What was the delphic oracle’s command

According to some accounts, Gaia had a snake or dragon, named the Python, that guarded her oracle. When Apollo came to take over the oracle, he first had to kill the dragon in order to take possession of it.

Delphi was and still is located in central Greece, on the side of Mount Parnassus. The temple of Apollo, where the prophesies were given, was and still is situated in an incredibly beautiful spot about half way up the mountain.

This is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and the Greeks clearly chose this spot for the temple with good reason. There were many other oracles in Greece, but the Oracle at Delphi was the most famous, and everyone who could afford to consult the Oracle at Delphi preferred to do so. Of course, there was a long waiting period to consult the oracle sometimes several months , and there were a number of expensive, preliminary sacrifices. Most of the people who consulted the Oracle at Delphi were wealthy individuals or even heads of state.

These treasuries were filled with costly gifts that leaders and cities had given to Apollo. Some of these treasuries are still standing, and a very few of those precious gifts can still be seen in the museum at Delphi. When someone came to ask a question of the Oracle, he would need to make a preliminary sacrifice of a goat, and then purify himself in the nearby Castilian Spring.

The adyton is a room inside the temple that was off limits; no one could go in. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account.

Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Published by Geoffrey Klempner. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here This they prefer to accepting the truth: that they are far more pretentious than they are wise.

The oracle of Apollo at Delphi was the most famous and most revered oracle of the ancient world. That Chaerephon did in fact visit the oracle is confirmed by Xenophon, though in his account, the oracle declared Socrates to be "the most free, upright, and prudent of all people" Xenophon, Socrates' Defense rather than the most wise. In either case, it is clear that the oracle made a positive claim about Socrates.

Most of Plato's early dialogues--those that center more on Socrates' thought than on Plato's own--are concerned with ethical questions, and so we can perhaps reconcile Xenophon's and Plato's accounts by saying that Socrates' wisdom is a kind of ethical wisdom, one that would make him supremely free, upright, and prudent. But the Delphic oracle sided primarily with Sparta during the Peloponnesian War, so it is doubtful how much an Athenian jury would trust or appreciate the evidence given by the oracle.

Also of relevance is the famous motto inscribed above the entrance to the oracle at Delphi: "Know thyself. He is famous for claiming that no one could ever knowingly and willingly do evil, that evil is a result of ignorance and deficient self- knowledge. His investigations generally ask such questions as what it is to be virtuous, or pious, or just. In his dogged efforts to understand these terms himself, and his persistence in showing his interlocutors to be wrong in assuming they have such understanding, Socrates reveals himself as a man intent on gaining the self-knowledge necessary to lead a virtuous life.

Socrates' account of his conversations with the supposed wise men of Athens provides us with a valuable account of his method of elenchus, or cross-examination.

The Apology is a rare exception in Plato's works, in that only a small part of it is given over to the elenchus ; in most of the works, it is the principal means by which Plato lays out Socrates' arguments. The elenchus begins with Socrates' interlocuter claiming to have a perfect understanding of some term, usually an ethical term like "justice," "virtue," or "piety," though epistemology and metaphysics are sometimes discussed in Plato's more mature work.

Socrates then proceeds to question his interlocutor about his knowledge of that term, trying to arrive at the essence of the matter.