between the two mantic types: the tree’s foliage belongs to the inductive type,
but the priestesses are presented by Plato as on an equal footing with the Pythia
in thePhaedrus, which deals with inspiration (244ab). For his part, Homer (Iliad
16.233–5), speaks of priests namedSelloi, and subsequently Herodotus (2.56–7)
speaks of male prophe ̄teis. Matters are unclear, and it is dangerous to reduce
everything to a linear evolution: priests and priestesses may well have coexisted.
The oracle is famous for its lead tablets, which preserve some of the actual questions
put to it.
Claros and Didyma
The principal oracles in Asia Minor were those of Claros and Didyma. They were
both ancient, but they reached their apogee in the imperial period. Claros preserves
the onlyadytonto have come down to us intact. A narrow subterranean corridor (70
x 180 cm) turns right seven times and leads into a vast vaulted crypt. Conditioned by
a grueling ritual, the priest entered, alone, into a second vaulted crypt, where he
drank water and prophesied to the consultants, who remained in the first room.
Numerous inscriptions attest his public role, which was predominantly a religious
one, in the cities of Asia Minor in the second and third centuries AD (Graf 1992a;
Merkelbach and Stauber 1996). At Didyma the hellenistic temple of Apollo
was the third largest in Greece. The priestess underwent a grueling preparation,
then she prophesied, scepter in hand, sitting on a cube of wood with her feet in
water, in anadytonwhich has been identified with the inner court, but the case can
scarcely be proven. TheDidymeionis a depressing example of our inability to
synthesize the diverse evidence of site, inscriptions, and various late literary references
(Fontenrose 1988).
Trophonius
We are given a detailed picture of the consultation process for Trophonius at Lebadaea
by numerous testimonia from the seventh century BC to the third century AD,
and not least by a most valuable description of Pausanias and by philosophical
speculations about the oracle’s divinatory principles (Pausanias 9.39.1–40.2;
Bonnechere 2003). The consultant had to descend to the underworld (katabasis)
to secure his response, becoming ‘‘his own prophet’’ (hypophe ̄te ̄s autangelos). He lay
in the dark and, with the help of his fear, fell into a faint. When he recovered his wits
he had been touched by a dream vision. The Greeks believed here that his soul had
escaped from the confines of the body, during which time the god manifested himself.
Thereafter the consultant, still groggy, was sat upon the throne of Memory, where the
priests interrogated him about his vision.
Divination, Daily Life, and ‘‘Great History’’
The influence of divination on politics is difficult to assess. According to Plutarch, a
philosopher of integrity and intellect, Delphi had in former days responded in riddles
in order to avoid the reprisals of the powerful. But in his own time, with the
156 Pierre Bonnechere