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under the lawmaker Solon (639?-559? BCE), who led Athenian government until his retirement. One of his accomplishments was to reform the harsh Athenian laws drawn up earlier by Draco—a code so harsh it inspired the word “draconian.” After Solon’s retirement, Athenian democracy backpedaled under Solon’s cousin, Pisistratus, and did not fully arrive until the thirty-year period under Pericles. Beginning about 460 BCE, Athenian democracy—while far from perfect—began to flourish. As historian Charles Freeman points out in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, “It remains unique as the world’s only example of a successfully functioning and sustained direct democracy. It lasted for nearly 140 years—a remarkable achievement in a period of history where instability was the norm. It involved its citizens as officials, legislators and law enforcers in a way few modern democracies would dare to do and it is remarkable for breaking the traditional connection between political power and wealth. And all this when the city was also acting as a major and innovative cultural center.”

MYTHIC VOICES

What did they believe, these Greeks? Were the gods real to them or just metaphors? Certainly they did not have creeds or dogmas, confessional or doctrinal positions such as we have come to expect from religions. And just as certainly, there was a graduated spectrum of interpretation, as there must always be in things religious, that spanned classes and communities and that shifted in emphasis from one period to another. What is so striking about the Homeric gods—as opposed to the One that most of us are familiar with (though familiar is surely the wrong word)—is their lack of godliness. Oh sure, they have power beyond the dreams of the world’s most powerful king, but they exercise this power just the way we would—heavy handedly, often mercilessly, even spitefully. And they are taken up with their own predictable domestic crises—who’s sleeping with whom, who’s getting back at whom, who’s belittling whom. Could anyone actually believe in such gods?

—THOMAS CAHILL, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea

What was the Delphic Oracle?

Of the many sacred places in ancient Greece, none was more significant than Delphi, home of the oldest and most influential religious sanctuary in ancient Greece. It was not just an important center—it was the center, literally. Delphi had come to be regarded as the omphalos, or navel, of the world, and the site was marked with a large conical stone. The sacred stone at Delphi was supposedly the very stone Rhea tricked Cronus into swallowing at the time of the Creation. After eating his first five children, the father god had swallowed this stone, wrapped in swaddling clothes, instead of the sixth child, Zeus. When Zeus later forced him to vomit forth the other children, this stone came out, too.

Delphi is near the Gulf of Corinth, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, and a religious shrine was founded there sometime before 1200 BCE. Originally a shrine to Gaia, the earth goddess, the temple at Delphi by the eighth century BCE was dedicated to Apollo, the god of prophecy. For at least twelve centuries, the oracle at Delphi spoke on behalf of the gods, advising rulers, citizens, and philosophers on everything from their sex lives to affairs of state. The oracle spoke out, often deliriously, exerting wide influence.

As part of the ritual at Delphi, a petitioner brought an offering of sacred cake, a goat, or a sheep, before consulting the Pythia, the priestess of the shrine. After careful purification, Pythia sat on a tripod and fell into a trancelike state in which she received messages and prophecies from Apollo. In this trance, and sometimes in a frenzy, she would answer questions, give orders, and make predictions. Some scholars say her divine communications were then interpreted and written down by male priests, often in ambiguous verse. But others say the oracle communicated directly with petitioners.

For years, modern scholars have dismissed the theory that vapors rising from beneath the temple floor were responsible for the