Delphi - Sanctuary of Apollo

To the east of the sacred precinct at Delphi, in a gorge between the two Phaidriades, is the Castalian spring, with recesses in the rock for votive offerings. Here the faithful purified themselves before making their way to the temple (on a path now barred by the enclosure fence).

In Delphi, on the opposite side of the road Castalian spring, is a path leading down to the Gymnasion, which consisted of a covered running track 180m/200yd long and a palaistra (training area), and a circular bath 10m/33ft in diameter.

To the rear of the Sanctuary of Apollo is a polygonal wall of the sixth century B.C., covered with ancient inscriptions, supporting the platform on which the temple stands. Against it is built the 28m/92ft long Stoa of the Athenians (after 479 B.C.). Just before the Sacred Way bears north, on the right, are the remains of the Treasury of the Corinthians, which also contained offerings from king Midas of Phrygia and kings Gyges and Kroisos (Croesus) of Lydia (although these had long since disappeared by the time Pausanias visited Delphi in the second century A.D.).

Alongside the next section of the Sacred Way, which runs north in a series of steps, were other votive monuments. The surviving remains include the circular base of the "Serpent Column" of 479 B.C., formed of three intertwined snakes, and, on the esplanade in front of the temple of Apollo, the tripods erected by the Deinomids of Syracuse and the pillar which bore an equestrian statue of king Prusias II of Bithynia. The esplanade is dominated by an altar (partly re-erected) dedicated by the island of Chios and by the six re-erected columns of the temple of Apollo, with a ramp leading up to the entrance at the east end.

From the gateway at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, the Sacred Way leads uphill, first going west, then bending sharply northeast and finally bearing north to end in front of the entrance to the temple of Apollo. The Sacred Way was lined with votive monuments erected by various Greek cities, reflecting the diversity of the political pattern of ancient Greece. The monuments themselves have disappeared, but many of their bases have survived. The series begins on the left-hand side of the Sacred Way with the long narrow base of a monument erected by the Athenians in gratitude for their victory over the Persians at Marathon (which had sculpture by Pheidias). Then followed monuments dedicated by Argos - the Seven against Thebes, the Trojan horse and an exedra with figures of the Epigonoi (descendants of the Seven against Thebes) - and others by Taras in southern Italy. On the right-hand side was a bronze bull dedicated by Korkyra (ca. 480 B.C.), followed by a colonnade built by the Spartans after their defeat of Athens in the naval battle of Aigospotamoi in 405 B.C., standing opposite the Athenian monument in honor of Marathon. In front of the Spartan colonnade was a monument erected by the Arcadians to commemorate their victory over the Spartans at Leuktra in 371 B.C. Beyond it was a semicircular monument erected, like the one on the opposite side of the Sacred Way, by Argos, with figures of kings of Argos.

Between the Sacred Way, just before it crosses the Halos ("Threshing-Floor"), on which cult ceremonies were performed, and the temple of Apollo stand, side by side, the Rock of the Sibyl, the sanctuary of Ge the Earth Mother and the site of a tall Ionic column bearing the figure of a sphinx erected by the Naxians about 560 B.C. The site selected for this monument, immediately south of the temple, its considerable height (12.5m/40ft) and the significance of the sphinx as a spirit of death support the suggestion by Zschietzschmann and Gross that this sphinx marked the mythical tomb of the god Dionysos.

This is the oldest part of the sacred precinct.

A flight of steps leads up to the theater at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi.

The theater (fourth century B.C., with later alterations down to the Roman period) could accommodate 5,000 spectators. It lay within the sacred precinct, as did the Lesche (Assembly Hall) of the Cnidians, built against the north wall of the precinct. From the theater there is a very fine view of the sacred precinct, extending down to the Marnaría below.

50m/165ft higher than the theater at the Sanctuary of Apollo, under a vertical rock face, is the Stadion, which received its final form in Roman times. Of this structure there survive the tiers of seating and the seats of honor on the north side, the rounded west end (sphendone) and part of the entrance at the east end. The presence of the theater and the stadion is a reminder that the Pythian Games were held at Delphi from 590 B.C. onwards - musical and athletic contests, which included chariot races in the Hippodrome in the valley below.

The present Temple of Apollo at Delphi is the third on the site. The first temple, built in the seventh century B.C., was burned down in 548 B.C. The second was built by the Alcmaeonids in 531 B.C. after their expulsion from Athens by Peisistratos. In Archaic style, with 6 x 15 columns and sculpture depicting Apollo's coming to Delphi on the east pediment, it collapsed in 373, burying the pediment (fragments in Museum). The third temple, built between 346 and 320 B.C., preserved the elongated ground-plan of the Archaic temple and re-used the old column drums, but the detailing has the cool harmony of the late classical period. Of the main structure only the foundations are left, but we know that the pronaos contained inscriptions with the sayings of the Seven Sages (including the famous Apollonian imperative Gnothi seauton, "Know thyself") and that at the west end was the adyton, on a lower level, which contained the omphalos stone, a gold statue of Apollo, a laurel tree and (over the aperture for the oracle) the tripod of the Pythia. It is likely, according to Roux, that an area in the right-hand part of the adyton was curtained off for those seeking the oracle's advice.

The water of the Kassotis spring probably played some part in the cult of the oracle: according to Pausanias it "brought the women in the adyton of the god into a condition in which they could prophesy". With this Georges Roux associates the spring chamber on the terrace between the temple and the polygonal wall, to which a flight of 12 steps leads down. From the spring a channel runs into the foundations of the temple, and an outflow hole can be seen in the polygonal wall. This spring belonged to the second temple, but was removed during the building of the third temple in 346 B.C.

On the hillside above the temple stood the figure of the "Charioteer", now in the Museum, which was buried under a mass of earth brought down by an earthquake in 373 B.C. and was thus preserved from later metal-thieves. Close by is a large niche which once housed a sculptured representation of Alexander the Great's lion-hunt.

Along the next section of the Sacred Way, on the left, are the first of the more than 20 treasuries in which votive offerings were preserved from the weather and from theft - the Doric treasury of Sikyon (ca. 500 B.C.), in the foundations of which can be seen an earlier circular structure, and the Ionic treasury of the island of Siphnos (525 B.C.), considerable remains of which can be seen in the Museum. At the point where the Sacred Way bends northeast stands an omphalos stone set up here some years ago, recalling the ancient belief that Delphi was the central point, the navel (omphalos), of the world, established at the place where two eagles sent out by Zeus from the ends of the earth met one another.

The Treasury of the Athenians (built in or shortly after 510 B.C.; re-erected 1903-06) is in the form of a Doric temple in antis. The metopes (copies: originals in the Museum) depict themes from the myths of Theseus and Herakles. Immediately beyond the treasury is the retaining wall, with shallow recesses for votive inscriptions, of the Bouleuterion.