In the brutal afternoon heat while touring the temple of Apollo, I found a tall, thin Cypress tree offering shade. Soon the Germain family was lined up behind me, all enjoying the comparative coolness offered by the tree. So now I introduce, from front to back, the Germains – Laura, Elizabeth, Dan, and Charlie.
Nearly a year ago Mark & I were visiting friends in Chicago. While waiting to see an old colleague at his job in Greek Town, we went to lunch, sat down in a Greek restaurant, and said “We should go to Greece next summer.” Not long after we were visiting with our friends Dan & Laura who were talking about taking a 2015 summer trip with their kids Charlie & Elizabeth to see Rome. “No,” we insisted, “Come to Greece with us instead.”
Yeah, there’ll be lots of stories of history and art and myths and Gods and all that. Meanwhile, here’s what we really came to Greece for: our first Greek salad.
For centuries, Delphi was the religious and spiritual center of the ancient Greek world. Though Greece then consisted of a large number of independent city-states, often highly competitive or even at war with each other, Apollo’s sanctuary here was considered sacred and thus protected by and accessible to all Greeks. It was, in fact, considered the center of the universe, the omphalos or navel of the world. Every four years the site also hosted the Pythian games, second only to the contests at Olympus in terms of prestige. Unlike the Olympian games, though, the Pythian games also included the mousikos agon or musical contests as well.
The remaining pieces of Apollo’s Temple, with a spectacular view over the Phocis Valley.
Of central importance to the sanctuary of Apollo here was the Oracle of Delphi, a priestess who offered prophecies based on her communication with Apollo. Selected at the death of a current priestess, she was available to answer questions from as relatively trivial as to if or when a couple should marry to whether a Greek state should go to war. It was said that the Oracle would go into a trance – thought by many, including the historian Plutarch, to have been caused by vapors escaping through the center of the universe. Her answers were often notoriously ambiguous.
The stadium, where the Pythian games took place. The seating was added by Emperor Hadrian – a noted Hellenophile – in the first century AD; before then, fans just stood or sat on the ground.
Today, the stadium is roped off; you can see it but you can’t go into it. When Mark was here in 1984, though, it was wide open and so some of the girls he was traveling with sponsored their own version of the Pythian games. He had all the fun!
My favorite story about the Oracle of Delphi is from the legendary Croesus, king of the Ionian state of Lydia and thought by the Greeks at least to be the world’s richest man. He was preparing to attack the far more powerful kingdom of Persia and went to the Oracle to ask for advice. She responded that if he attacked the Persians he would destroy a great kingdom. Of course, he forgot to ask which kingdom would be destroyed and lost everything when Cyrus the Great of Persia wiped out his army.
Delphi was a great start to the Greek expedition, a nice little jolt of ancient history in a cute town with fantastic views over the valley and classic Greek food. Next we move south for a couple days on the Peloponnese Peninsula.
The grand amphitheater, looking over the temple of Apollo and the whole valley. This is where the musical competitions during the Pythian games took place.
And here are Mark & Laura testing the acoustics at the theater, lustily belting out Mama Mia!
Adjacent to the ruins is a pretty good museum with lots of old stuff. This is a statue of Antinuos, a youth of “extraordinary beauty” who was 2nd century AD Roman Emperor Hadrian’s beloved companion or, as we would call him today, the Emperor’s boy toy. When he drowned in the Nile river – thought by some to be at Hadrian’s order as a human sacrifice – Hadrian ordered statues of him to be erected across the empire and had him deified in the east where that was considered acceptable. This statue, found in remarkably good condition here at Delphi, is one of the most complete.
On the road to Delphi and just a half-mile or so below the temple of Apollo stands this temple to Athena, the first temple in the area encountered by pilgrims coming up from Athens
Happy Elizabeth & Laura
And happy Mark, with a kitty at the temple of Athena