The wall of polygonal masonry to the right is part of the Heleniko, or terrace wall, of the Great Temple of Apollo. Three marble steps at the back of the Athenian portico, with two Ionic columns in place, stand in front of the wall. The “sacred way,” terminating at the east end of the Great Temple above, passes in front of this portico, and the row of marble seats along its farther side marks out its course. To the left of the drawing is seen the mountain slope of Kirphis leading down to the gorge of the river Pleistos.
The sympathies of Greece were divided in this war, and the final outcome of the struggle was that Philip of Macedonia, who had been called in to finish the previous war, and had been admitted a member of the Amphictyony in place of the dispossessed Phocian tribe, now became master of Greece by reason of his victory over the combined forces of Athens and Thebes at the fateful battle of Chæronea in 338 B.C.
Within the past few years French archæologists have done wonderful work at Delphi. By the removal of the modern village of Castri, the foundations of the temple and the remains of many of the surrounding buildings and monuments have been brought to light. As you pass along the “Sacred Way” you can identify many of the sites mentioned by Pausanias, in the very order in which he describes them. In most places the old pavement still remains, with grooves to keep the feet from slipping. Some of the most precious relics have been removed to the Museum, where there are also models of many of the most beautiful works of art that have perished. Among the former is the famous Omphalos or “Navel-stone,” on which Apollo is often represented as sitting. It marked the spot at which two eagles met, which had been sent out by Jupiter from extreme east and west, of equal speed in flight, to determine the exact centre of the earth. The marble stone which is now shown, although apparently identical with that seen by Pausanias,—for it was discovered on the same spot,—may be only an imitation of the original, like another which has also been recently discovered; and the golden eagles which stood beside the Omphalos have also disappeared. The chasm in the temple floor, from which the vapour ascended that was supposed to inspire the prophetess, cannot now be found, having probably been filled up somehow; but a little way off there is a rock with a rift in it, on which the first Sibyl (mentioned by Plutarch) is supposed to have sat and prophesied. The rift may have been the lurking-place of the dragon which Apollo shot with his darts, when he came from Delos, the land of his birth, to inaugurate the ministry of the Cretan travellers, whom he had enlisted in the service of his new sanctuary. According to the legend the skin of the dragon was left to rot, giving rise to the ancient name Pytho, by which Delphi was known in the days of Homer. In the hymn to the Delphian Apollo the scene of the combat is laid in the gorge of the Phædriadæ, but the other conjecture is supported by the proximity to the Sibyl’s rock of an enclosure like a threshing-floor, which is supposed to be the place where the drama was enacted every fourth year.
A little way above the temple is an open-air theatre—one of the best preserved in Greece. It is in the usual horse-shoe form, with its sloping back, enclosing the sitting accommodation for the spectators, resting on a rising ground. The stadium is still higher, right under the cliffs of Parnassus on the north, and shut in by rising grounds on either side, but commanding a magnificent view to the south over valley and mountain. It was the ancient scene of the Pythian games, and is still recognisable as such in almost every feature. Apollo was regarded as the leader of the Muses, and the Pythian festival was originally a musical, not an athletic contest. The prize of laurel wreath was given for the best song in honour of Apollo to the accompaniment of the lyre. At the conclusion of the first Sacred War, nearly 600 B.C., the chariot races (which are deprecated in the Homeric hymn) were inaugurated in the plain beneath. But the higher form of competition still continued, including even poetry and painting—a distinction of which no other pagan cult can boast. Deeply interesting as the ruins are from an archæological point of view, they bring home a sense of the transitoriness of early glory when one thinks how little remains of the thousand statues and trophies and votive offerings which once filled the spot with “the glory that was Greece.” Time has robbed it of the treasures of art which were to be seen in the days of Pliny, even after the ravages of Sulla and of Nero. Happily, one of the most interesting and beautiful of all the monuments has just been restored, namely the Treasury of the Athenians, which was built of Parian marble in the form of a small Doric temple, from the spoils taken on the field of Marathon. It seems to have been overthrown by an earthquake, but almost all the blocks of which it was constructed have been discovered among the ruins, and have been fitted together with such skill and success as to reproduce the old inscriptions engraved upon the walls, including several hymns to Apollo, with their musical notation. The expense of the restoration has been mainly borne by the city of Athens.
A few hundred yards to the east is the Castalian spring, in the cleft between the lofty Phædriadæ. At one time it was believed to confer the gift of prophecy on those who drank of it; but its rock-hewn basin is now used by the village women for washing clothes. In ancient times its water was used for sacred purposes by the prophetess and her attendants and all who came to consult the oracle. That the purification sought was not merely that of the body may be inferred from a prophetic utterance which has been rendered as follows:—