up to the oracle, and thence onwards up the mountain, you come to what is called the Maid's Hunting and a temple of King Zeus. This temple they have left half finished, either because of its size or because of the long succession of the wars. In a second temple are images of Cronus, Hera and Zeus. There is also a sanctuary of Apollo...

This oracle was once unknown to the Boeotians, but they learned of it in the following way. As there had been no rain for a year and more, they sent to Delphi envoys from each city. These asked for a cure for the drought, and were bidden by the Pythian priestess to go to Trophonius at Lebadeia and to discover the remedy from him. Coming to Lebadeia they could not find the oracle. Thereupon Saon, one of the envoys from the city Acraephnium and the oldest of all the envoys, saw a swarm of bees. It occurred to him to follow himself wheresoever the bees turned. At once he saw the bees flying into the ground here, and he went with them into the oracle. It is said that Trophonius taught this Saon the customary ritual, and all the observances kept at the oracle.”

Oracle of Trophinos in Action

Pausanias wrote in “Description of Greece” 9. 23 - 40 (A.D. 160): “ What happens at the oracle is as follows. When a man has made up his mind to descend to the oracle of Trophonius, he first lodges in a certain building for an appointed number of days, this being sacred to the good Spirit and to good Fortune. While he lodges there, among other regulations for purity he abstains from hot baths, bathing only in the river Hercyna. Meat he has in plenty from the sacrifices, for he who descends sacrifices to Trophonius himself and to the children of Trophonius, to Apollo also and Cronus, to Zeus surnamed King, to Hera Charioteer, and to Demeter whom they surname Europa and say was the nurse of Trophonius. [Source: Pausanias, “Description of Greece,” with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D. in 4 Volumes. Volume 1.Attica and Cornith, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1918]

Oracle of Delphi Sanctuary

“At each sacrifice a diviner is present, who looks into the entrails of the victim, and after an inspection prophesies to the person descending whether Trophonius will give him a kind and gracious reception. The entrails of the other victims do not declare the mind of Trophonius so much as a ram, which each inquirer sacrifices over a pit on the night he descends, calling upon Agamedes. Even though the previous sacrifices have appeared propitious, no account is taken of them unless the entrails of this ram indicate the same; but if they agree, then the inquirer descends in good hope. The procedure of the descent is this.

“First, during the night he is taken to the river Hercyna by two boys of the citizens about thirteen years old, named Hermae, who after taking him there anoint him with oil and wash him. It is these who wash the descender, and do all the other necessary services as his attendant boys. After this he is taken by the priests, not at once to the oracle, but to fountains of water very near to each other. Here he must drink water called the water of Forgetfulness, that he may forget all that he has been thinking of hitherto, and afterwards he drinks of another water, the water of Memory, which causes him to remember what he sees after his descent. After looking at the image which they say was made by Daedalus (it is not shown by the priests save to such as are going to visit Trophonius), having seen it, worshipped it and prayed, he proceeds to the oracle, dressed in a linen tunic, with ribbons girding it, and wearing the boots of the country.

“The oracle is on the mountain, beyond the grove. Round it is a circular basement of white marble, the circumference of which is about that of the smallest threshing floor, while its height is just short of two cubits. On the basement stand spikes, which, like the cross-bars holding them together, are of bronze, while through them has been made a double door. Within the enclosure is a chasm in the earth, not natural, but artificially constructed after the most accurate masonry. The shape of this structure is like that of a bread-oven. Its breadth across the middle one might conjecture to be about four cubits, and its depth also could not be estimated to extend to more than eight cubits. They have made no way of descent to the bottom, but when a man comes to Trophonius, they bring him a narrow, light ladder. After going down he finds a hole between the floor and the structure. Its breadth appeared to be two spans, and its height one span.

The descender lies with his back on the ground, holding barley-cakes kneaded with honey, thrusts his feet into the hole and himself follows, trying hard to get his knees into the hole. After his knees the rest of his body is at once swiftly drawn in, just as the largest and most rapid river will catch a man in its eddy and carry him under. After this those who have entered the shrine learn the future, not in one and the same way in all cases, but by sight sometimes and at other times by hearing. The return upwards is by the same mouth, the feet darting out first. They say that no one who has made the descent has been killed, save only one of the bodyguard of Demetrius. But they declare that he performed none of the usual rites in the sanctuary, and that he descended, not to consult the god but in the hope of stealing gold and silver from the shrine. It is said that the body of this man appeared in a different place, and was not cast out at the sacred mouth. Other tales are told about the fellow, but I have given the one most worthy of consideration.

