Yet Plutarch is especially important for our story because he spent a great deal of time at Delphi. Though there is no evidence that he possessed a house or land in the city, we can first place him there at the time of Nero’s visit to Greece, when he visited the sanctuary in the company of his brother. From that time on, Plutarch seems to have taken a keen interest in Delphi, and throughout the rest of his career worked in a series of important civic and religious roles in the city and its sanctuary: he was an agonothetes, a proedros of the Amphictyonic council, as well as an epimeletes of the Amphictyony, and even, in very old age, he was procurator of Greece. He became a citizen at Delphi, and was a priest of Apollo at the sanctuary at the time of the arrival of Trajan’s corrector, Nigrinus, with whom Plutarch became friends (indeed he dedicated one of his philosophical writings, on the subject of brotherly love, to Nigrinus). And following his death in AD 120, just after Hadrian became emperor, he was honored by both Chaeronea and Delphi with a portrait bust in the sanctuary (fig. 10.1).31
Yet Plutarch is even more important for our story because, in addition to being a well-connected and active member of the Delphic community, he was also a great writer, publishing two weighty tomes known collectively as the Moralia and the Parallel Lives. The Lives is a series of individual biographies that paired particularly important Greeks and Romans because of their similar characteristics or achievements. It was a masterwork of historical and psychological analysis drawing on a wide range of previous sources, and has often provided critical insight for modern scholarship, not least for our understanding of Delphi as a place many of his personages passed through or impacted.32
His Moralia, however, is, for our understanding of Delphi at least, perhaps an even more precious survival. It is composed of sixty or so individual treatises on a wide range of subjects from religion to philosophy, ethical matters, politics, science, and literary criticism, some of which are responses to official requests and others notes of his philosophical dinner conversations at his home in Chaeronea and those of his friends. Within this sprawling feast of intellectual abundance lie three treatises explicitly located at, and concerned with, Delphi. All seem to have been written before Plutarch became priest of Apollo (circa AD 95) and were sent by Plutarch as a first installment of his musing over Delphi to Sarapion, a poet living in Athens who wrote verse on scientific subjects.33 The first is a discussion of the meaning of the mysterious letter “E,” one of the philosophical maxims attached to the pronaos of the temple (which, as indicated above, Augustus’s wife, Livia, as Plutarch tells us, replaced with a version in gold).34 The text takes the form of a discussion, at first initiated by Plutarch’s son in conversation with strangers at Delphi and later with Plutarch, who, in turn relates a previous discussion he had on the matter when he was a young man with his friends and a priest of Apollo, and which concludes, after offering several explanations motivated by logic, metaphysics, and mathematics, that there is no certain interpretation of the symbol.
Figure 10.1. Bust of a man of Delphi, often identified as Plutarch but now labeled simply as a philosopher type, dating to the second century AD (© EFA/Ph.Collet [Guide du musée chapter 2, fig. 101])
The second treatise concerns the issue of why the Pythian priestess no longer gives oracles in verse.35 Plutarch is not present in the discussion, which takes place just outside the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Instead, his friends meet, one of them having been on a tour of the sanctuary that included in the group a rather overzealous questioner from the city of Pergamon in Asia Minor. The tour discussion is repeated ranging over a series of issues including the particular color of bronze at Delphi (said to be affected by the unique quality of the air); reasons for the bad verse responses of the Pythia and particular statues and dedications within the sanctuary. The final treatise has been entitled “On the obsolescence of oracles” and also does not include Plutarch, but is a discussion once again among his friends in the sanctuary.36 The occasion for the discussion is the meeting at Delphi of Demetrius, who is at Delphi en route from Britain to Tarsus in Asia Minor; and Cleombrotus, who is en route to Sparta having come from the Red Sea. The discussion is once again far ranging—covering issues of spiritual inspiration, depopulation in Greece, Demetrius’s experiences in Britain—and ending with a discussion about how the Pythian priestess at Delphi is inspired.
