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The Pythia (,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pythia?s=t )〕 (ギリシア語:Πυθία) (:pyːˈtʰi.a)), commonly known as the Oracle of Delphi, was the name of any priestess throughout the history of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, beneath the Castalian Spring (the new priestess was selected after the death of the current priestess). The Oracle of Delphi was always a woman. The Pythia was widely credited for her prophecies inspired by Apollo. The Delphic oracle was established in the 8th century BC,〔Morgan 1990, p. 148.〕 although it may have been present in some form in Late Mycenaean times,〔see discussion in Deitrich, Bernard C. (1992), "Divine Madness and Conflict at Delphi" (Kernos 5) PDF at http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Mycenaean+Delphi&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=〕 from 1400 BC and was abandoned, and there is evidence that Apollo took over the shrine from an earlier dedication to Gaia.〔Fortenrose. J. (1959) "Python. A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins, (Berkeley)〕 The last recorded response was given about 395 A.D. to Emperor Theodosius I, after he had ordered pagan temples to cease operation. During this period the Delphic Oracle was the most prestigious and authoritative oracle among the Greeks. The oracle is one of the best-documented religious institutions of the classical Greeks. Authors who mention the oracle include Aeschylus, Aristotle, Clement of Alexandria, Diodorus, Diogenes, Euripides, Herodotus, Julian, Justin, Livy, Lucan, Nepos, Ovid, Pausanias, Pindar, Plato, Plutarch, Sophocles, Strabo, Thucydides and Xenophon. The name "Pythia" derived from Pytho, which in myth was the original name of Delphi. The Greeks derived this place name from the verb, ''pythein'' (πύθειν, "to rot"), which refers to the decomposition of the body of the monstrous Python after he was slain by Apollo.〔''Homeric Hymn to Apollo'' 363–369.〕 Pythia was the House of Snakes. The usual theory has been that the Pythia delivered oracles in a frenzied state induced by vapors rising from a chasm in the rock, and that she spoke gibberish which priests interpreted as the enigmatic prophecies preserved in Greek literature.〔For an example, see Lewis Farnell, (''The Cults of the Greek States'' ), 1907, vol. IV, p.189. "But all this came to be merely considered as an accessory, leading up to the great moment when the Pythoness ascended into the tripod, and, filled with the divine afflatus which at least the latter ages believed to ascend in vapour from a fissure in the ground, burst forth into wild utterance, which was probably some kind of articulate speech, and which the Ὅσιοι (), 'the holy ones', who, with the prophet, sat around the tripod, knew well how to interpret. ... What was essential to Delphic divination, then, was the frenzy of the Pythoness and the sounds which she uttered in this state which were interpreted by the Ὅσιοι () and the 'prophet' according to some conventional code of their own."〕 The idea that the Pythia spoke gibberish which was interpreted by the priests and turned into poetic iambic pentameter has been challenged by scholars such as Joseph Fontenrose and Lisa Maurizio, who argue that the ancient sources uniformly represent the Pythia speaking intelligibly, and giving prophecies in her own voice.〔Fontenrose 1978, pp. 196–227; Maurizio 2001, pp. 38–54.〕 ==Origins of the Oracle== The 8th-century reformulation of the Oracle at Delphi as a shrine to Apollo seems associated with the rise in importance of the city of Corinth and the importance of sites in the Corinthian Gulf.〔Forrest, W.G. (1957), "Colonisation and the Rise of Delphi" (Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte Bd. 6, H. 2 (Apr., 1957), pp. 160–175)〕 The earliest account of the origin of the Delphic oracle is provided in the Homeric Hymn to Delphic Apollo, which recent scholarship dates within a narrow range, c. 580–570 BC.〔Martin L. West, ''Homeric Hymns'', pp 9–12, gives a summary for this dating, at or soon after the inauguration of chariot-racing at the Pythian Games, 582 BC; M. Chappell, "Delphi and the ''Homeric Hymn to Apollo''", ''Classical Quarterly'' 56 (2006:331-48)〕 It describes in detail how Apollo chose his first priests, whom he selected in their "swift ship"; they were "Cretans from Minos' city of Knossos" who were voyaging to sandy Pylos. But Apollo, who had ''Delphinios'' as one of his cult epithets,〔As Robin Lane Fox observes in discussing this origin of the Delphic priesthood, in ''Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer'', 2008:341ff.〕 leapt into the ship in the form of a dolphin (''delphys", gen. "delphinos''). Dolphin-Apollo revealed himself to the terrified Cretans, and bade them follow him up to the "place where you will have rich offerings". The Cretans "danced in time and followed, singing ''Iē Paiēon'', like the paeans of the Cretans in whose breasts the divine Muse has placed "honey-voiced singing".〔 ''"Paean"'' seems to have been the name by which Apollo was known in Mycenaean times. G.L. Huxley observes, "If the hymn to (Delphic) Apollo conveys a historical message, it is above all that there were once Cretan priests at Delphi."〔Huxley, "Cretan ''Paiawones''". ''Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies'' 16 (1975:119-24) p. 122, noted by Fox 2008:343.