Delphi

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History of Delphi

?Zeus according to the Greek legend once wished to determine the exact centre of the earth.? So he released two eagles from opposite ends of the world.? Flying towards each other they met precisely over Delphi.?[1]? So, according to this legend and historians, Delphi was known as the center of the world to the Ancient Greeks, starting in the 6th century BCE.?

? Excavations have shown that the Mycenaeans (in Greece from 1600-1200 BCE) were probably the first to inhabit Delphi in the 14th BCE, and it has continuously been inhabited since then.[2]? The famous ancient author Homer even spoke of Pytho, the primitive name for Delphi, in his book, the Iliad.? In the last third of the 8th century BCE, Delphi emerged in Greek religious history.[3]? It was first founded as a Greek colony, and all new Greek colonies at that time needed new temples and sanctuaries of gods and heroes built so the inhabitants of the city could worship their numerous gods.[4]?

Tradition says that Pytho (Delphi) was originally the sacred ground of the goddess Ge, and a dragon named Python protected it.? Apollo, the god of light, poetry, music and prophecy, slayed Python by shooting numerous arrows into him.[5]? The city was said to be founded and built because Apollo wished it after his accomplishment, but that could just have been a way for Delphi, which does not have a concrete past, to have a perfect picturesque conception.

Delphi did not become the center of the Greek world until after it joined the Amphictyonic League in the 7th century BCE.? This was a religious league that included many tribes of mainland Greece and surroundings.? These seemed to have been very prominent in Ancient times; there is proof of leagues of Calau...

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...ent Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 127.

[11]Pomeroy, 203.

[12] Pomeroy, 203.

[13] Parke & Wormell, 214.

[14] Encyclopedia Britannica, 452.

[15] Encyclopedia Britannica, 452.

[16] www.ancient-greece.org.

[17] Britannica Junior Encyclopedia, Volume 5 D-E, (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc 1973), ?Delphi,? 67.

[18] Compton?s Encyclopedia 31st Edition: Volume 4 D-E, (Chicago, F.E. Compton & Company Publishers, 1952) ?Delphi,? 62.

[19] Compton?s Encyclopedia, 62.

[20] Britannica Junior, 67.

[21] Parke, 56.

[22] www.ancient-greece.org.

[23] www.ancient-greece.org.

[24] www.ancient-greece.org.

[25] Simon Price, Religion of the Ancient Greeks, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 60.

[26] Price, 60.

[27] Price, 75.

[28] www.ancient-greece.org.

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