Delphi and the Corinth Canal

We don't often get the opportunity to visit inland sites, but our trip between Greece's mainland and the Peloponnesian peninsula enabled us to visit the oracle at Delphi. According to Plutarch, who was a priest there, a shepherd noticed that his flock acted strangely when they were near a specific crevice in the rock. When he approached, he began to spout prophecies.

The villagers eventually chose a priestess, usually a woman over fifty, to sit on a three-legged stool above the chasm. She gave up normal life for her assignment. She performed some purification and other rituals and then sank into a trance to hear the questions of worshippers. She answered in gibberish, interpreted by the priests.

Legend holds that Zeus, the leader of all the gods, sent two eagles from the ends of the universe to find its center.

The Temple of Apollo, the seat of the oracle, sits upon the spot that they impaled each other. Only a few columns remain and the foundations of the rest of the temple. At the left of the temple are the remains of the theater, which seated five thousand people. Both structures were built in the fourth century BC.

The museum on site at Delphi contains thousands of ancient objects. That anything was left for us to see at Delphi is remarkable. In 86 BC, Delphi was plundered by the Roman general Sulla, and two decades later Nero took about five hundred bronze statues.

The god Apollo killed the serpent Python at Delphi, and to celebrate his victory, the Pythian Games were established, There were athletic and musical contests, and the games were made quadrennial in 582 BC.

The bronze charioteer at left is the remaining portion of a statue that included four bronze horses and two grooms. It was created in commemoration of a victory of a Syracusan prince at the Pythian Games in the fifth century BC. The eyes are inlaid with a material like enamel, and they seem to follow your gaze. The folds of the chiton, his uniform, look almost soft.

The Isthmus of Corinth once connected the Peloponnesian peninsula to Greece's mainland. Ancient rulers, including Nero, tried to build a canal. It was a burden to drag ships across the four-mile isthmus during their journeys between the Ionian and the Aegean. But in those days, empires were short-lived and rulers often had more pressing economic priorities than creating civic infrastructure.

The French and the Greeks built the Corinth Canal at the end of the nineteenth century. This canal turns a trip of a hundred and fifty miles around the Peloponnesian coast into a four-mile boat ride.