Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/24

 DELPHI. been the chief ibnn of the parificfttion, and hence this is attribnted by the poets to ApdUo himself : — In M KsurraXlas 98t»p SfMroi. (Eorip. Phoen, 822.) ^ Qui rore pnro Castaliae lavit Orines solntoa ** (Hot. Com. iii. 4. 61 ; comp. Or. ifet i. 371 ; Stat Thtb, i. 698). There can be no doabt that those who visited Delphi for the parpoee of being porified from murder baUied their whole bodj in the Castalian spring. There are still remains of a bath cnt out of the rock, which received the waters of the spring, and to which steps led down. It is called by Ulricha the <" Bath of the Pythian Pilgrims." Preceding writers had given it the name of the ** Bath of the Pythia," an appellatioQ which has arisen from the ernmeons statement of a Scholiast {ad Eurip. Phom. 230). The aged women, who were elected to the office of Pythia from the Delphian families, appear never to have bathed in the fbontain, or at all events only npon their consecration to their jhto- pfaetic office, since they lived in the temple without coming in contact with any profime objects, and consequently needed no further purification. In the Ion of Euripides the Pythia is m the adytum before sun-rise, and in the Eummides of Aeschylus there is no mention of the bath of the Pythia before she ascends the tripod. In later times the Oastalisn spring was said to impart to those who drank of it poetic inspiration; but this is an invention of the Roman poets, who appear to have attributed to it this power firam ApoUo being the protector of the Muses: — " Hihi flavus ApoUo Pocnla Castalia plena mimstret aqua." (Ov. Am, L 15. 35; oomp. Stat SUv. v. 5, init; ifartial, zii. 3. 11.) The Castalia is now called the fountain of St Jdm, from a small chi^Ml of St John which stands close to its source. Near the spring there is at present a plane tree, which is the only one in Katiri and the immediate neighbourhood. It is conjectured by Ulrichs to be the very tree celebrated in antiquity as the one which Agamemnon was said to have planted at Delphi (Theophr. But PiaitL iv. 13. s. U), suice it seems scarody possible to assign any fimits to the hfe of plane trees in Greece, espedaUy when they grow by the side of perennial streams. Tlie road from the Castalian spring led to the principal entrance into the Pythian sanctuaxy. The sanctuary, which contuned several other buildings besides the temple, was called r^ icp^y, rh rd/upos and nMw in a narrower sense. It was encksiBd by a wall, named i Icp^s 9tpifio9<os. Pausanias en- tered the sacred enclosure by the principal gate, which £Ked the east» and quitted it by a western door near the theatre. He remarks thAt there were numerous means cf exit, which was unusual in Grecian sanctuaries. He describes the sanctuary as occupying the highest part of the city, and the peribolus w of great size (z. 8. § 9). It appears to have been neariy in the form of a triangle, of which the basis lyii^ towards the south is marked by the ruins called HfXkmc6, The peasants gave the ruins this name, because they regarded tibem AS the wan of a fortress ; and the modern name of Kattfi has arisen out of the belief that a fortress DELPHI. 765 once existed here. Ulrichs also discovered a por- tion of the northern comer half-way between the « church of Nicokus and the fountain Kemd. From the nature of the ground, which is a steep declivity, the buildings in the sacred enclosure must have stood upon terraces; and it was probably upon the walls of these terraces that many of the inscriptions were cut which we now find at Delphi. The most remarkable objects in the sacred en- dosuTB lay between the principal or eastern entrance and the temple. Both Pausanias and the strangers in Plutarch's Dialogue on the Pythian Oracle went from the Castalia to the temple by the same way; and, consequently, the objects which they both agree in describing must be placed between the principal entrance and the temple. Upon entering the enclosure fixm the eastern gate the first objects seen were statues of athletes and other dedicatory ofierings, of which Pausanias has given us a long account (x. 9, seq.). Their num-. ber was very great Even in Pliny's time they were not less than 3000. (Plin. xzxiv. 7. § 7.) Nero alone, as we have already seen, carried off 500 bronze statues. (Pans. x. 7. § 1.) Many of them could be seen, rising above the peribolus, by persons ascending the eastern road to the sanctuary. (Justin, xxiv. 7; Polyaen. vii. 35. § 2.) Pausanias and Plutarch next mention the Stone of the Sibyl, which was a rock rising above the ground, and was so called because it was the seat occupied by the first Sibyl. (Pans. x. 12. § 1; Plut de Pyth, Or, 9 ; Chan. Alex. Strom, L p. 304.) Near the Stone were the Thesauri (^lyaavpol), or treasuries, which did not stand on a single plat- form as at Olympia, but were built separately about the Stone as far as the great altar. They were small buildings, partly above and partly below the ground, in wfajdi were kept the more valuable offer- ings, and such as could not be exposed without injury to the air. The most celebrated of all the treasuries was that of the Corinthians, said to have been built by Cypselus, in which were preserved, among other things, the gold and silver offerings of Gjges- (Pans- x. 13. § 5; Herod, i. 14, iv. 162; Plut SepL Sap, Conmv, 21, de Pyth, Or, 12.) The Stoa, built by the Athenians, also served the purpose of a treasury. (Paus. x. 1 1. § 6.) It stood apparently east of the Stone of the SibyL Near the Stoa of the Athenians was the Bouleu* terion (/SovAcvnfpMv) or Senate-House of the Del- phians. (Plutr.9; Clem. Alex. ^trom. i. p. 304.) In firant of the temple, and under the open heaven, stood the great altar of Apollo, where the daily sacrifices were ofiered. It is probably the same as the altar mentioned by Herodotus (iL 135) as a dedicatory offering of the Chians. It is called by Pausanias ^ft^s 6 fiiyas (x. 14. § 7), by Euripides fit^fUs {Ion, 1275, 1306, 1314), fictfioi (422), and fivfths e<ov (1280). The court in which it stood b called by Euripides $vfi4ii (114) and Bv/i4at (46). Near the altar stood a brazen wolf, dedicated by the Delphians themselves, (Paus. X. 14. § 7.) We now come to the temple itself. It appears from the existing fragmento of columns that the exterior was of the Doric order, and the interior of the Ionic It would seem to have been a hexostyle temple, and smaller by one-seventh than the temple of Zeus at Olympia. Still it was reckoned one of