Leaving the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia behind us, and before reaching the cleft of the Phaidriades, we see on our left the Gymnasion as it was modelled in the 4th century B.C. The formation of the ground divides the area into two long and narrow levels. The lower level is smaller. To the east was the palaistra, with a central court surrounded by colonnades and rooms behind them, the undressing-room, wrestling-pit, ball-courts, etc.
To the west was a large court with a circular basin which served as swimming-pool. After exercising, the youths washed themselves under the spouts in the retaining wall of the upper terrace and then swam in the cold water. The larger, upper terrace included the xystos, a 200 m. long, covered colonnade, where the athletes ran when it was raining, and the paradromis, a parallel track in the open air, where they practiced in fine weather. The area and facilities of the Gymnasion were used not only for physical exercise, but also for lessons, poetry recitals and every kind of cultural activity, as was the case with all the gymnasia in ancient Greece.
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We continue on our way westwards. To the right is the awe-inspiring gorge, from which emerges the limpid sound of the sacred Kastalian Spring; Apollo's waters flow down generously into the rich green valley. The two great rocks of the Paidriades, Flempoukos to the east and Rhodini to the west, tower above us forbiddingly, and seem to touch the sky. And opposite, at the foot of Rhodini, extends the great Delphic sanctuary, the temenos of Apollo. Surrounded by a built enclosure, it clings to the slope, occupying an almost rectangular space with a particularly narrow and irregular south side.
The main entrance, used by the pilgrims of antiquity, and the visitors of today, is on the southeast corner of the site. In the days of its glory, the holy site must have been the most impressive museum in the world. Elegant edifices, porticoes, official buildings, scattered in a disorderly pattern over the uneven mountain slope, huddling as best as they could to the right and left of the Sacred Way, some of them in a privileged position right by the road-side, others crowding behind, half-hidden, but all of them without exception fashioned with absolute faith in the master of the sanctuary, Apollo Phoibos. And among these buildings, thousands of statues and votive offerings, apart from the more precious ones which were kept in safety within the small, temple-shaped treasuries, as they were called.
It would be difficult and tedious to enumerate here all the ruins and bases of monuments, in the order they occur as the visitor proceeds along the Sacred Way from the entrance towards the temple of Apollo. The careful reconstruction by the painter K. Eliakis and the accompanying annotation will permit readers and visitors to form a mental picture of the shrine as it was in antiquity and to identify the ruins of the respective monuments. It would be worthwhile, however, to mention briefly the dedicatory offerings which stood near the entrance to the sacred precinct. The first base to the right was surmounted by the statue of a bull, dedicated to Apollo by the Korkyraians (circa 480 B.C.). Opposite this offering, stood the first large statuary group, a dedication of the Athenians to commemorate their victory at Marathon. This work must have been made about 460 B.C., by the still young Pheidias, and was composed of 13 bronze statues representing Miltiades and ten mythical heroes of Athens, flanked by the divine figures of Athena and Apollo.
The Athenians had barely set up their splendid dedication, when their friends, the Argives, hastened to offer their own thanksgiving to the god for their victory over the Spartans at Oinoe in Argolis (456 B.C.), and erected two groups of statues, both on the left hand side of the Sacred Way, next to the dedication of the Athenians. The first group represented the "Seven against Thebes", and the second the "Epigones" who avenged the disaster of the Seven by defeating the Thebans. Again, in 414 B.C., following a victory over the Spartans, the Argives set up a classical Wooden Horse on the same site. It was now the Spartans' turn to present their offering. In 405 B.C., they defeated the Athenians at Aigos Potamoi, causing the final dissolution of the Athenian hegemony. With understable pride, therefore, they raised their monument, opposite those of their adversaries. They cut the rock, erected a colonnaded building with 8 columns on the facade, and housed in it 37 bronze statues of their patron gods, of their victorious admiral Lysander crowned by Poseidon, and of the other admirals.