These texts have been fundamental (as we have seen in earlier chapters) for our reconstruction of how the oracle at Delphi functioned, and particularly how it continued to function in Plutarch’s time at the end of the first century AD.37 Yet what I want to concentrate on here is how these texts are also fundamental in opening up for us a sense of how the sanctuary as a whole was engaged with, understood, and enjoyed by visitors and locals at the end of the first century AD. Most important, Plutarch’s dialogues show us that there were a steady stream of visitors to Delphi, and that Delphi still acted in some ways as the center of the world (the meeting point of a man coming from Britain and another from the Red Sea). There were enough people coming to Delphi to ensure the need for guides to lead tours, even if those guides are characterized by Plutarch as being fairly ignorant and unwilling to engage in serious philosophical discussion. The dialogues also show us that there was a huge range of interpretation over the practices of the sanctuary, and the many dedications that were on display there. Some visitors reacted with horror and disgust to dedications such as the iron spits offered by the prostitute Rhodopis, which had lain at Delphi since the sixth century BC; and others were mystified by the artistic and architectural choices made by dedicators, such as the island of Tenedos choosing axes as their symbol.38
What this opens up for us is a Delphi that has become a popular tourist location, a place in which to engage with history and memory as much as, if not more than, a place that was the focus of religious pilgrimage. This comes on the back of a, by now, long-standing tradition of texts written about the many magnificent dedications seen (or rather, not seen) at Delphi, starting with analyses by Theopompus in the fourth century BC and Anaxandridas at the beginning of the second century BC of those objects pillaged from Delphi, followed by more general discussions of Delphic treasures by Polemon of Ilion, Alcetas, Apollonius, Melisseus, and Apollas from the second century BC through the first century AD. The guides present at the sanctuary by the end of the first century AD seem to have had a set tour that always started with the Spartan monument to victory at Aegospotamoi (404 BC; see plate 2; fig. 6.2). Similarly, the presence of a number of small terra-cotta lamps from this period at the Corycian cave up above Delphi suggests that it too (see map 3, fig. 0.2), having fallen into decline as a place of religious observance by the end of second century BC, was reborn as a tourism venue, perhaps with lamps (which were discarded, or dedicated, there afterward) provided so that visitors could see into the depths of the cave.39 In short, Delphi, had begun to feel a little like the commercial theater it does today, where tours also often start with the Spartan monument for Aegospotamoi.
It is also through Plutarch, indeed sometimes only through Plutarch (although at other times combined with various epigraphic and literary sources), that we hear about many of the different festivals that made up the religious calendar at Delphi, and indeed the division of the Delphic year into the periods when Apollo and Dionysus were respective masters there. Some of the festivals had been celebrated for centuries, like the Pythian games, and some of them continued right through Delphi’s lifetime.40 Others were begun in response to special events and may have petered out in turn, like the Soteria, started in 279 BC, taken over by the Aetolians in the later third century BC, and, after their fall, by the time of Sulla in the first century BC, likely forgotten.41 Others were begun as the result of particular donations to the sanctuary, like the Eumeneia and Attaleia following donations from the Pergamon rulers, or the Alcesippeia on the back of a donation of Alcesippus of Calydon. Others reflected the current political climate: the Romaia was introduced following Rome’s victories in Greece afte
r 189 BC, and the Sebasta seems to have been introduced at Delphi in honor of the Roman emperors, possibly linked to the conversion of the tholos in the Athena sanctuary into a temple of Roma and Augustus and the shrine for Imperial cult.42
