'Her eyes flashed, she foamed at the mouth, her hair stood on end.' Then she would reply to the question which had been put to her."
Indy suddenly felt as though she were speaking only to
him, that the rest of the class no longer mattered. Heat crept up the back of his neck. His eyes remained riveted on her, taking in the way the light slipped over her black hair and glinted in her dark eyes.
"Her answer was always an incoherent babble of words and phrases. Incoherent to all, that is, except the temple priests, who interpreted them for the petitioner." Belecamus looked over the class. "By the way, does anyone know what the word Delphi means? Mr. Jones, our Greek scholar, how about it?"
So, she had been looking at him, and she was aware of his study of ancient Greek.
"It means 'place of the dolphin.'"
She nodded. "Okay. But tell me, why is it called that?"
Indy had learned the mythical history of Delphi as a child, long before he even knew that Greece was a coun try. "Apollo arrived at the shrine in the form of a dolphin."
"And what did he find there?"
He suddenly felt as if he were twelve years old again and his father was drilling him on the myths he'd assigned him to study. But Dorian Belecamus was hardly his father. "A dragon named Python. It was the serpent-son of Gaea, the earth goddess and Poseidon, the earth shaker. Python lived in a cave on the mountain and spoke prophecies through Pythian priestesses."
"And what happened?"
"Apollo killed the dragon, and tossed him into a crevice in the earth."
"Thank you, Mr. Jones." Her eyes flicked away from him and darted around the room. "Now let's move away from the mythological aspects to our historical knowledge of Delphi."
She explained that for more than a millennium, from approximately 700 B.C. to a.d. 362, the mountain retreat had been the site of an oracle. She moved away from the podium as she continued talking. It was obvious she didn't
need any notes. "At the height of its influence, Delphi was the seat of power in the Mediterranean, virtually scripting the political history of the region. Hardly any action of consequence was taken by the rulers without consulting the oracle. Even skeptical philosophers including Plato and Socrates held the Oracle in high regard. Over the years, Delphi accumulated a vast treasure of gold and marble statues, paintings and jewelry, all tributes from
clients."
"Were the predictions actually accurate?" one of the students asked.
"I was just getting to that. The predictions were often worded in ambiguous phrases open to varying interpreta tions," she said. "However, one of the possibilities usually was accurate. Let me give you a few examples."
When asked how the Greeks would fare against a Persian attack in 480 B.C., the Oracle said to trust the
"wooden walls." Although the meaning of the walls was debated, the Greeks successfully defended themselves in their wooden fleet of ships even though they were surrounded. "So those who interpreted the 'wooden walls' as wooden ships were proved correct," she concluded.
When the Roman emperor Nero was warned: Beware of seventy-three, he chose to interpret the prediction as meaning that he would die at the age of seventy-three. Instead, he was overthrown at age thirty-one by Galba, who was seventy-three. "Some predictions were accurate in only an ambiguous or even a cynical sense," she contin ued. "For instance, Croesus was told that if he invaded neighboring Cyrus he would destroy a mighty empire. He did: his own."
Hocus-pocus, Indy thought. He doubted that Plato or Socrates gave a damn about the oracle. They gave lip service to the oracle only because it was the religion of the time; to defy that authority would have cost them dearly.
Indy knew from his studies that the powerful priests
who interpreted the babblings of Pythia were at the center of the Amphyctionic League, a coalition of Greek city-states, and were therefore well informed about important activities through the region. They simply used the oracle to create an aura of truth to their proclamations. In effect, the old woman called Pythia was simply a ritualistic vehicle of no actual consequence.
He also knew that his father would lash out at him if he ever said such a thing to him. Reducing Apollo's Oracle to a form of political corruption lacking any mystical reality was heresy. But all through his childhood, Indy had watched his father become increasingly mired in mystical musings that had taken over his life, and virtually ruined his own.
He raised his hand. "What exactly were those vapors that Pythia breathed when she made her prophecies?"
Belecamus sounded amused by the question. "Ah, the legendary 'mephitic' gases, as they were called.
"Who knows? Legend has it that the vapors came from the rotting carcass of Python."
"Fortunately, scientists don't take myths and legends as fact," Indy responded. "That's where religion and science part."
Belecamus stopped in front of him. Indy's eyes were drawn to her strong, tawny legs bare almost to her knees. "So what do you think the vapors were, Mr. Jones?"
He raised his eyes from her legs. For a moment he didn't answer. Her presence so near him nearly overwhelmed him. He cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts. She challenged him, and he would meet her head on. "Most likely they were a mixture of burning incense and bay leaves. Pythia inhaled the mixture and chewed narcotic laurel leaves to enter a trance state. The so-called vapors were just another way for the priests to mystify and ritualize the activities."
Belecamus crossed her arms. "You're very rational, Mr. Jones. That's good. But sometimes we need to spur our imaginations in archaeology. Myths are often a spring board to truth and understanding."
"They can also baffle and mislead, and too often are taken as the truth themselves," he responded.
"Even by intelligent people."
His father, for instance.
Belecamus smiled, and moved back to the podium. "Well said. I hope everyone here understands the double nature of myths."
As the hour neared its end, Belecamus said she wanted to make an announcement. "This lecture on Delphi, as you know, has been scheduled for weeks. But oddly enough it coincides with an urgent matter at Delphi. Just two days ago there was a minor earthquake in the area."
"Was there much damage?" someone asked.
"The quake caused the earth to buckle, and a crevice has opened in Apollo's Temple. But on the bright side, there apparently has also been a new discovery—a stone tablet has been spotted protruding from inside the chasm."
"What's on it?" someone else asked.
"We don't know yet. I'll be leaving Paris shortly to inspect the site. What this means is that my teaching assistant will take over the course for the remainder of the semester."
Indy felt a sudden vacancy in his chest, an absence of vital organs, as though his heart had been suctioned out. "I want to wish you all the best for the semester. You've been a very attentive group. I'll miss you."
Everyone applauded. As a line of students filed past Belecamus, wishing her well, Indy remained at his desk. Finally, as the last few students left, he stood up and approached the podium.
"Mr. Jones, I hope I'm not keeping you from anything. Another class? A girlfriend waiting in the hall, perhaps?"
"No. Not at all."
"Good. I asked you to wait because I wanted to tell you more about my immediate plans."
"You do?"
Her eyes locked on his. Her look was as penetrating and intimate as an embrace and its intensity astonished him. "Would you be interested in accompanying me to Delphi as my assistant?"
"Me?"
"Yes. You are my best student, and I'll need help from someone not associated with the University of Athens. Politics, if you know what I mean."