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
Within this rapidly changing world, the Amphictyony came to have a good deal of control over Delphi. But just what was the Amphictyony and what was it for? These questions have exercised much scholarly debate, not only concerning the Amphictyony’s composition and purpose, but also its nature, impact, and power in archaic and classical (and, indeed, Hellenistic and Roman) Greece. Translated literally, “Amphictyony” means those “who live around,” and the name was given to a number of pluri-regional associations functioning in the archaic period (e.g., the Amphictyonic leagues of Calauria, Onchestus, Itonia, Delos, and Delphi), of which only the Amphictyonies of Delphi and Delos were to survive with any purpose into the classical world.18 Each was centered in a particular sanctuary, and, as a result, the nature of these associations has been thought to have been primarily religiously motivated. The Amphictyony that came to be involved at Delphi, perhaps in the mid-seventh century BC and perhaps only in the run-up to conflict in the early sixth century, was not originally, or indeed, ever, centered entirely around the sanctuary at Delphi. Instead its heart was the sanctuary of Demeter of Anthela near Thermopylae—still not archaeologically located (see map 2), and its own date of foundation as an association varies in the ancient sources from the time of the Trojan War to the eighth century BC. Its traditional heartland was thus in central/northern Greece, and its subsequent involvement in Delphi entailed an increase in its activities farther south. Its move to incorporate Delphi also occasioned a change in its composition, with the result that the Dorians of the Peloponnese, the Delphians, Athenians, and West Locrians all gained membership, reflecting its new role in central Greek affairs.19 And noticeable from this list of new entrants, in addition to the list of earlier members, the Amphictyony was a curious mix of more recent polis city-states, older ethnos tribal groups, and even older loose constructions of people from particular geographical areas. It was, thus, always, an association of its time and and not of its time.
What was its purpose? The ancient sources outline it as anything from ending conflicts that divided Greece, to ensuring its defense against the barbarians, to the more modest protection of the goods of the sanctuary (or sanctuaries) under its jurisdiction, and to stopping conflict between its members. Many have, as a result, sought to portray the Amphictyony as the Panhellenic body par excellence of the archaic period; some have even seen it as a prototype European Union. On the other hand, some scholars have argued that it was little more than an “old boys’ club” and a fairly ineffective talking shop. More recently, scholarly consensus has characterized the Amphictyony as a multiregional but not Panhellenic, old-fashioned, and yet supple institution that lacked permanence and continuity and drifted in and out of usefulness and power as and when it suited the needs of various of its members. As we shall see in later chapters, we hear nothing about the Amphictyony in the fifth century BC, for example, and its role at Delphi in the sixth century only comes to the fore in fourth-century BC sources, when the Amphictyony strove to be seen as a major force (once again) in Greek affairs.20
Why was the Amphictyony interested in Delphi? We have seen why particular members (Thessaly, Athens, Sicyon) had their own interests in Delphi, and some scholars argue that it was the attraction of the sanctuary and settlement as a successful node on an important trade network that may have convinced the rest to decide on official Amphictyonic involvement. But it is clear that the involvement of this large pluri-regional association at Delphi catapulted the sanctuary into a new level of renown, as well as a new (or rather first-ever) bout of serious sanctuary construction, made possible not least in part thanks to new access to a much wider range of raw materials from the Amphictyony’s constituent members.21
How did the management of Delphi change as a
result of its incorporation into the Amphictyony during the first quarter of the sixth century BC? Who now “ran” the sanctuary, and what did that mean for Delphi? This is not an easy question to answer, because it is dependent not only on how the city and Amphictyony chose to represent it in later centuries (particularly the fourth century BC), but also on the fact that the available evidence suggests there were regular fluctuations in the management structure. In part it is also difficult because of the—most probably not inconsiderable—difference between the de jure and de facto positions, that is, what was supposed to be the case and what actually was the case. In reality, it is accepted that the Amphictyony was not a permanent body, but a council that met twice a year (and split its meetings between the sanctuaries of Demeter at Anthela and at Delphi). It had no permanent secretariat or bureaucracy (except for a time in the fourth century BC). As a result, while many scholars accept that “financially, politically, and administratively, the Amphictyony were entitled to have the first and final say in what went on,” practically, their reaction times would have been “elephantine.” their capacity to manage “intermittent,” and their leverage power “minimal.”22
