Delphi (18 page)

In the first decade of the fifth century
BC
, Cleomenes from Sparta was back at Delphi. He had a long history of interaction with the oracle: it was this man who was persuaded by the oracle to oust Hippias, and who, earlier, was famously tried in Spartan courts for not attacking Argos as he'd been ordered to do (and exonerated on the basis of his defense that he had interpreted a Delphic oracular response to mean an attack would prove fruitless). In his subsequent involvement with Athens, first removing Hippias, then trying to oust Cleisthenes, Cleomenes had become increasingly exasperated with his co-king Demaratus, since Demaratus had been reluctant to support Cleomenes' attempts to influence Athenian politics.
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But in the first years of the fifth century
BC
, Cleomenes was once again given a chance to become involved with Athens. It seems that Athens had become increasingly worried about the loyalty to Greece of the nearby island of Aegina, given the increasing power of the Persian Empire across the Aegean and its recent attacks on Greek
colonies on the shores of Asia Minor.
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Athens requested Cleomenes' help in “securing” Aegina. But Demaratus was a friend of the Aeginetans and so resisted Cleomenes' attempts to answer Athens's call.
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It seems that Cleomenes' patience finally ran out with Demaratus, and a scheme was hatched to remove him from the throne, a scheme that required the participation of the oracle at Delphi. Cleomenes utilized a local Delphian contact, Cobon, who in turn persuaded/bribed the Pythian priestess Periallus to confirm (in response to a question put forward by a Spartan on Cleomenes' request) that Demaratus was not the legitimate son of his father (the Spartan king Ariston), hence rendering him unfit to continue in office. The Spartans initially bought the lie, and Demaratus was exiled, fleeing to Persia where he was welcomed by the Persian king. Cleomenes was free to attack Aegina, but his bribery of the Pythia was eventually discovered. His contact in Delphi, Cobon, was exiled from the city; the Pythia Periallus was removed; and Cleomenes himself was forced out of Sparta, only later to return and disembowel himself in what was considered a shameful suicide.
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In 490
BC
, one year after the Pythia's corrupted response, the Persians landed at Marathon, accompanied by none other than Hippias, the exiled tyrant of Athens who cherished hopes of being reinstated as master of the city. The Athenians, it seems, did not consult Delphi ahead of this battle—there was likely not enough time to do so. Instead, against the odds, the Athenians repelled the Persian invasion on the plains of Marathon. Soon, stories arose that a mysterious figure had appeared on the battle scene to help the Athenians, and that he was slaughtering Persians with his plowshare. The Athenians, in the aftermath of the battle, consulted the oracle at Delphi about whom they should worship in thanks for this divine aid.

The Athenians also chose to commemorate their victory at several sites inside and outside Athens, including Olympia and Delphi. At Olympia, as was the tradition, they offered armor taken from the battlefield, then inscribed with the names of the victors. At Delphi however, they competed in Delphic style with a new and expensive treasury. Knocking down the small treasury that had been at Delphi
since the early sixth century
BC
, the new Athenian treasury was the first treasury outside of Attica made of Attic Pentelic marble; the first to have its columns built in drum form; the first Doric structure to fill all its metopes with carefully carved reliefs, the themes of which (Theseus and Heracles) were brought together for the first time in sculptural history on this building (see
plate 2
,
fig. 5.4
). Its position perched on the steep hillside made it an imposing monument (you still get this impression when you visit the rebuilt Athenian treasury at Delphi today), and its architectural style, combined with the forecourt laid out around it, made it almost a miniature copy of the new Apollo temple, which was, after all, Athenian built, too. Linked to this gleaming new treasury, along its southern flank, was a statue group with the ten eponymous tribal heroes of Athens (those picked by the Delphic oracle) and an inscription making clear to all that this monument commemorated the Athenian victory at Marathon. If this was not enough, the Athenians also appear to have hung shields captured on the battlefield from the metopes of the new Apollo temple, making their ownership—of what was supposed to be a temple of Apollo paid for by the Amphictyony, Delphi, and the wider Greek world—even clearer, and even perhaps to have etched an inscription to their victory onto the temple itself.
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While they were building themselves into the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, the decade 490–480
BC
saw no letup in the activity of Athenian politics, interpolis Greek relations, or the changing role and position of Delphi in the wider Greek world. The Alcmaeonids in Athens were accused of scheming to act as traitors at the battle of Marathon.
⁴⁶
Megacles, the new prominent Alcmaeonid in Athenian politics, and nephew of Cleisthenes, was exiled in 487
BC
, but maintained Alcmaeonid influence at Delphi by winning the chariot race in the Pythian games the following year. His victory was enshrined in an ode by the poet Pindar, the language of which suggests that Megacles, or at least Pindar, realized the need for a more conciliatory approach to the Athenian people, making Alcmaeonid achievements pan-Athenian ones, including the building of the new Apollo temple.
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At the same time, the principal foreign policy issue was preparation for an expected return invasion by the Persians. In Athens, the debates in the assembly focused around whether or not to channel funds from Athenians silver mines into building a substantial fleet. Other cities struggled with the question of whether to submit to such a powerful empire, or attempt (what seemed like) futile resistance. Several put the question to the oracle at Delphi. Argos asked if it should join the anti-Persian alliance, but the response suggested a more defensive, neutral policy. Crete asked if it would be better for them to defend Hellas, and the response suggested that they should keep out of the war entirely. Sparta consulted and was met with the (later-recorded) response that either Sparta or a Spartan king must fall. The Delphians themselves, when the Persians were already marching through Macedonia, consulted on their own behalf and that of Greece, and were told to pray to the winds as allies.
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None of these responses are particularly inspiring: Delphi, the center of the ancient world, seems unenthusiastic about Greece's chances in the coming titanic struggle. Much has been made of Delphic ambiguity in this period, suggesting that the sanctuary was pro-Persian. Scholars have also pointed to the fact that Gelon, the tyrant of Gela (and later Syracuse), who had been begged for help against the Persians by the Athenians and Spartans but had evaded giving help by attaching impossible conditions to his offer, sent gifts for the Persian king to Delphi.
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Even more questionable in some eyes is Delphi's amazing ability to survive intact the subsequent Persian invasion. Such a rich jewel, deep in Persian territory for much of the war, survived without a scratch. Later stories insisted the sanctuary had been saved by supernatural aid: the Delphians had consulted on what to do with the sanctuary's treasures,
but were told to evacuate (many seem to have taken refuge in the Corycian cave and the surrounding area) and leave everything to Apollo (a small garrison of sixty stayed in the sanctuary). The invading Persian force was said to have been knocked back by giant rock falls, the subsequent Persian retreat assured by two long-dead local heroes who took to the battlefield once again.
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Figure 5.4
. The imposing Athenian treasury in the Apollo sanctuary at Delphi (P. de la Coste-Messelière & G. Miré
Delphes
1957 Librarie Hachette p. 98)