These were, however, but a handful in the midst of a heavy festival calendar. Most months in the Delphic calendar had at least one annual festival celebration, many named after the month itself, like the Theoxenia in the month of Theoxenius (our February), which celebrated the return of Apollo to Delphi from the Hyperboreans and his resumption of mastership of the sanctuary. Others were conducted by only certain members of the Delphic priesthood, like the secret rites for Dionysus mentioned by Plutarch and conducted by the hosioi. When Apollo left Delphi each year in the winter, Plutarch tells us there was another ceremony in which the Thyades—young female worshipers of Dionysus, under the leadership of the Thyia, the priestess of Dionysus—“woke Licnites” (what this entailed we don’t known) and the hosioi made secret sacrifices to Dionysus.43
These were in addition to the festivals, which were celebrated every two, four, and eight years. We have already discussed the festival held every two years in honor of Dionysus, in which the Thyades of Delphi and Athens came together to revel in honor of the god in the Parnassian mountains. The Pythian games were famously held every four, and there were also at least three festival celebrations performed every eight years: the Septerion, the Herois, and the Charila. Little is known about the Herois, which seems to have involved once again a set of secret ceremonies known only by the priestess of Dionysus and involved worship of Semele, the god’s mother. In the Charila, for which Plutarch is our only source, the priest of Apollo distributed barley and pulses in front of the temple, received a doll from the priestess of Dionysus, struck it, and gave it back to the priestess who buried it in the mountains. In thus doing, this festival supposedly replayed a myth in which the local king dispersed grain during a time of famine but refused to give any to a small boy (Charila) who later hung himself, for which the city suffered plague and pestilence.44
The Septerion, however, celebrated Apollo’s victory over the Python serpent and was an elaborate affair. In the open space below the temple terrace (see plate 2), a wooden hut was constructed. A boy, chosen to represent Apollo, went to the wooden hut at night, with an escort, and they proceeded to burn down the hut and overturn nearby tables. The participants then turned and ran out of the sanctuary with the boy having to re-create Apollo’s supposed journey to the valley of Tempe in order to secure forgiveness for the murder of the serpent (see map 2). The boy eventually returned with gifts of laurel from Tempe, which was used later in the year, at the Pythian games, for crowns. Yet it is interesting to note that even regarding these established Delphic festivals, there was much dispute. Plutarch himself discusses doubts over the association of the ritual with the serpent, and that some thought the hut represented the palace of a king.45
All this points to a Delphi in the first decades of the second century AD poised on the brink of, if not a return to its former glory, then certainly a golden age of a different kind. While its oracle may not, as Plutarch’s dialogues make clear, have been functioning as it had in the past (and he famously comments that now only one priestess is needed rather than two or three), the sanctuary (and city) of Delphi was doing a good business as a place of cultural memory and history as well as of religious celebration, which placed it in good stead of having an unusually high degree of contact with, and attention from, the emperor.46 It had highly respected and well known individuals like Plutarch undertaking its important civic and religious positions. The city itself was relatively stable, with at least three well-respected and Romanized Delphic families exerting strong influence for much of the period, many of them, according to one surviving inscribed “dramatis personae” list, taking most of the important roles in the Septerion festival celebrations if not others.47 Moreover, in the fading years of Plutarch’s life, it fell to him to honor and welcome to Delphi an emperor whose love of Greek culture would lead to an even greater Delphic renaissance: Hadrian.
Such in my day are the objects remaining in Delphi
worth recording.
—Pausanias 10.32.2 (second century AD)
11
FINAL GLORY?