In contrast, the authorities of the developing city of Delphi, which surrounded the newly elaborated sanctuary, are argued to have been in day-to-day control.23 Some scholars have also sought to define the way in which the city of Delphi and the Amphictyony chose to carve up responsibility for different parts of the sanctuary’s activities. Its reconstruction in 575 BC (and again after 548 BC) as well as the running of the Pythian games are considered to have been the responsibility of the Amphictyony, whereas the oracle was the responsibility of the city of Delphi. Other scholars have argued that it is impossible to impose such neat divisions, because they never existed, and that the history of Delphi remains continually ambiguous, with, at best, assumptions that there existed periods of tension and forced relations between the Amphictyony and the city.24
Our picture of Delphi in the first quarter of the sixth century is thus uncertain in many ways. We know it was an increasingly important oracular center as well as a site for dedication, and we know that by 575 BC, the first dramatic articulation of the sanctuary of Apollo had been made, possibly combined with the construction of a temple to Apollo, and that by this time the Pythian games were also in existence (see fig. 3.2).25 Yet what exactly sparked this rebirth, and the nature of the players involved, is unclear. We know, however, that Delphi was strengthened by the events of the first quarter of the sixth century BC: its safety and position in the immediate geographical region was secured, its access to a wider number of resources and its existence as a place of importance to a wider number of cities, ethnos states, and geographical areas across Greece were assured. But those same events had also demonstrated the conflicting interests of those who had a stake at Delphi. They had dictated, particularly with the demand for noncultivation of the fertile land below Delphi, that the fate and survival of Delphi’s inhabitants was entirely tied to that of the oracle and the sanctuary. And they had formulated a management system for the sanctuary that in part thanks to its flexibility was open to manipulation and likely to cause tension in centuries to come.26
During, and in the aftermath of this war, who was consulting the oracle at Delphi? We saw briefly in the last chapter how Cylon’s attempted coup at Athens in the late seventh century BC involved the oracle (and a misinterpretation by Cylon of the oracle’s advice). Athens was seemingly racked by political struggle in this period, with political sympathies strongly linked to family ties: the surviving fragments of Draco’s laws from the late seventh century suggest that the social and political instability in Athens at this time required a new and “draconian” legal code. In c. 596 BC, the Athenians were back at Delphi to ask about a plague that had struck the city and how best to alleviate themselves from its grip. This was followed quickly by a number of consultations by the Athenian lawgiver Solon. Solon’s initiatives in Athens—again the subject of bitter scholarly dispute because of the (mostly) later evidence for them—came at a time when political dispute seems to have come to a head in Athens, leading to major social as well as political unrest.27 Yet his changes to the Athenian civic and political system were profound, not only because they offered a renegotiation of the social contract for the different classes of Athenian citizen, but also because they tied Athens, as Sparta had been in the previous century, to Delphi as an important element in Athens’s own civic reform. We don’t have surviving evidence for what Solon’s inquiries consisted of, only that the oracle’s replies advised a straight course from a single herald. At the same time, however, it’s clear that Solon felt the oracle was an important part of his (and Athens’s) decision-making system. In Solon’s constitution for Athens, the chief magistrates of the city were required, upon entering office, to take a public oath in the Agora that, if they transgressed the laws, they would dedicate a life-size golden statue at Delphi. Solon also appointed three exegetai pythochrestoi, officials who were selected by the oracle from a short list of Athenians. Their function was to act as interpreters of the sacred law and ritual (not unlike the Delphic representatives in the Spartan constitutional system), and in practice, their appointment by the Delphic oracle cut across the traditional system of ancestral patronage for such positions, which had dominated in Athens in previous centuries.28 Solon even returned to Delphi again in c. 570 BC to inquire of the oracle about the Athenian attempt to conquer Salamis, and was told to worship particular Salaminian heroes.29 Given that Athens also constructed, or very soon would construct, a small treasury structure at Delphi in this period (on the site of its later marble treasury, whose reconstruction stands at the sanctuary today), it seems clear that Athens felt it had a close relationship with the sanctuary during, and directly following, the First Sacred War.30
