Join me for a quick jaunt through Greece. Starting in Athens, the city of the goddess of wisdom, where I arrived at 1:30am this morning, I waste little precious time. At 8:00 am, I begin my 3-hour trek north to Delphi. Taking the motorway to Thessaloniki (Greece’s second largest city), I notice immediately the landscape change once outside Athens from urban crush to irregularly plotted fertile fields rolling to the feet of numerous imposing mountains.
Less than 30 minutes beyond Athens, I drive by Mount Pentali home of the famed creamy-yellow Pentalic marble used for the buildings of the Acropolis and many Greek statues. The Mountain is cloaked in thick white clouds. In the distance, luxurious country apartments are significantly more expensive than similarly sized flats in Athens. I also pass the fairly non-descript plain of Marathon, where the Greek victory over the Persians in 490 BC was a defining moment for Western culture.
An hour down the road is ancient Thebes – the Greek, not the Egyptian, Thebes. Thebes, the most powerful Greek city-state for a short period, was also home to Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex who fruitlessly tried to deny his fate but nonetheless killed his father and married his mother as the Delphic Oracle foretold. Traveling deeper and further into the mountains toward Delphi, I look down upon the spot thought to be the fated crossroads where Oedipus slew a paternal father he never knew in a fit of rage because his chariot was not allowed to pass first.
Heading higher and deeper, I pass by Mount Parnausis, to my right stretching to the heavens, and to my left stretches what’s known as a “sea of olives” – Europe’s largest olive grove.
Delphi itself is a magical experience. The layout invites one through the onsite archaeological museum which houses a remarkable collection of objects ranging from dozens of Phi and Pi figures, geometric bronze quadrapeds, awe-inspiring archaic marble figures, and spectacular frieze fragments from the Temple of Apollo including some with traces of original red paint! In addition, two iconic Delphic objects are not to be missed – the great archaic marble Sphinx which once was perched high along the Sacred Way leading to the Apollo’s Temple; and the life-sized Severe-style classical Greek bronze statue of the Delphic charioteer.
Leaving the museum, one browses through sacred grounds lined with the remains of marble “treasuries” – votive shrines that housed gifts to the god Apollo – dedicated by a variety of Greek city-states. The base of the impressive Siphion treasury suggests its ancient grandeur. In ancient days replaced marble columns with more lavish Karyatids to thank Apollo for the city-state’s good fortune in discovering gold and silver mines. The wonderfully reconstructed Athenian treasury with its Doric columns gives the visitor pause.
The Temple of Apollo, home of the Delphic Oracle, sits above the Sacred Way, majestically hovering high above the site. The impressive floor plan is evident and several columns standing upright easily suggest the immense size and beauty of this important ancient site. Behind the Temple sits an imposing theatre. Here, audiences would sit and watch performances with the Temple backdrop declaring the deities' supreme and immortal power as if nature, represented by the breathtaking valley below, is seemingly kneeling before Apollo’s temple in reverent reflection.
For the adventurous visitor, there is still more. A few hundred meters further up the mountain is a massive stadium dedicated to Apollo. The stadium and theatre are totally appropriate on a sacred site as the Greeks believed that both sport and ritual acting was in itself a quest for perfection; mortal man’s purest quest for becoming god-like.
For the first time visitor to Delphi, both the trip through the countryside and the sacred site itself allow one to experience another type of perfection 2,500 years later. Along the way, tiny ancient inscriptions are carved into countless sacred stones along the way. These inscriptions – on the walls of monuments, the walls and benches of the stoa (porticoed resting area), and even the front stalls of the large theatre on the site -- are timeless echoes from the many ancient Greek pilgrims who visited here. Every inscription is neatly carved, not by the pilgrims themselves, but by skilled artisans who did so for a fee.
