"Man! Crawls, walks, uses a stick. I had had enough. Informers are notoriously gruff. Sometimes I try to overturn the stereotype; not today. I wished I had a stick myself, to beat the guide."Save it. Look here! I'll give you this -" The coin I offered was three times what he was worth."Now leave us alone, please.'
"You don't like my guiding?' The fellow pretended to be astonished.
Informers, who need to be unobtrusive, are followers of etiquette. When in shrines devoted to tolerance, I avoid getting into a fistfight. I stayed quiet and crisp."We want to commune with the gods in silence. So go back down the hill and kidnap someone else.'
"But you must have a guide!'
Cobnuts to etiquette."And you must have a kick up the backside if you don't go.'
He went.
Other tourists had overheard our rebellion with interest. Subgroups began huddling together; we could see them muttering, then squaring up to take action. Soon arguments broke out all around the ancient cave of the Python. The gods of immemorial earth and the deities of subterranean waters must have gurgled with mirth, as normally timid tourists stood up to their guides and dismissed them. Apollo, the arbiter of moderation, tickled the strings of his lyre and rejoiced.
I had no conscience about causing a rebellion. The bastard guides would be back tomorrow, boring new victims.
Helena and I gazed up at the Sphinx, hand in hand, glad of the chance to enjoy one famous statue undisturbed.
"She reminds me of you, my darling, in some ways. Beautiful, seemingly remote and mysterious – and clever, of course.'
"Older, though!' returned Helena cattily.
The time-honoured Sphinx showed no reaction, but assuming she was a woman of the world, I winked at her.
In our own time now, we moved on along the Sacred Way.
The narrow route wound upwards, its worn stones sometimes dangerous underfoot. Delphi could have used a Roman road-maintenance gang. Freed from our obligation to absorb every detail, we scurried past altars, columns, tripods, porticoes, pedestals, and victories, pausing only to admire the towering statue of Apollo himself beside the spring of Cassotis. At long last we reached the temple. We could hear guides listing the many previous versions of the building ('first woven laurel, then beeswax and bees-wings, then bronze, then porous stone in the Doric style…') They came up with more of these suspect details, but I stopped listening. (I'm all for myth – but you just try knocking up a garden gazebo from bees-wings when you have a free hour or two!) We took a quick circuit around, saw the east facade, with its scene of Apollo arriving in Delphi, and the west, with Dionysus and various maenads.
"Apollo goes to spend winters with the Hyperboreans,' Helena said.
"Hyper whats?'
"Boreans – peoples behind the north wind. Don't ask me why; what do you think I am, Marcus, some damned site guide?'
"I think you'll find,' I smirked,"this myth symbolises the absence of the sun – or of light, as represented by Apollo himself- during winter.'
"Well, thank you, encyclopedist! Anyway, while Apollo is on holiday getting frostbite under his drapery, Dionysus takes over at Delphi. The oracles cease and the sanctuary is given over to feasting.'
"Sounds like fun.'
"Sounds like very bad news for Statianus,' Helena said,"if he is still here in the question queue. Oracles are given on Apollo's birthday, which I think is February or March, and afterwards only on the seventh day of the month. So if they cease in winter, Statianus is about to miss his chance altogether.'
"The October oracle has passed; he's stuck until after Saturnalia. But does he have a chance at all?' I asked."What are the rules about applicants? Who exactly gets to put their questions?'
"Citizens of Delphi first, then people to whom Delphi has awarded rights of precedence.
"Official queue-jumpers? How does anyone get to be one of them?'
"Money, no doubt,' Helena sniffed."And finally, the rest, in order drawn by lot.'
"With as much chance as cuckoo spit!'
We had already poked our noses into the temple interior and been shooed out from the inner cella. We had dutifully stared at the legendary mottoes. KNOW YOURSELF and NOTHING IN EXCESS. We had made the inevitable bitter joke about the Delphi guides not taking any notice of either. Now we found a spot on the steps, shaded by a column, where we sat down to rest, hugging our knees and drinking in the majestic views. I wished we had brought a picnic. To distract me from my hunger pangs, Helena told me what she knew about the rituals of the oracle.
"Prophecy has an ancient history here. There is a fissure in the earth which breathes vapours that make people clairvoyant. The priestess, the Pythia, was in ancient times a young virgin, but nowadays she has to be at least fifty.'
"Disappointment!'
"She's not your type. She has to live in the sanctuary, irreproachably.
"I've met lots of so-called irreproachable girls. I won them over.'
"Really?'
"Well, you should know, Helena!'
Helena was used to ignoring my jests."Applicants – successful ones – are cleansed in the Kastalian Spring, then they pay a fee, which is variable, depending on their question.'
"Or depending on how badly the priests decide they want an answer,' I guessed cynically.
"I imagine they are all fairly desperate, Marcus. Anyway, they make a sacrifice, usually a kid. It has cold water poured over it; if it trembles, the god is at home and amenable to hearing questions. In that case, the Pythia purifies herself with Kastalian water and enters the temple. She burns laurel and barley flour on the hearth where the immortal fire burns. Then she descends into a space below the nave while the priests and applicant wait nearby. The applicant asks his question in a loud, clear voice. The priestess drinks more Kastalian spring water, chews
bay leaves, mounts the sacred tripod beside the umbilicus – the navel of the world – then as the spirit emanates from the fissure, she falls into a deep trance. She speaks, though it is meaningless.'
"Typical woman!'
"Bastard. The priests write it down, then they translate the gibberish into words – though they leave you to interpret for yourself what is meant. Typical men,' retorted Helena neatly.
I knew an example."If Croesus crosses the River Aly, a great kingdom will be destroyed." Croesus eagerly decides that's the Persians so he rushes off with an army. Of course the Persians annihilate him and he destroys his own kingdom.'
"While the oracle chortles, "Told you so!" The let-out clause, Marcus, is that the oracle at Delphi "neither reveals nor conceals the truth." Whoever wants answers has to unravel the meaning.'
"Rather like asking my mother what she wants for a Saturnalia present… Though Ma never needs a bay-leaf snack to make her confusing.'
Abruptly we thought of home. We were silent for a while.
"So,' I said."Even if Tullius Statianus ever did win a place in the lottery, the Oracle would never tell him straight out "who killed Valeria." The Pythia would hedge her bets and disguise the name in subterfuge.'
"Well, how could she know?' scoffed Helena. Ever logical; never mystical."An elderly Greek lady, living on a mountainside, permanently sozzled with sulphur fumes and out of her mind on aromatic leaves!'
I loved that girl."I had assumed,' I returned mildly,"the incomprehensible Pythia is a smokescreen. Her unearthly moans are just a sideshow. What happens is, as soon as applicants present themselves, the priests do a hasty background check on them, then the priests invent the prophecies, based on their research.'
"Sounds exactly like your work, Marcus.'
"They are better paid!' I was feeling morose."I once heard of a man who constructed a model of a talking snake, then let it answer people's questions in return for enormous fees. He made a fortune. I would earn more, and certainly gain more prestige, if I turned myself into an oracle at a thousand sesterces a go.'
Helena seemed thoughtful. For a moment I wondered if she took the suggestion too seriously and was planning to set me up in a booth on market days. Then she grabbed my arm.