at Dodona in Epirus, and at Delphi, at the foot of Mount
Parnassus. At Dodona it was Zeus who spoke by the rustling of the
sacred oaks. At Delphi it was Apollo who was consulted. Below his
temple, in a grotto, a current of cool air issued from a rift in the
ground. This air the Greeks thought[59] was sent by the god, for he
threw into a frenzy those who inhaled it. A tripod was placed over the
orifice, a woman (the Pythia), prepared by a bath in the sacred
spring, took her seat on the tripod, and received the inspiration. At
once, seized with a nervous frenzy, she uttered cries and broken
sentences. Priests sitting about her caught these expressions, set
them to verse, and brought them to him who sought advice of the god.

The oracles of the Pythia were often obscure and ambiguous. When
Croesus asked if he should make war on the Persians, the reply was,
"Croesus will destroy a great empire." In fact, a great empire was
destroyed, but it was that of Croesus.

The Spartans had great confidence in the Pythia, and never initiated
an expedition without consulting her. The other Greeks imitated them,
and Delphi thus became a sort of national oracle.

=Amphictyonies.=--To protect the sanctuary of Delphi twelve of the
principal peoples of Greece had formed an association called an
Amphictyony.[60] Every year deputies from these peoples assembled at
Delphi to celebrate the festival of Apollo and see that the temple was
not threatened; for this temple contained immense wealth, a temptation
to pillage it. In the sixth century the people of Cirrha, a
neighboring city of Delphi, appropriated these treasures.[61] The
Amphictyons declared war against them for sacrilege. Cirrha was taken
and destroyed, the inhabitants sold as slaves, the territory left
fallow. In the fourth century the Amphictyons made war on the
Phocidians also who had seized the treasury of Delphi, and on the
people of Amphissa who had tilled a field dedicated to Apollo.

Still it is not necessary to believe that the assembly of the
Amphictyons ever resembled a Greek senate. It was concerned only with
the temple of Apollo, not at all with political affairs. It did not
even prevent members of the Amphictyony fighting one another. The
oracle and the Amphictyony of Delphi were more potent than the other
oracles and the other amphictyonies; but they never united the Greeks
into a single nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] See the account of the traveller Pausanias.

[52