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Delphica1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

John Pollard
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Extract

One of the most arresting natural features at Delphi is the great rock pulpit which projects between the ruins of the Bouleuterion and the terrace walls supporting Apollo's temple (Plate 51b). It is rent on its southern side by a large fissure up which was hewn a flight of still discernible steps. The area in which it stands is of more than ordinary interest, as being identifiable with τὸ τᾶς Γᾶς ἱερρόν mentioned in a Delphic inscription dating from the fourth century B.C. On the rock itself the Sibyl, variously identified, was said to have sat (or stood) and prophesied. Yet most modern Delphic historians, while devoting much space to the Pythia, and to the obscure details of the oracle's mechanism, either have tended to ignore the Sibyl altogether, or have dismissed her from serious consideration with a few brief words as an unimportant late-comer. Some indeed have come near to identifying her with the Pythia. One actually did.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 55 , November 1960 , pp. 195 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1960

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References

2 The identity of the rock was established by Homolle, , BCH xvii. 613Google Scholar, and has not been challenged.

3 FD iii. 5, 25, col. iii, A, 1, 3, 4.

4 Cf., for example, Parke, and Wormell, , The Delphic Oracle i. 13.Google Scholar

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6 Bergk, , Griech. Lit. i. 342 and n. 90Google Scholar, refuted by Rohde, Psyche n. 64 to ch. ix (Eng. ed.).

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28 x. 12.

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