Delphi: The Bellybutton of the Ancient World Page #2

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It can't help us explain why Delphi

became such a spectacular sanctuary,

and why it maintained its reputation

in the ancient world

for over 1,000 years.

If we examine Greek religion itself

however, things become clearer.

After all, Oracles were

a basic element

of ancient Greek religious

traditions,

and they included some sometimes

quite bizarre beliefs.

And to understand the religion

of ancient Greece

you have to understand

that there were

gods in everything and everywhere.

Poseidon in the sea,

Hades in the underworld,

nymphs in the grottos and

caves, Pan around you.

Every tree, every bush had a god.

And in that world,

the gods had to be worshipped.

They had to be prayed to.

Demeter to fertilise your fields, or Athena

to watch over your city or your industry.

You had to make sacrifices.

You met the gods in your dreams,

they cured your illnesses,

they were everywhere

and they could be for you

or against you,

so you had to do your utmost to

ensure that they were on your side.

These ideas go back to the very

beginnings of ancient Greece.

I'm on my way to one of the

oldest sacred places in the area.

It lies even higher up Parnassus,

behind the Delphi peaks,

right off the tourist map.

It was one of the many places

where the ancients came

to make offerings

to their many gods.

This is the Corycian cave,

sacred to Pan, the god of

the countryside, and to the Muses.

It was only in 1969, some

eight decades after Delphi began

to be excavated, that scholars began

to investigate this place properly.

What they found was amazing.

Some of the objects had been

put here nearly 7,000 years ago,

long before the Oracle

at Delphi began to develop.

Most of them weren't as old as that,

but all of them were very different

from the statues and great buildings

the French had found at Delphi.

They found lots of things

like this in the cave.

Perfume jars,

small oil flasks, things like...

necklaces,

and rings.

They're all very low-key,

very personal,

and demonstrate the close

and continuous relationship

between the local Delphians

and their visitors,

coming here to worship

their local gods in this cave.

Offerings in places like this were

designed to keep the gods on-side.

But the excavators discovered the cave was

more than just a place to make offerings.

There was something else found here.

In fact, 25,000 knucklebones,

animal knucklebones.

Now knucklebones in ancient Greece

were used by kids as part of a game.

And they may have been dedicated

here at the cave

as part of a ceremony

that symbolised the transition

between childhood and adulthood,

on the eve of marriage, for example.

But about 20% of these knucklebones

were also inscribed with the names

of gods, and some of them

looked like dice.

In fact, we also found dice,

ancient dice, here in the cave.

Now this is interesting, because

dice are sometimes associated with

a cheaper, easier Oracle.

So the cave was also used for

divination, a simple kind of Oracle.

The aim was to lift the curtain

between the natural world and the

supernatural world of the gods.

This cave was an arena for

spiritual communication

going back thousands

and thousands of years.

But down below, in the sanctuary

of Apollo at Delphi,

it was all on a very

different scale.

Here you had farmers,

shepherds, local villagers

coming to consult

perhaps a dice Oracle.

Down below you had

tyrants, cities,

emperors, kings, coming

to ask their questions.

Questions that would define

the history of the ancient world.

Although the Delphic Oracle emerged

from traditions like this,

Delphi itself began

as a typical settlement

of the high country

of central Greece.

And the earliest remains indicate not a

religious centre, but a prosperous town.

According to Catherine Morgan, one

of the leading experts on early Delphi,

it was the geography here

which may have made the difference.

It's a very well-connected area.

We're pretty close to the major mountain

passes coming down from the North.

We're right on a major east-west

waterway. The really major junction.

Here we've got an amazingly

fertile plain.

We've got quite a nice harbour, and then

we've got good pasture land up above.

So all the resources are here.

It's a seriously big place.

It's not specifically a place of

pilgrimage and sanctuary,

but it is a community

with a religious centre.

Its location on long distance trade

routes brought visitors to Delphi

in increasing numbers.

And the reputation of Delphi's

local Oracle began to spread.

From 800 BC onwards, it began to

attract interest and offerings

from further and further afield.

At first, they were small

bronze statues of warriors

and praying worshippers.

Later they ran to giant bronze

cauldrons, and gold and silver, too.

The Oracle was heading for stardom.

And the economic effects

were enormous.

Almost from the minute you've separated

the sanctuary from the local surroundings,

you're creating a cuckoo.

You've got something that requires

very, very high maintenance.

It's requiring an awful lot of

sacrificial animals, lodgings, etcetera.

Where are you going to get it from?

You're warping

the local economy to do that,

and certainly a lot of what we know

implies an increasingly rich,

pastoral economy supplying Delphi.

So Delphi's international career

began for real

in the seventh century BC,

and it's a career

which still continues today.

In one way, modern Delphi is a

reincarnation of the ancient sanctuary.

How you doing?

Coming live from Delphi!

It still brings people

from all over the world.

They come now to learn about

the past, not the future,

but they bring with them

stories about the present.

Canada's gotten off pretty scot-free

with regards to the economic crisis.

They bring information,

in huge quantities.

Huge riots, every single store

front window was smashed.

To find out what's going

on around the world,

you hardly need to

leave Delphi's cafes.

The new line that they've been

promising for at least five years now.

The cuts are coming in slowly.

Ancient Delphi was just the same.

A huge mixture of visitors.

And the more people who came,

the more information came with them,

information which the priests

and the Oracle could use.

So Delphi's answers were

better informed,

and much more likely to make sense.

But the Oracle's answers were

also famous for their ambiguity.

They were only a basis for

interpretation,

and to deal with that,

you had to know yourself.

When the Athenians went to ask about

what they should do about

the Persian invasion they were told

"Trust in your wooden walls."

Now they had to figure out

what that meant.

They decided it meant the

wooden walls of their ships,

and that turned out to be right.

But King Croesus, when he asked

if he should attack his

neighbouring empire, he was told,

"If you attack,

a great empire will fall."

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