The battle of dedications does not end here, however. In 371 B.C., the Spartans suffered a severe defeat at Leuktra, and shortly afterwards (369 B.C.) the Arkadians, together with the Theban general Epameinondas, invaded Lakonia. Proud of their achievement, the Arkadians erected, in front of the Spartan dedication, their own statuary group, composed of 9 bronze statues portraying the god Apollo and their mythical ancestors. In the same year, the Argives retaliated upon their perpetual enemies, the Spartans. Next to Lysander's group and opposite their old offering, they raised a new one, consisting of 20 bronze statues of their mythical heroes.
We have walked no farther than 50 m. within the sacred precinct, and we have already counted - in our imagination - 95 statues on either side of the Sacred Way. It is therefore impossible to continue like this, and, if we are to see all the important relics of the sanctuary, we shall have to hasten our pace. The first ruins to the left belong to the Archaic Treasury or the Sikyonians (500 B.C.). Architectural pieces from older buildings were re-used in the construction of this treasury, including the rectangular sculptured metopes, which date from circa 560 B.C. and are of particular significance for the history of Greek sculpture. Four of these metopes are now fairly well preserved.
Next, are the remains of one of the most elegant Ionic treasuries in Delphi: the Treasury of the Siphnians. Built in 525 B.C., it was richly adorned with sculptured decoration. The two columns in front of the entrance were in the form of Korai, usually known as Caryatids. The pediment and frieze were decorated with admirable reliefs, which are now displayed in the Delphi Museum and constitute excellent examples of Archaic sculpture.
At this point the Sacred Way describes a curve and ascends obliquely upwards. Immediately after the curve, on the left, is the Treasury of the Athenians. This is a Doric building, the material of which has largely survived, so that archaeologists were able to restore it entirely supplying only very few additions. (The restoration was made on a grant from the Municipality of Athens, before the Second World War). The pediments and metopes were all decorated with reliefs preserved in sufficiently good condition to permit us to appreciate the Attic sculpture of the late Archaic period. Its precise dating has not been established. Some archaeologists believe that the treasury was built after the battle at Marathon, while others support that it was dedicated by the new Athenian democracy (about 505 - 500 B.C.). The walls of the treasury are covered with inscriptions of later date (3rd century B.C. and later), mostly honorific decrees of Athenians. However, among these inscriptions are two of the most important texts of antiquity: two hymns to Apollo, with the musical notation accompanying the text.
Next to the Treasury of the Athenians lie the ruins of the Delphic Bouleuterion (Council House), a rectangular poros building of the Archaic period. Higher up, there is a huge rock, presumably fallen there from the Phaidriades in very ancient times, long before the shrine was given its later arrangement. It was called the "rock of Sibyl", because the ancients believed that the first mythical diviner, who was said to have come from Erythrai in Asia Minor, stood on this rock to prophesy. A little higher, another, levelled rock supported a very tall Ionic column, which was surmounted by the Sphinx of the Naxians. In the same area was the shrine of Gala (Earth) with its spring, which was guarded by Python, the terrible serpent subsequently slain by the new god, Apollo. Further east, in front of the polygonal supporting-wall of the temple terrace, the Athenians erected an elegant Ionic stoa with 8 Ionic columns, to shelter the spoils from their naval victories over the Persians (479 B.C.).
To the right of the Sacred Way, opposite the area with the monuments described above, was a small circular place, the sacred Halos (Threshing Floor). Here were celebrated every eight years the Septeria, a reenacting of the holy drama representing the killing of the serpent by the god.
The ruins of many other treasuries have survived in various less prominent parts of the sanctuary. They all bear testimony to the worldwide fame enjoyed by Delphi, where all the Greek cities aspired to present rich offerings and erect sacred buildings. Archaeologists have identified, with a greater or lesser degree of certainty, the treasuries of the Knidians, Kyrenaians, Potidaians, Akanthians and Corinthians, while a number of other treasuries still remain anonymous.
But it is the god's temple that has pride of place in the great sanctuary. Half-way up the slope, there is a large terrace, supported on the south side by a fine polygonal wall which was intended to provide a firm base for the temple's foundations. On the north side, there is a retaining wall whose purpose was to protect the temple from falling rocks. The temple we see at present, erected in the 4th century B.C., is the third to have been built on that site (not including of course the three mythical temples of which the first was said to have been made entirely of laurel leaves, the second of feathers and wax, and the third of bronze).
