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“inspiration,” which is how the Greeks explained it. Despite many efforts, no underlying fissure or source of intoxicating fumes was ever found, and the vapors were assumed to be mythical, like much else about the site. But recent scientific work at the site is shaking that view. As reported in the Scientific American in August 2003, a geologist, an archaeologist, a chemist, and a toxicologist have uncovered a wealth of evidence that suggests the ancients had it exactly right. They have solid evidence that petrochemical fumes from the region’s underlying rocks could rise to the surface to help induce visions. Specifically, the team found that the oracle probably came under the influence of ethylene—a sweet-smelling gas once used as an anesthetic, and which, in light doses, produces feelings of euphoria.

With the rise of Christianity, the temple eventually decayed and fell from favor. Around 361 CE, the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate tried to restore the temple, but the oracle wailed that her powers had vanished. In 390 CE, the Christian Roman emperor Theodosius permanently closed the temple as part of his drive to stamp out any vestiges of pagan worship.

Modern science may be reopening its lost secrets.

MYTHIC VOICES

But do not worry about marriage with your mother;

No end of males have dreamed of sleeping with theirs.

—SOPHOCLES, Oedipus the King

Do all little boys want to kill their father and sleep with their mother?

The oracle plays a central role in a myth that was made a household name by Sigmund Freud. An “Oedipal complex” is—in Freud’s view—a boy’s desire to compete with his father and sleep with his mother. But what is the myth behind the psychology?

Oedipus was born the son of Laius, king of Thebes, and his wife, Jocasta. An oracle said Laius would die at the hands of his own son—a story with echoes back to the beginnings of Greek mythic Creation—who would then marry his mother. To protect himself, Laius places the three-year-old Oedipus on a mountainside to die. The boy is discovered while still alive by a shepherd who gives him to Polybus, the childless king of Corinth, and his wife, Merope. The couple rear Oedipus as their own, and he grows up unaware of his mysterious past. But when he goes to Delphi and hears the same grim prophecy that had troubled Laius, Oedipus leaves home, believing that he is sparing his true father and mother from harm.

That is when fate strikes. As he heads toward Thebes, Oedipus is run off the road by a chariot and fights with the driver and passenger, killing them both in a case of ancient Greek “road rage.” What Oedipus could not have known was that one of the men he has killed is his real father, King Laius. Part one of the prophecy is thus fulfilled.

But the Delphic Oracle had also predicted that the man who solved “the riddle of the Sphinx” will be king of Thebes and marry the queen. On his way to Thebes, Oedipus next encounters the Sphinx, a creature with the head of a woman, the body of a lion, a serpent tail, and wings. Sent to plague the city after Laius had apparently disrespected the gods, the Sphinx lived on a high rock outside the city of Thebes, and would ask anyone who passed by to solve a riddle: “What has one voice and becomes four-footed, two-footed, and three-footed?”

A wrong answer results in death, and the Sphinx has been devouring Thebans one by one. Confronted by the Sphinx, Oedipus replies, “Man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two legs, and finally needs a cane in old age.”

Furious because Oedipus has solved the riddle, the Sphinx jumps off the rocky perch to her death. Having solved the riddle, Oedipus arrives in Thebes, where he is made king and marries the queen. Jocasta, of course, is unaware that her new husband is really her son. Part two of the prophecy has been fulfilled. They have two sons, Polynices and Eteocles, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.

Oedipus the King by Sophocles (c. 496–406 BCE), the second of the three great Greek tragedians, is the most famous play to treat this extraordinary