Does this amount to a tangible charge of betrayal by Delphi in Greece's critical hour? Not really—it is more useful to think of the oracle in the context of its surroundings. Much of northern Greece, to which Delphi was historically linked, took the view that it was powerless to resist the Persian invaders. Equally it can be argued that Gelon sent his gifts to Delphi not because it was pro-Persian, but because it was a conveniently accessible point in the middle of Greece (and he sent them on condition that they should be returned if Xerxes did not win).
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It is worth noting that Xerxes himself did not send gifts to Delphi, but instead to the nearby sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios. Moreover, the Persians may never have attempted to attack Delphi, if Herodotus is to be believed, since he reports that Mardonius, the Persian commander, believed in an oracular response given by a different oracle that if the Persians attacked Delphi, the sacrilege would ensure that the gods made their campaign fail.
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The divine defense of Delphi thus spoken of in the literary sources (and for certain promulgated by the Delphians themselves in later years) may, thus, be a made-up story, not to hide Delphic Medism, but to give the city and sanctuary at least some honor and crucial role in what was to become a famous war in Greek history.

Critically, whatever the whispers in the air about Delphi in the run-up to the Persian invasion of Greece in the late 480s, the Athenians, determined to oppose the Persians, prepared a full embassy to be sent, with all the proper rites and rituals, to consult the oracle at Delphi just before the battle of Thermopylae in 480
BC
. Having entered the temple, but before they could even ask their question, the Pythian priestess, Aristonice (the replacement for the disgraced Periallus), was said to have addressed them advising them to give up and escape. The ambassadors were appalled and reluctant to return home with such a response. Instead they
took the advice of a Delphian, Timon, who suggested they return as religious suppliants of Apollo to ask for a second oracular response. Praying to Apollo, they asked for a “better oracle about our land” and begged the god “to respect these emblems of suppliants which we have come bringing into your presence, or else we will not leave the shrine, but remain here thus even unto death.” The Pythia's response this time is infamous: that they should trust in their wooden walls.
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Much scholarly ink has been spilled regarding the veracity of this response, but it has all the hallmarks of a traditionally ambiguous Delphic reply, in that it required the ambassadors to return to Athens and submit it for further discussion and debate among the Athenians. Some took it to mean building a wooden palisade around the Acropolis. Themistocles, the Athenian general who had convinced the Athenians some years before to build up their fleet, argued it meant to take to the sea and fight the Persians from their wooden triremes. His proposed interpretation was accepted, and, according to an inscription surviving from the third century
BC
from Troizen, which purports to be a copy of the decree passed at that fraught assembly in which Themistocles won the day, the assembly agreed, “beginning tomorrow,” to evacuate the city and take to their ships.
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In responding to the Athenians, the oracle is shown to have initially kept to its line of non-opposition but, when pressed, to have offered a traditional response that motivated deliberation and decision. More-over, it is clear that Delphi continued to matter to the Greeks.
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Herodotus records that those fighting against Persia took a roll call of all those who had submitted to Persian authority, and made an oath promising to destroy the Persians and bring a percentage of the booty extracted from those who had submitted to be dedicated to Apollo at Delphi.
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The Athenians also returned to consult again just before the final showdown against the Persians at the battle of Plataea asking which gods they should pray to in order to secure victory.
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And in the aftermath of those battles, which led to the legendary stories of the Spartan stand at Thermopylae, the Athenian sea victory at Salamis and again at Plataea, as Robin Osborne puts it: “‘what did this city do in the Persian wars?' [became] the first historical question whose answer mattered that could
be asked of all Greek communities.”
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It is no surprise, then, that stories later circulated about a divinely led defense of the Delphic sanctuary, no surprise that every city, whatever its stance and role in the war, was keen to immortalize (and often realign) the part they had played, and even less a surprise that Delphi, whatever suspicions some may have harbored about the sanctuary, was to be the place where that commemoration would be felt more keenly than anywhere else.

Lord of Lycia, O Phoebus, you who rule over Delos
and who loves Parnassus' Castalian spring,
willingly take those things to heart and make this a land of brave men.