Delphi - Sanctuary of Apollo

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.

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.

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.

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.