If ever I heard a ram roar, this one did: a deep, lengthy bellow of protest at this ill treatment of its august self. It kicked up its hind legs, tripping me and causing me to flip over its body flat onto my back, knocking the wind out of me. One of my hands slipped free of the horn, and the squirming ram flopped around on top of me with its wool in my face and its sharp hooves flying, while with my free hand I struggled to gain purchase on one of its limbs. I grasped at its wool, which kept tearing free in my hand, and then finally clamped down hard on its soft flesh with my entire fist. The animal stiffened like a plank, and I realized I had seized it by the testicles, causing it to freeze in terror and pain. I cautiously struggled to my knees and secured the grasp of my other hand on its horn, until I was finally able to let loose with the offending hand and assume my original position, straddling its back, with my hands pulling its head up by the horns. As I cautiously let go its balls, the ram heaved a tremendous shudder of relief, and the priest nodded in satisfaction. Xenophon leaped to with the sacrificial knife, I muttered a short prayer under my breath, and in an instant the task had been successfully completed.
"Xenophon of Athens," intoned a voice from behind the thick curtain. Two slaves drew it back along the rod on the rings from which it hung, revealing a small, shadowed room, the central temple, the adyton, wherein mysteries older than mankind itself had been perpetuated. Before us was the most sacred object in Greece and the most ancient, the omphalos, the marking stone of the world's navel, the center of the earth. On either side of it stood two solid gold eagles, commemorating the finding of the earth by Zeus' eagles. The stone itself was unremarkable: Cone-shaped and perhaps a foot high, it was worn smooth by a hundred generations of Pythian hands and by the daily oiling they devoutly applied to it. Remarkable as this object was, however, my eyes scarcely lingered on it a moment before being drawn to the side, where a withered, monkeylike creature sat immobile and silent, pale as a larva. The voluminous folds of her white gowns were tucked around and behind her, the purity and newness of the starched linen fabric contrasting sharply with the rough, papery skin and wispy strands of hair it enframed and enveloped.
Xenophon stood silent, staring at the tiny, ancient woman as she sat motionless on her holmos, her bowl-shaped tripod seat, with her feet dangling down and her face turned toward him expectantly. Her eyes were closed, but even so one could see that she was blind, and not merely blind but blinded-the eyelids closed flat behind the darkened shadows where her eyes would have been, evincing not the slightest hint of the normal convex bulge of the eyeballs. The lids were withered and wrinkled, lacking lashes, and gave the impression of having been fused shut to permanently conceal the empty sockets. On her lap was balanced a plain wooden bowl, on which a small pile of the laurel leaves that had been burning on the altar continued to smolder, sending a small plume of smoke floating lazily upwards and enwreathing her face with its astringent scent. A crown of laurel had been placed on her head, and she held a small branch in her right hand. Thus sat the Pythia, the two prophetai on either side waiting to interpret or otherwise assist her in speaking for the god, all staring back at Xenophon, ready for his query.
"Thou may pose thy question to the lord Apollo, through the person of the holy Pythia," the voice again droned in the ponderous accents of the ancient Delphian dialect, which caught me by surprise. It was only with some difficulty, by recalling the sentence again in my mind, that I was able to understand what our interlocutor had said, whom I now saw was a small, potbellied scribe seated on a high stool just behind the Pythia, his stylus poised over a fresh wax tablet.
Xenophon's eyes flitted from the Pythia to the two priests and back again, but he remained silent. Perhaps he had failed to understand the scribe's order to begin? I prepared to step forward out of the shadows to assist him with a quick, prodding whisper in the ear. The priest facing us on the left wore a sour, irritated expression, glaring at Xenophon as if resenting him for having dragged him out of bed for this duty. The other priest, however, the senior of the two, bore a benign, grandfatherly expression, and waited patiently. Finally, the elder priest nodded at Xenophon kindly, as if reassuring him that he was permitted to speak, and he opened his mouth slightly as if to utter words of encouragement. Before he did so, however, Xenophon seemed to snap to, and without even taking an introductory breath, launched into the question he had so carefully prepared over the past few days.
"Mighty lord Apollo, I entreat thee, hear my question," he intoned quietly, but deliberately and confidently, in his best imitation of the ancient dialect. He stood stock-still and straight as an oar, his eyes fixed on the sightless, sealed face of the Pythia. "Pythian Apollo, god of the Muses, I beseech thee to tell me whether it be thy will that I journey to Sardis to accompany my friend, Proxenus, on his expedition with Cyrus…"
From the moment he began speaking, the old woman had been trembling and showing signs of agitation, rocking back and forth and thrusting her chin up in the air, her feet kicking and heaving like a toddler wishing to be let down from a high chair. Her breath came in a series of short gasps, and before Xenophon had quite finished, she raised her face straight up to the ceiling, flinging the branch she was holding and clapping her hands fiercely to her ears. She uttered a short shriek, as if from pain, flecks of spittle glistening on her chin. The two priests, their expressions as unflappable as hers was frenzied, quickly placed their hands behind her shoulders to prevent her from tipping backward off the tripod.
Suddenly she leaped forward off the seat, landing unsteadily on the floor. Taking a crouching step toward Xenophon, her twisted face pointed directly at his, she paused, then began pacing shakily to the side, still supported by the priests, and mumbling in her dialect so quickly and disjointedly that I was able to pick out only the occasional word. Her arms flapped wildly in gesture, as if she were inebriated or entranced, and her utterances, now repeated over and over, were punctuated rhythmically by the same little shriek with which she had first interrupted Xenophon. She seethed and foamed, ranging back and forth before the altar, appearing to ignore our presence, and jerking her head as if to rid herself of an insect that had crawled into one of her ears and was tormenting her. The scribe followed close behind the old woman and the two priests, rapidly scratching out her words on his tablet. Xenophon stood dumbfounded, his hands hanging limply at his sides, and he glanced at me with a look of utter bewilderment. Nothing we had heard had prepared us for this reaction from the priestess.
After a few moments, the old woman again stopped directly in front of Xenophon and peered up at him, her ancient fingers knotted in tight fists, and her shriveled eyelids seeming to stare straight into his face. Xenophon held his ground and moved not a muscle, for the crone's aspect and behavior were terrifying.
Suddenly she seemed to slump, with her face still staring into his. The two priests half carried, half dragged the Pythia two or three paces backwards, and lifted her again up onto the tripod, where she took a deep breath and reassumed the calm and expectant posture we had seen upon first entering. The priests cautiously removed their hands from under her upper arms, and when convinced that her turmoil had passed, quickly stepped behind her to the scribe, where all three conferred in whispered tones. Moving back to their positions after a moment, the scribe stood up, looked at Xenophon and spoke, reading from his tablet.