Pythia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Priestess of Delphi (1891) by John Collier . The priestess is inspired by the ascending pneuma .
Pythia, statue by Marcello, 1870
Themis in the role of Pythia prophesies Aigeus a son (Attic Kylix from Vulci , about 440/430 BC)

Pythia ( Greek  Πυθία , cf. Python ) was the name for the officiating prophetic priestess in the oracle of Delphi , who announced her prophecies in changed states of consciousness . She sat in the Adyton of the Temple of Apollo on a tripod over a crevice ( χάσμα ). A gas escaping from this gap put the Pythia into a kind of trance . According to Pausanias , it was believed that these gases came from the nearby Kassotis spring , the water of which seeped underground. The prophetic gift was bestowed on her, according to the ideas of the time, through the obsession with God Apollo .

Role as oracle

A pythia was chosen from among the residents of Delphi. Your social status does not seem to have played a role (at least temporarily). The ordination as a priestess took place originally and normally in her youth, after an attack by a Thessalian general named Echekrates, the Delphians are said to have decided to hand over the office to elderly women only. A pythia had to remain virgin.

Cicero remarked in his work De divinatione ( On divination ): “Besides, I think that there were also certain vapors from the earth that penetrated the spirit so that it uttered oracles.” The Greek writer Plutarch testified that once one Pythia died as a result of the ecstasy - probably caused by vapors - with convulsions. The Pythia answered incomprehensibly in its prophetic pronouncements and had to be interpreted by a priest.

Attempts to explain

According to a new thesis of a Greek-Italian research team headed by the Italian geologist Giuseppe Etiope, the oxygen in the relatively small chamber was displaced by otherwise non-toxic gases. The lack of oxygen caused by the Pythia then manifested itself in a kind of drunkenness.

See also

literature

  • Lisa Maurizio: Anthropology and Spirit Possession: A Reconsideration of the Pythia's Role at Delphi. In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies . Volume 115, 1995, pp. 69-86
  • William Smith : Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Boston and London 1870, pp. 836-839 sv oraculum .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Irmscher , Renate Johne (Ed.): Lexikon der Antike . 10th edition, Bibliographisches Institut , Leipzig 1990, p. 4764.
  2. ↑ Strabo 9,3,5
  3. ↑ a b Diodorus 16:26 .
  4. ↑ Pausanias 10:24, 8 .
  5. ↑ Euripides , Ion 92.
  6. ↑ Michael Maaß : The ancient Delphi . CH Beck, 2007, p. 16 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed March 24, 2020]).
  7. ↑ Cicero, De divinatione 1,115.
  8. ↑ Plutarch, De Defectu Oraculorum 51 .
  9. ↑ Giuseppe Etiope: Natural Gas Seepage: The Earth's Hydrocarbon Degassing. Springer, Cham / Heidelberg / New York et al. 2015, ISBN 978-3-319-14600-3 , pp. 184-186; Dagmar Röhrlich: Sniffing out the future - Oracle of Delphi gives geologists cause for debate . Deutschlandfunk, October 11, 2006