In AD 117, Hadrian became emperor of the Roman Empire. Almost immediately, a correspondence began between him and Delphi that would continue for his entire reign, all of which was inscribed publicly on the outer wall of the temple of Apollo. Within a year of Hadrian’s accession to power, he wrote to Delphi twice. The second of these was in response to a letter from Delphi, congratulating him on becoming emperor and asking him to confirm that he would accord Delphi the status of liberty and autonomy accorded by his predecessors. Hadrian replied verifying exactly that. In response, one of Plutarch’s last official acts as priest of Apollo at the temple before his own death circa AD 120 was to oversee the setting up of a statue to Hadrian in the Amphictyony sanctuary The city of Delphi also set up their own statue to the new emperor.1
There was no letup in the exchange of letters after this first volley. Delphi consulted Hadrian at the end of AD 118 on how to honor an individual called Memmius, and between AD 118 and 120, Hadrian ordered that a series of works be erected in the area, the special power for seeing them through delegated to C. Julius Prudens. In AD 125, the relationship between Hadrian and Delphi became even closer as Hadrian embarked on his own visit to central Greece and visited Delphi. That year, he became, like several emperors before him, the archon of the city. During his visit, he is (later) said to have consulted the Pythian oracle, asking a series of questions on Greek culture, in particular where Homer came from and the identity of Homer’s parents. Hadrian’s visit to the sanctuary prompted the erection of another statue of him in his honor, this time the combined effort of the Amphictyony and the city of Delphi.2 Nor was this the only one. T. Flavius Aristotimus, priest of Apollo at the sanctuary and who had already been sent as ambassador from Delphi to Hadrian in Rome, erected a private statue of Hadrian in the sanctuary of Athena (see plate 3). This was one of the last statues to be dedicated in this sanctuary, which had for many years acted as something of an easily accessible mine when ready stonework was needed elsewhere in the Delphic complex.3
There also seems to have been a series of new issues of Delphic coinage during Hadrian’s reign, bearing the head of the emperor on one side, and images related to the sanctuary on the reverse (e.g., Apollo, the omphalos, the façade of the Apollo temple with the celebrated and mysterious “E,” the serpent surrounding the omphalos). Some coins even featured the mouth of the Corycian cave, suggesting its return to prominence and its full inclusion in the standard tour guide of the sanctuary and its religious landscape.4 Perhaps the most interesting coins from this period feature a new figure in Delphic cult at this time: Antinous Propylaius (“Guardian of the Gates”). Antinous, famous for his relationship with the emperor, died in mysterious circumstances on the Nile in AD 130. In response, Hadrian set up a cult in his honor at several places around the Mediterranean (and particularly in the east), including one at Delphi (on the instigation of the priest of Apollo, Aristotimus, who had been responsible for a statue of Hadrian in the Athena sanctuary). This cult, whose location in the Apollo sanctuary is uncertain, was the recipient of a stunning 1.8 meter–high statue of Antinous in Parian marble, which is one of the masterpieces on display in the Delphi museum today (fig. 11.1).5 Nor did improvements under Hadrian cease with the introductions of new cults. The columns of the covered running track (the xystos) in the gymnasium were redone in a bluish marble in ionic style (see fig. 7.3). The first articulation of what would become a built Roman agora—by the Apollo sanctuary’s southeast entrance—also seems to have been made at this time, comprising small workshops perhaps making items to sell to visitors (see plate 2), and the Amphictyony seem to have undertaken work on the small Asclepieion shrine within the Apollo sanctuary at the foot of the temple terrace wall in th
e final years of Hadrian’s reign.6
Figure 11.1. Statue of Antinous dedicated in the Apollo sanctuary at Delphi (P. de la Coste-Messelière & G. Miré Delphes 1957 Librarie Hachette p. 202)
In the run-up to, and aftermath of the visit in AD 125, Hadrian’s proximity to Delphi seems to have prompted the city to consult him on a number of issues associated with the religious and athletic traditions of the sanctuary. The Imperial correspondence from AD 125 that was inscribed onto the Apollo temple wall concerned the organization of the Pythian festival and expressed Hadrian’s concerns (in response to Delphic queries about changing some of the procedures related to these games) that no traditions should be lost or changed. In the following years, as part of his wider Greek agrarian policy, Hadrian also seems to have been consulted and, as a result, have made significant changes to the management of the sanctuary’s sacred land (which was now known simply as “territory”—see map 3), and to the reorganizing of its citizen classes to create a new category of citizen, the damiourgoi, who were to be given full civic rights and larger land allotments. The purpose of this reorganization seems to have been to manufacture a particular class of wealthy citizen at Delphi who could fulfill the role of a local governing class. Though not all the letters between Hadrian and Delphi have survived in full, we know that regular correspondence continued through to Hadrian’s death in AD 138, with Delphic praise for the emperor becoming more and more overt. They praised him for assuring the “peace of the universe,” marked the days of his first (and second) visit to Delphi as sacred days in the Delphic calendar, and wrote a number of letters on no particular issue except to express their adoration of him.7
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