I remained staring straight ahead as I walked, determined not to give him the satisfaction of a response. He shrugged, and stepped back up to Aglaia's side, and I resignedly lifted the elderly grandmother onto my horse, on which she rode stiff and trembling, grasping its mane tightly with both hands in her terror at sitting so high. I then walked behind Xenophon and the girl, casting my large shadow over their shoulders.
Aglaia had done her homework before setting out on her journey, and had collected quite a number of stories concerning the oracle, a few from good sources, most from the most spurious origins imaginable. She regaled us with what she had learned, her peals of laughter making men smile for yards around, even if they were unable to hear her actual words. Xenophon traded her story for story, to her great delight. She was most moved by the tale of King Croesus of Lydia, which Xenophon had learned from his mother as a young boy.
"Croesus," he recalled, "learned that the Persian king was becoming more powerful by the day. This worried him, and he began to wonder whether he should attack the Persians before they became too mighty. He decided to consult an oracle.
"In those days, Delphi was not the most famous oracle in Greece, it was simply one of many. Since Croesus didn't know which was the most truthful, he sent runners out from Sardis to every one, including the Pythia of Delphi, with instructions to wait until the hundredth day after their departure from Sardis. On precisely that day, each runner would consult the respective oracle and ask what King Croesus was doing at that moment. All their answers would be recorded and brought back to the King.
"At Delphi, just as the King's messenger entered the oracle's sanctuary, before he had even had a chance to sacrifice and make his inquiry, the oracle spoke in perfect hexameter verse:
I know the number of the sands, and the measure of the ocean;
I have ears for the dumb, and hear those who cannot speak;
Behold, there striketh my senses the savor of a shell-covered tortoise,
Boiling on a fire in a cauldron, with the flesh of a lamb-
Brass is laid beneath it, and brass the cover placed over it.
"All the messengers returned with their answers, and Croesus began reading them, but no sooner did he read the reply from Delphi than he himself was nearly struck dumb, and he discarded every other response. As it happened, when his messengers first left Sardis months before, he had racked his brain to think what impossible thing he could perform that no mortal could guess by chance, and then, on the hundredth day, he took a tortoise and a lamb and cut them to pieces with his own hands, and boiled them together in a brass cauldron with a brass lid. The oracle had described this perfectly.
"Because of this test, Croesus showered gifts on Delphi, to gain favor for the crucial advice he needed. He sacrificed thousands of animals and donated a huge pile of riches, golden goblets, statues and purple vestments. He even levied a huge tax on his own people, melting down all the money he collected into solid gold ingots."
Here the girl interjected a comment with her tinkling laughter. "I hope I'll be able to see some of the statues and drink from the cups! I've heard that even the dung-sweepers in the street use gold-handled brooms!"
"Herodotus," Xenophon said, "says that most of the riches are kept locked in the treasury, but that he himself had seen Croesus' enormous offering bowls, and a statue of a golden maiden, adorned with his wife's necklace and girdles."
Aglaia shrieked with laughter as Xenophon grinned and winked at me. "What happened next?" she asked.
"Well, Croesus asked the Pythia whether he should declare war on the Persians. The oracle's response was clear enough: 'If you make war on the Persians, you will destroy a mighty empire.' Croesus was overjoyed when he heard this, and marched his army from Sardis all the way to Persia-where his own troops were demolished. He retreated back to Sardis, pursued the entire way by the king. After a long siege, Sardis was taken and Croesus fell into the Persians' hands. He spent the rest of his life complaining how he was so cruelly deceived by the oracle, which had led him to believe he could wage war against the Persians."
Aglaia was silent for a time, puzzling this over. "But why did the Pythia deceive him?" she finally asked. "I thought the oracle always told the truth!"
Xenophon laughed. "You're falling into the same trap as Croesus-you guess the response even before you ask the question, and then you have ears only for the answer you've decided upon! The oracle was right. She said Croesus would destroy a mighty empire, and he did-his own. The Pythia's response was in the form of a riddle-it almost always is-but Croesus had no right to complain. If he'd been wise, he would have asked the oracle which empire she meant, the Persian or his own. He should have been more careful when formulating the question and receiving the answer." Xenophon looked slyly at the girl. Her face was wreathed in smiles.