〕 Robin Lane Fox notes that Cretan bronzes are found at Delphi from the eighth century onwards, and Cretan sculptures are dedicated as late as ca 620–600 BC: ""Dedications at the site cannot establish the identity of its priesthood," he observes, "but for once we have an explicit text to set beside the archaeological evidence."〔Fox 2008:342.〕 An early visitor to these "dells of Parnassus", at the end of the eighth century, was Hesiod, who was shown the ''omphalos''. There are also many later stories of the origins of the Delphic Oracle. One late explanation, which is first related by the 1st century BC writer, Diodorus Siculus, tells of a goat herder named Coretas, who noticed one day that one of his goats, who fell into a crack in the earth, was behaving strangely. On entering the chasm, he found himself filled with a divine presence and could see outside of the present into the past and the future. Excited by his discovery he shared it with nearby villagers. Many started visiting the site to experience the convulsions and inspirational trances, though some were said to disappear into the cleft due to their frenzied state.〔Diodorus Siculus 16.26.1–4.〕 A shrine was erected at the site, where people began worshiping in the late Bronze Age, by 1600 BC. The villagers chose a single young woman as the liaison for the divine inspirations. Eventually she spoke on behalf of gods.〔Broad, W. J. (2007), p.21. It was also said that the young woman was given a tripod on which to be seated, which acted on behalf of her own safety during her frenzied states.〕 According to earlier myths,〔Smith's ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' notes on this point Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' i. 321, iv. 642; Apollonius Rhodius, ''Argonautica'' iv. 800; Servius, commentary on the ''Aeneid'' iv. 246; pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheke'' i. 4. § 1 ; Pausanias x. 5. § 3; Aeschylus, ''The Eumenides'' opening lines; see excerpts in translation at (Theoi Project: Themis ).〕 the office of the oracle was initially possessed by the goddesses Themis and Phoebe, and the site was initially sacred to Gaia. Subsequently it was believed to be sacred to Poseidon, the "Earth-shaker" god of earthquakes. During the Greek Dark Age, from the 11th to the 9th century BC,〔D. S. Robertson, "The Delphian Succession in the Opening of the Eumenides" ''The Classical Review'' 55. 2 (September 1941, pp. 69–70) p. 69, reasoning that in the three great allotments of oracular powers at Delphi, corresponding to the three generations of the gods, "Ouranos, as was fitting, gave the oracle to his wife Gaia and Kronos appropriately allotted it to his sister Themis." In Zeus' turn to make the gift, however, Aeschylus could not report that the oracle was given directly to Apollo, who had not yet been born, Robertson notes, and thus Phoebe was interposed. However, the usual modern reconstruction of the sacred site's pre-Olympian history does not indicate dedications to these earlier gods.〕 a new god of prophecy, Apollo, allegedly seized the temple and expelled the twin guardian serpents of Gaia, whose bodies he wrapped around the caduceus. Later myths stated that Phoebe or Themis had "given" the site to Apollo, rationalizing its seizure by priests of the new god, but presumably, having to retain the priestesses of the original oracle because of the long tradition. Apparently Poseidon was mollified by the gift of a new site in Troizen. Diodorus also explained how, initially, the Pythia was an appropriately clad young virgin, for great emphasis was placed on the Oracle's chastity and purity to be reserved for union with the god Apollo.〔Broad, W. J. (2007), p.30-31〕 But one consultant notes, The scholar Martin Litchfield West writes that the Pythia shows many traits of shamanistic practices, likely inherited or influenced from Central Asian practices, although there is no evidence of any Central Asian association at this time. He cites the Pythia sitting in a cauldron on a tripod, while making her prophecies in an ecstatic trance state, like shamans, and her unintelligible utterings.〔Martin Litchfield West, ''The Orphic Poems'', p.147. "The Pythia resembles a shamaness at least to the extent that she communicates with her () while in a state of trance, and conveys as much to those present by uttering unintelligible words. (Spirit Language, Mircea Eliade ). It is particularly striking that she sits on a cauldron supported by a tripod, reiterating the triad of the great goddess. This eccentric perch can hardly be explained except as a symbolic boiling, and, as such, it looks very much like a reminiscence of the initiatory boiling of the shaman translated from hallucinatory experience into concrete visual terms. It was in this same cauldron, probably, that the Titans boiled Dionysus in the version of the story known to Callimachus and Euphorion, and his remains were interred close by".〕 The tripod was perforated with holes; and as she inhaled the vapors, her figure would seem to enlarge, her hair stood on end, her complexion changed, her heart panted, her bosom swelled and her voice became seemingly more than human. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pythia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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