Ancient Greek Divination
Overview
This note was generated from the Greek studies corpus.
Key Passages
Passage 1
nows. There is an old story that Athena, the goddess of wisdom, learned pebble divination from the Thriai nymphs, or perhaps it is the other way around. Regardless, when Apollo was granted the exclusive right to know Zeus’s plans, he demanded that other forms of divination be made unreliable. Therefore, Athena discarded the thriai pebbles in a place since known as the Thriasian Plain (the region around Eleusis, where the Mysteries were celebrated). This is why the Pythia said, “Many are the pebble-casters (thrioboloi), but prophets are few.” No doubt she saw them as competition! Apollo learned prophecy from the bee nymphs when he was a shepherd on Mount Parnassus, which is the next story. Pythian Apollo Apollo is the archer god, ruler of the solar energies (which purify and reveal), lord of Delphi, patron of music and leader of the chorus of Muses (patrons of the arts and sciences),…
Passage 2
Delphic oracle concerning the Tripod of Helen, about which you will learn in Chapter 8. Once an oracle’s meaning is expressed in words and accepted, the potentials begin to collapse into one possibility. Therefore, it is important to formally reject the worst interpretations and to consciously and explicitly accept the best, thus manifesting the benevolence of the gods. Thus the wise mantis does not so much predict the future as guide it. Once the oracle’s meaning has been accepted, the oracle (Grk., chrêsmos; Lat., oraculum) and its meaning become talismans— magical instruments to facilitate and reinforce its actualization. Thus divination blends seamlessly into magic. The oracle can be embodied in a concrete talisman (as explained in Chapter 6) in order to strengthen the manifestation of the oracle’s interpretation. Indeed, the ancients called omens and oracles “symbols” (symbola) because they are manifestations in our world of the power of the gods…
Passage 3
w Pythian Apollo came to Delphi and became lord of prophecy, and of how Hermes learned divination by lots. Let’s move on to the divining, which this book will teach to you. Methods of Divination “Divination is at the heart of Greek religion.” 13 This is because, as the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus (ca. 279–ca. 206 BCE) explains, divination is the power to see, to understand, and to interpret the signs that the gods give to people.14 This is evident in the Latin word divinatio (divination), which comes from the same root as divinus (divine). Divination is not limited to predicting the future; thus, Homer sings of the famous seer: Calchas, an augur foremost in his art, Who all things, present, past, and future knew (Iliad I.70) Often indeed, divination is intended to discover something about the past in order to illuminate the present. In this section, I will describe the…
Connections
Sources
- John_Opsopaus_-_The_Oracles_of_Apollo__Practical_A