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The Last Delphic Oracle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. A. Thompson
E. A. Thompson
Affiliation:
King's College, London.
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Extract

It is, I think, generally believed that the last oracle delivered at Delphi was that given to Oreibasios announcing the inability of Apollo to prophesy there again. This oracle begins with the line: εἴπατε τῷ βασιλ⋯ϊ· χαμα⋯ π⋯σε δα⋯δαλος αὐλ⋯ and has been translated by Swinburne as The Last Oracle. Of it Myers wrote: ‘(It is) the last fragment of Greek poetry which has moved the hearts of men, the last Greek hexameters which retain the ancient cadence, the majestic melancholy flow.’ But there is evidence which suggests that this was, in fact, not the last prophetic utterance of the Pythian god, and no ancient authority implies that it was.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 1-2 , January 1946 , pp. 35 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1946

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References

page 35 note 1 S. Arlemii Passio, 35 (Bidez, , ed. Philostorgius, , p. 77)Google Scholar; Cedrenus, , Migne, , PG. cxxi. 580Google Scholar; I, p. 532, Bonn.

page 35 note 2 Apud Abbott, Evelyn, Hellenica, London, 1898, p. 447Google Scholar. For the silence of the oracles before Julian's reign, see that emperor's Contra Galilaeos, 198 c.

page 35 note 3 Bidez, J., La Vie de l'Empereus Julien, pp. 286, 298Google Scholar.

page 35 note 4 Cf. Philostorgius, , Hist. Eccl. vii. 15, p. 100Google Scholar, ed. Bidez, τοῖς πανταχ⋯θεν χρησμοῖς τ⋯ν Ἑλλ⋯νων ⋯ παραβ⋯της ὡς ἄμαχον ἕξει τ⋯ κρ⋯τος, κατ⋯ Περσα⋯ν ⋯κστρατε⋯ει, Naz., Greg.Or. v. 9Google Scholar. Cedrenus, , ap. Migne, , PG. cxxi. 585 p. 538Google Scholar, Bonn, also paraphrases our orcle ad distinguishes it from that given to Oreibasios; but he gives no indication that it was Delphic.

page 35 note 5 Cedrenus' paraphrase, l.c., agrees verbatim with this one of Theodoret, save that he begins with ν⋯ν μ⋯ν π⋯ντες.

page 35 note 6 Migne, , PG. lxxxiii. 1069Google Scholar.

page 35 note 7 References in Parke, H. W., History of the Delphic Oracle, p. 55Google Scholar.

page 36 note 1 Herodotus, 7. 140, etc.

page 36 note 2 In Migne, , PG. lxxxiii. 1073Google Scholar, he gives Porphyry and Oenomaus as his sources for the oracles, but in fact he used Eusebius.

page 36 note 3 Later Roman Empire 2, (1923), i, p. 370 n. 2Google Scholar: see CTh. xv. 5. 4.