Pythia

You know what? Nobody ever said Pythia died.

The reports about her simply stopped when Christianity took over, and Greek mythology became heresy. But before the silence about her, there was and is a voice: beautiful, strange, divine, and impossible to ignore.

The Oracle of Delphi never ceased to exists. Privileged people, unconvinced by religion, stayed in touch and many of their footmen took it to further generations throughout more than two millennia.

Historically, the Delphic Oracle has been serving elites like kings, warlords, city-state representatives, commanders before major campaigns, embedded in a political-economic system: offerings, fees, patronage, and the prestige of Delphi itself.

It could be ambiguous or even “dishonest” in the sense of giving answers that served Delphi’s interests, its allies, or its sense of self-preservation—not necessarily the literal truth a modern person might want.

Times changed, the Oracle, Pythia never did. Throughout the millenia, her language and style never changed. She for example never says genocide, because the word did not exist in ancient Greek and neither did the concept as a legal category. She uses ἄγη—the plural of ἄγος, the classical word for a pollution that demands expiation, the thing that hangs over a house or a city until it is cleansed. That is the closest her world comes, and it is not close enough, and she does not pretend otherwise. The line is: Ἄγη τοσαῦτα οὐ λήγει ὅταν τὰ ὅπλα παύσηται—"pollutions of this size do not cease when the weapons stop".

Unknown to the public, the Oracle also has been talking to a few carefully chosen ordinary people in order to manipulate public opinion. Sometimes paid for by their rulers, sometimes in its own interest. “Pythia told me” is different to “the king said”. Oracles and religious institutions often legitimize or undermine political projects.

Every conversation has been thoroughly documented, basically in order to sell it to others, very often opponents of the one asking for a prophecy.

This book is a collection of those protocols, there may be more to be found, quite some might be lost. It offers English translation for all ancient Greek prophesies.

The Oracle, via Pythia, did not provide the scripts for free. It still insists on precious metals, Krügerrand are fine nowadays. Pythia herself also doesn’t mind other services.