A Study Of The Delphic Oracles

Delphic oracle is the phenomenon of religion associated with the history of ancient Greece. It was the living guide and spiritual support of ancient Greeks. From the 6th century B.C., it became the most popular Greek oracle. Its consultants were from all Hellas and beyond. It has a very significant impact on the ancient Mediterranean World. Analysis on this subject can help us understand the history of the ancient Greece and the Mediterranean lands. This article based on the classical literature and archaeological materials, studied the existing Delphic oracle, and selected various oracles to make case analysis, in order to get a more profound understanding.This article comprises introduction, five chapters and conclusion.The introduction mainly explains the background of this subject, the research objectives, significance, ideas and main innovations, and makes synthetically comment on relative historical materials and domestic and international research situations.Chapter one:The issuance of Delphic oracle. Delphi located in the Phocis region of central Greece, is the very important religion center. From the early 6th century B.C. to the end of the 4th century B.C., different forces fought to each other here, where broke out three holy wars. There were three stages of issuance of Delphic oracle:before issuance, priests and priestess of the temple to bathe separately at the Castalian spring, made preparations for sacrifice; after sacrifice, to ensure that Apollon willing to issue oracle, the requestor entered the chamber, the oracle of Pythia Priestess, the priest sorted out the records and gave them to the requestor; the requestor fathomed and understood the oracle.Chapter two:The oracles to polis affairs. When ancient Greek polis or hellenistic leagues encountered events, they usually sent emissaries to Phocis, and requested oracles for the destiny of polis, the choice of dominator of polis, the overseas colonization of polis, the catastrophe of polis, the wars and negotiations between polis and other important issues. After elaboration of them separately, took ancient Greek events like the colonization of Thera, the Persian War, and the Peloponnesian War as the cases of Delphic oracle to analyze the affection it made on these events.Chapter three:The oracles to private business. Although the amount of Delphic oracle to the private business is much less than the oracle to ancient Greek polis, but it was also an important aspect of understanding the daily life of ancient Greeks. According to the enquiring content of requestors, this article divided these oracles into six classes, origin and future, marriage, for an offspring, diseases, dreamland and death, and analyzes them separately.Chapter four:The oracles to the surrounding world. Along with the affection of the Delphic oracle, the people who came to request oracles not limited to indigenous people and colonists, but also emissaries from Lydian empire and Rome. The oracles to Lydian empire mainly focus on the period of Mermnadae, to Rome mainly focus on personal future, regime changes and wars.Chapter five:The affection and characteristics of Delphic oracle. The author analyzes the impact on the Mediterranean World from the aspects of politics, economy, military, religion, and morals, and summarizes the characteristics. Comparing with other oracles, the impact of Delphic oracle is more profound, and its contents are more creditable.Finally, in conclusion, the author analyzes the reasons of ultimate decline of Delphic oracle from the internal and external factors. From the internal factor, it is the consequence of the too close combination of Delphic oracle and politics and the decline of worship of Apollo; from the external factor, it has great relations with the downfall of polis political system and the emergency of Christianism.