"Well," she said finally. "I see now how dangerous it is to ask a question of the Pythia that is too vague. I was simply going to ask which of my three suitors was the best man. A question like that would never do-it's far too open-ended. How could the god possibly know what their best qualities would be, to me? Gods have their idea of good, and-well, I have my own."
We walked along in silence for a few moments, thinking on this, and as she turned her head to look at Xenophon, I could see a half-smile slowly forming on the girl's face.
"It's settled, then," she finally said. "I'll just ask the oracle to tell me which man is the richest."
CHAPTER TWO
LONG BEFORE ARRIVING at our destination, we saw glimpses of mist-shrouded Mount Parnassus towering over its neighboring summits, with its sheer, snow-capped peaks, storm-wracked trees, and above the timber line, its naked slopes. As we approached, the wind sometimes stirred the boughs of the trees, revealing the village of Delphi high above, a shiny cluster of garish color and gleaming white set against the huge flank of the mountain, glittering like a tiny jewel worn on a matron's plump breast. There, part way up the south flank of the mountain famous throughout the world for being sacred to Apollo, his mad brother Dionysus, and the Muses, lies a sort of a natural hollow, like an enormous theater built for Titans but populated by nymphs. It is surrounded on three sides by the sacred mountain itself and two enormous upright crags, the Phaedriads or "Shining Ones." Their sheer cliffs seem to catch the summer's burning sunlight and intensify it across the deep, echoing gorge. Here, as if suspended in space over the river valley, exposed to the wind, air, and penetrating light, is Delphi, the most venerated place in all Greece, the place chosen personally by the god Apollo for his domain.
There are signs of the god's presence everywhere, and the forces of nature seem almost magnified by the deity's startling closeness. The light is brighter there, almost blinding, and at midday the luminous air seems to lift the very rocks from the earth until they burn in a blaze of holy light. At dawn and dusk, the magnificent colors that paint the landscape to the distant horizon are so pure and clear that sky and earth no longer seem to have any definable boundary. Earthquakes often rock the low-framed houses nestled into the cliff, and after dark, when nature seems to be at its most raw, thunder from distant mountain storms rolls and echoes through the gorge and across the mountainside.
Instructors of rhetoric teach that it is not wise to assume equal knowledge on the part of both reader and writer. A word of explanation is in order here, in the event that these scribblings someday fall into the hands of distant readers in lands unfamiliar with the Pythian oracle, though I can hardly imagine how far one must travel not to have heard of this wonder. It is said that in ancient times, when gods alone roamed the earth, the site of Delphi was occupied by a terrible dragon known as the Python, which from its dark lair guarded Gaia, the ancient earth goddess, and her powers to foresee the future. After man was created, Apollo, the god of art and enlightenment, wished to communicate with the mortals, but to do so he had to find a place to enter into contact with them. An ancient hymn we often used to sing in his honor during festivals tells how the god traveled from Crete riding on two dolphins until he arrived at Delphi, where he slew the dragon with his arrow, and took the oracle for his own use. From then on, he was the Lord of Delphi, known as the Pythian Apollo. He was later joined by his younger brother, the mystic god Dionysus, who resides at Delphi during the three months of the year when Apollo is taking the winter months in the northern regions. The holy oracle never speaks to human petitioners directly, but rather through the Pythia, a local Delphian priestess, usually of peasant stock, who is chosen by the temple priests at a young age and who spends her entire life in chastity and dreamlike prayer in the god's service. It was to the Pythia that Xenophon planned to address his question, and if Apollo found favor in his sacrifice and in his pureness of heart, then it would be from the Pythia's lips that the answer would be received. The legendary ambiguity of her responses, however, which were often couched in the form of riddles, usually required written interpretation by her attending priests, the prophetai.