“After his ascent from Trophonius the inquirer is again taken in hand by the priests, who set him upon a chair called the chair of Memory, which stands not far from the shrine, and they ask of him, when seated there, all he has seen or learned. After gaining this information they then entrust him to his relatives. These lift him, paralyzed with terror and unconscious both of himself and of his surroundings, and carry him to the building where he lodged before with Good Fortune and the Good Spirit. Afterwards, however, he will recover all his faculties, and the power to laugh will return to him. What I write is not hearsay; I have myself inquired of Trophonius and seen other inquirers. Those who have descended into the shrine of Trophonius are obliged to dedicate a tablet on which is written all that each has heard or seen. The shield also of Aristomenes is still preserved here. Its story I have already given in a former part of my work.”

Oracles in Ancient Egypt

Oracle Temple in Siwa, Egypt

Karnak in Thebes (present-day Luxor is regarded by some scholars as the first oracle center. Its name translates as “'The most perfect of places.” It was said that that all other oracles originated from Karnark and they communicated with one another by using of “homing' doves” that enabled them to “see into the future.” An Omphalus (religious stone artifact) excavated in the sanctuary of the Great Temple of Amon at Karna, by G. A. Reisner supports the Greek traditions of doves flying between Delphi and Karnak. [Source: Ancient Wisdom ancient-wisdom.com/*/]

Two ancient Egyptian texts interpreted as providing evidence of oracles in Karnak read: ‘Ye people from south and north, all ye eyes that see the sun, all ye who come from south and north to Thebes to entreat the lord of gods, come to me! What ye say I shall pass to Amun at Karnak. Say the "offering spell" to me and give me water from that which ye possess. For I am the messenger whom the king has appointed to hear your words of petition and to send up to him the affairs of the Two Lands.’ /*/

And “Ye people of Karnak, ye who wish to see Amun, come to me! I shall report your petitions. For I am indeed the messenger of this god. The king has appointed me to report the words of the Two Lands. Speak to me the "offering spell" and invoke my name daily, as is done to one who has taken a vow.’ /*/

Siwa Oasis in present-day Libya was specifically mentioned in relation to Karnak and Dodona by Herodotus. Alexander the Great went out of his way to consult the Oracle of Amun in 331 B.C. before his conquest of Persia. The King of Persia led an army of 50,000 to destroy the oracle that resulted in the entire army being lost to the desert. /*/

Siwa Oracle and Alexander the Great

Alexander consulting the Oracle of Apollo

In 331 B.C., Alexander the Great trekked 300 miles across the Sahara desert for no military reason to Siwa Oasis (near Libyan border), where he met with the oracle at the Zeus-Amum temple and asked questions about his future and divinity. The oracle greeted Alexander as the son of Amun-Re and gave him the favorable omens he wanted for an invasion of Asia. The 24-year-old Alexander arrived at Siwa by camel. He asked the oracle whether was the son of Zeus. He never revealed the answer to that question.

Alexander the Great traveled by camel to get to the Siwa. "Amun was a god of prophecy," wrote adventurer and journalist Mark Asher in the Washington Post. "So valued was the presence of the Siwan oracle that Athens — a major power of that day — kept a special galley on permanent standby to take their messengers across the seas.”

"The Athenian general Cimon, laying siege to Cyprus in 445 B.C., sent a delegation here, to whom the oracle accurately predicted the general's own death. Cleopatra, torn by her love affair with Antony sought advise here; so did Hannibal of Carthage, and the Spartan general Lysander. Herodotus, the Greek historian, arrived here in the 5th century B.C., and immortalized the tale of the mad Persian King Cambyses II, whose vast army was swallowed up by the Sea of Sand. The oracle predicted the victory of the athlete Eubtasi the 93rd Olympiad, and so assured was Eubotas of the laurels that he ordered a victor's statue of himself before the event...Alexander the Great — broke off from his campaign against the Persian King Darius to find out from oracle whether he was truly the son or a god."

"The oracle was not a man, but a shapeless peduncle of plaster, probably representing a human shrouded for burial in the upright manner favored by the ancient Libyans. Before the consultation, a throng of priests would parade through the palmeraries in a silver bark, followed by a procession of maidens whose pious hymns were intended to induce a favorable prophecy. the petitioner would then be drawn into the secret recesses of the temple, where the god's deliberations were relayed to him by the priests. We shall never know precisely what was revealed to Alexander, though it is recorded that the chief priest addressed him as "Son of Zeus."

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024