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An excerpt:
[. . . ] the Oracle worked for only nine months of the year. In winter, November to February, it was Dionysos who ruled over the sanctuary and orgiastic rites occurred in his honour. Dionysos is now often seen as “the dark force” of Apollo, rather than a separate god. Officially, Dionysos was Apollo’s divine half-brother, whose tomb was within the temple at Delphi. Apollo signified light and reason and life; Dionysos darkness and ecstasy and rebirth. Though his tomb was inside the temple, the rites of Dionysios did not occur inside the Temple, but in the Korykian cave, a cave located higher up the mountain, reached by following a seven mile journey up the slope of Mount Parnassos. What occurred here is little known, as the rite was part of a mystery cult with initiates pledging to keep its secret. Plutarch did note that Clea was not only high priestess of Apollo, but also leader of the Dionysian rites, suggesting that when not inhaling the fumes of the Python, in winter-time, the Pythia engaged in the sexual orgies of Dionysos [. . . ]
I remember being at Delphi, the "omphalos" (navel) of the world. It may sound New Age-y, but there really was some sort of "vibe" there that made Delphi "feel" more sacred than other places. Maybe just the weight of all that history.
We had a few hours off that day, and I wandered off by myself and sat on the side of Mount Parnassus (I know!!!). I was secretly hoping that Apollo would appear to me -- although I also knew that was probably a Very Unwise Thing to wish for, considering the bad track record for interactions between mortal women and Greek gods. I even chanted what little ancient Greek I knew. Luckily for me, Apollo did not appear.
From the Wikipedia article on Delphi:
Erwin Rohde wrote that the Python was an earth spirit, who was conquered by Apollo, and buried under the Omphalos, and that it is a case of one deity setting up a temple on the grave of another.[11] Another view holds that Apollo was a fairly recent addition to the Greek pantheon coming originally from Lydia. The Etruscans coming from northern Anatolia also worshiped Apollo, and it may be that he was originally identical with Mesopotamian Aplu, an Akkadian title meaning "son", originally given to the plague God Nergal, son of Enlil. Apollo Smintheus (Greek Απόλλων Σμινθεύς), the mouse killer[12] eliminates mice, a primary cause of disease, hence he promotes preventive medicine.
There were two aphorisms carved on the pediment of the temple of Apollo at Delphi: γνῶθι σεαυτόν - Know thyself, and μηδὲν ἄγαν - Nothing in excess.
Good advice from a Python-slaying, mouse-slaying, medicine-promoting, refusing-to-appear-to-Catherine ancient Greek god. :-)
It's steampunk-y, it's a calendar, AND it's from classical Greece! *hyperventilating*
I could have gone into Mediterranean Studies. I could have been studying this RIGHT NOW.
From The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project:
More than a hundred years ago an extraordinary mechanism was found by sponge divers at the bottom of the sea near the island of Antikythera. It astonished the whole international community of experts on the ancient world. Was it an astrolabe? Was it an orrery or an astronomical clock? Or something else? For decades, scientific investigation failed to yield much light and relied more on imagination than the facts. However research over the last half century has begun to reveal its secrets. It dates from around the 1st century B.C. and is the most sophisticated mechanism known from the ancient world. Nothing as complex is known for the next thousand years. The Antikythera Mechanism is now understood to be dedicated to astronomical phenomena and operates as a complex mechanical "computer" which tracks the cycles of the Solar System."There's recent news about this ancient device -- news that's being released at an extremely appropriate time, all things considering... Turns out that, as reported in Nature, "The upper subsidiary dial is not a 76-year Callippic dial as previously thought, but follows the four-year cycle of the Olympiad and its associated Panhellenic Games."
So these ancient astronomers (1) built an extremely complex astronomical calculator, (2) tuned it to predict solar eclipses, (3) tuned it to predict the Olympic Games.
This makes me so very happy. Rock on, ancient Greek astronomers.
( References )
- Mood:swooning
Fragment of a Greek Tragedy
by Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936)
ALCMAEN. CHORUS.
CHO. O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveler, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.
ALC. I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHO. Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars?
ALC. Plying with speed my partnership of legs.
CHO. Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
ALC. Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
CHO. To learn your name would not displease me much.
ALC. Not all that men desire do they obtain.
CHO. Might I then hear at what your presence shoots?
ALC. A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that--
CHO. What? for I know not yet what you will say--
ALC. Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.
CHO. Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.
ALC. --This house was Eriphyla's, no one else.
CHO. Nor did he shame his throat with hateful lies.
ALC. May I then enter, passing through the door?
CHO. Go, chase into the house a lucky foot.
And O my son, be, on the one hand, good,
And do not, on the other hand, be bad;
For that is very much the safest plan.
ALC. I go into the house with heels and speed.
CHORUS
STROPHE
In speculation
I would not willingly acquire a name
For ill-digested thought;
But after pondering much
To this conclusion I have come:
Life is uncertain.
This truth I have written deep
In my reflective midriff
On tablets not of wax,
Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there,
For many reasons: Life, I say, is not
A stranger to uncertainty.
Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls
This fact did I discover.
Nor did the Delphic tripod bark it out,
Nor yet Dodona.
Its native ingenuity sufficed
My self-taught diaphragm.
ANTISTROPHE
Why should I mention
The Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus?
Her whom of old the gods,
More provident than kind,
Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail,
A gift not asked for
And sent her forth to learn
The unfamiliar science
Of how to chew the cud.
She, therefore, all about the Argive fields,
Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops,
Nor yet did they disagree with her.
But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts
I do not hanker after:
Never may Cypris for her seat select
My dappled liver!
Why should I mention Io? Why indeed?
I have no notion why.
EPODE
But now does my boding heart
Unhired, unaccompanied, sing
A strain not meet for the dance.
Yea even the palace appears
To my yoke of circular eyes
(The right, nor I omit the left)
Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak,
Garnished with wooly deaths
And many shipwrecks of cows.
I therefore in a Cissian strain lament;
And to the rapid,
Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest
Resounds in concert
The battering of my unlucky head.
ERIPHYLA [within]. O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw;
And that in deed and not in word alone.
CHO. I thought I heard a sound within the house
Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
ERI. He splits my skull, not in a friendly way,
One more: he purposes to kill me dead.
CHO. I would not be reputed rash, but yet
I doubt if all be gay within the house.
ERI. O! O! another stroke! that makes the third.
He stabs me to the heart against my wish.
CHO. If that be so, thy state of health is poor;
But thine arithmetic is quite correct.
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