The first temple of Apollo was built in the 7th century B.C. and was destroyed by fire in 548 B.C. It was replaced by the Archaic temple of the Alkmeonidai, which was built with contributions by both Greeks and non-Greeks; it is the temple that displayed on its eastern pediment (made of marble) the god's Epiphany to mankind, when he arrived at Delphi on a chariot with his mother, Leto, and his sister, Artemis. This temple, too, was destroyed, in 373 B.C., and was rebuilt between 369 B.C. and 330 B.C., on plans by the architects Spintharos of Corinth, Xenodoros and Agathon. This temple, which was slightly larger than that of the Alkmeonidai (measuring 60.32 x 23.82 m.), was a Doric peripteros, with a surrounding colonnade of 6 columns on the ends and 15 at the sides.
The east pediment was decorated with the same theme as that of the older temple, while the west pediment depicted the setting of the Sun (Helios), and Dionysos with the Thyiades. With the possible exception of the figure of Dionysos, all the other sculptures have perished. The interior arrangement of the temple poses many questions. The damage in several important parts is such that it has led to the supposition that it had been purposely effected, either by the last of the heathens in order to prevent the Christians from desecrating their holy shrine, or by the Christians out of fanaticism.
It is in this temple that the Pythia probably uttered her last oracle, addressed to Emperor Julian, and it was on the walls of the temple's promos that the visitor read those famous engraved proverbs "nothing in excess" and "know thyself", and the mysterious Delphic letter E, the secret significance of which neither the ancient Greeks nor modern scholars have been able to discover. And finally, it was in this temple, as in the ones that preceded it, that the Delphic oracle was sheltered: the adyton, with the oracular tripod and next to it the omphalos, which the ancient Greeks believed to be the tomb of Python. Not far from these ran the waters of the Kassotis Spring. All this information has been obtained from ancient writers. Excavations have not been able to throw additional light on the matter, because the destruction of relevant data was total; even the position and form of the adyton cannot be reconstructed with certainty.
To the north of the temple, on the northwest corner of the sanctuary, lies the theatre, and east of that the famous Lesche (club) of the Knidians, where the great artist Polygnotos painted the sack of Troy and Odysseus' descent into Hades. Finally, at the highest point outside the sanctuary was the Delphic stadion, where the Pythian Games were held. Pindar celebrated these Games in his fine triumphal odes to the Pythionikai (Pythian victors), the most famous among whom were Hieron of Syracuse and Arkesilaos of Kyrene.
The visitor who wishes to experience to the full the beauty of the Delphic site and fill his spirit with the unique vision of its landscape and monuments will discover, as he wanders slowly and reverently through the ruins, the pedestals of celebrated offerings and will read their fine inscriptions: "The Chians dedicated the altar to Apollo" reads the 5th century B.C. inscription on the monumental altar standing at the entrance to the temple, where the preliminary sacrifice to the god was offered. At a small distance, we find a plain uninscribed pedestal, which was surmounted by the gold tripod offered to the sanctuary by 31 Greek cities after the victory at Plataia. Higher up the slope, there were four more gold tripods, dedicated by the four sons of Deinomenes: Gelon, Hieron, Polyzalos and Thrasyboulos, after their victory over the Carthaginians in 479 B.C.
Still further up, to the north-east of the temple, stood the offering of Daochos, the rich Thessalian who erected a statue of Apollo and eight statues of his ancestors, as well as that of himself and his son; among these, the statue of his great-grandfather, Agias, has survived and is now in the Museum of Delphi. Before we end this rather limited selection of famous votive offerings, we feel bound to remind the reader of one of the finest and most important, historically speaking: namely, the votive offering of Krateros, the celebrated general of Alexander the Great. To the north of the north-west corner of the temple, enclosed within a kind of portico, there were several bronze statues representing Alexander the Great and Krateros engaged in a lion-hunt; this offering was the work of two eminent sculptors of that period (320 B.C.), Lysippos and Leochares.
Delphi - The Sanctuary of Apollo
If you decide to go on one of Athens Tours then it would be a good idea to choose the Tour to Delphi The Four-day Classical tour of Greece is also an excellent idea.