Not all those, however, who were involved in leading the conflict over Delphi in the early sixth century BC seem to have been so favored as a result. While the Amphictyony’s longer-term association with Delphi brought Thessaly, which presided over the Amphictyonic council, a say in events in mainland and southern Greece, Delphi failed to portray any real signs of favoritism toward Thessaly in return.31 As well, the sanctuary did not repay another of its main supporters: Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon (who ruled c. 600–570 BC). Cleisthenes is argued to have been spurred into action over Delphi because of his Corinthian enemies’ close interaction with the sanctuary.32 In response Cleisthenes of Sicyon not only took a lead in the war over Delphi, but also seems to have been responsible for two of the most individualized and ornate monumental architectural dedications of the first half of the sixth century within the newly elaborated Apollo sanctuary: a tholos (a round colonnaded structure) and a monopteros (square colonnaded structure).33 While we are not sure where exactly these structures were placed in this new building because they both fell prey to the redevelopment of the sanctuary in the second half of the sixth century (see the next chapter), it’s likely that they were close to the newly built and improved (and perhaps still being built) temple of Apollo. More importantly, though in date the tholos and monopteros seem to have been dedicated some fifteen years apart, stylistically, it’s likely they were planned as a unit. The tholos symbolized a monumentalized version of a traditional form of smaller stone religious dedication (the perirrhanterion), whereas the monopteros replicated the newly emerging temple, complete with carved metopes, each of which keyed in to the newly emerging Panhellenic Greek vocabulary of architectural sculpture themes, whose style and life (the sense of the scenes jumped across metope panels forcing the viewer’s eyes to keep moving around the structure), however, are testament to its sculptural sophistication and individualization.34
Cleisthenes of Sicyon had thus ensured not only a position at the forefront of the fight to “free” Delphi, but had graced the sanctuary with its finest monumental dedications to date. He had even participated in the sanctuary’s new athletic games, winning the chariot race.35 What did i
t gain him? On the one hand, the first half of the sixth century saw the gradual transference of the allegiance of Corthinian tyrants away from Delphi to Olympia.36 Periander, Cypselus’s successor, dedicated “Cypselus’s” cedar-wood chest, covered in ivory and gold, at Olympia, where it was seen by Pausanias in the temple of Hera in the second century AD.37 On the other hand, Cleisthenes received little for his investment in the sanctuary from the Delphic oracle. The one recorded consultation by Cleisthenes, on how to strengthen his rule at Sicyon by removing the bones of the Argive hero Adrastus that were acting as a focal point for his opposition, met with a stern rebuke from the oracle, who told Cleisthenes he was a mere skirmisher whereas Adrastus had been a king. It is perhaps no surprise that many have interpreted Cleisthenes’ subsequent creation of athletic games in honor of Apollo Pythios at Sicyon—which were supposedly paid for our of his share of spoils from the First Sacred War—in the spirit of direct competition to those newly created at Delphi (rather than in praise of the Delphian games).38
It is testament to the increasing strength of Delphi in the Greek world, and indeed the wider world, at this time, as well as an example of the trend in the ancient literature to mark Delphi’s credentials as increasingly antityrannical, that Delphi failed to treat well several powerful leaders who lavished its sanctuary with dedications when they came for oracular consultation.39 The most famous examples are of Alyattes and his son Croesus, kings of Lydia. We have met this family before. Alyattes, king between 619 and 560 BC, had attacked Miletus and burned down a temple of Athena. He had subsequently fallen ill and sent to Delphi for advice. The oracle had apparently refused to reply until the temple of Athena was restored, and when it was, Alyattes recovered, and subsequently sent a huge, silver mixing bowl on a welded iron base to Delphi (one of those Eastern dedications that collected in front of the new temple’s eastern front). Croesus, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. It is his story of oracular consultation at Delphi that is perhaps Delphi’s most famous, and that we touched on in an chapter about the workings of the Delphic oracle as the classic case of how not to ask your question at Delphi and the perils of misinterpreting the oracle’s answers. It was Croesus’s generation that the oracle had foreseen (or was later said to have foreseen) would bear the revenge for Gyges’ slippery usurpation of power (see previous chapters). Croesus, intent on gaining oracular approval for his upcoming military campaign is said to have first tested all the famous oracles around the Mediterranean to find out which one was the most accurate by sending messengers asking what he was doing one hundred days from the day they left Lydia (as Herodotus is keen to highlight, this was a very unusual form of question to an oracle). The oracle at Delphi was said to have answered correctly: Croesus was chopping up a tortoise and a lamb in a bronze cauldron with a bronze lid.40 As a result, Croesus showered Delphi with dedications to sit resplendent in its newly articulated sanctuary. Different ancient sources claim he demanded contributions from individual Lydians, burned three thousand sacrificial victims along with encrusted gold and silver beads, casting the molten residue into 117 half-bricks (4 pure gold and the others white gold) to be surmounted by a lion statue of pure gold weighing ten talents. Nor did it stop there. Croesus also sent two extra-large mixing bowls, one of gold and one of silver, which would in Herodotus’s day play a key role in Delphic temple ceremonies. He also sent four silver jars, two vessels (one of gold, one of silver), bowls of silver, a golden statue of a woman, and many other smaller dedications including the necklace and girdles of his queen.41
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