The Delphic School of Government Apollon PDF

Andreas Markantonatos
The Delphic School of Government:

Apollonian Wisdom and Athenian Folly in
Euripides’ Ion ¹
τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ μὲν χρηστά, τοῦ δὲ δαίμονος/βαρέα
Euripides, Ion 1374– 1375
Introduction
In this paper,² following what is becoming increasingly (and compellingly, in my
view) the opinio communis that Greek drama was not only a reflection, and per-
haps even a glassy one, of the development of the Athenian polis, but also an
agent of its own that was actively influencing the political and social life of
the city-state, in that it aspired to give the Athenians enough spiritual guidance
to enable them to assess democratic leadership and to regain touch with reality, I
shall argue that in Ion, which can be dated with considerable safety around 413
BCE,³ Euripides is inviting his audience to put itself at a distinctly social and po-
litical standpoint, from which Delphi with its inexhaustible sources of divine and
cosmic wisdom and power is seen to be a great deal more interesting than a mere
antithesis to Athens.⁴ In particular, throughout the play the Delphic oracular
 It is with a tremendous sense of loss that I offer this paper in honour of the late Professor
Daniel I. Iakov, who was not only a brilliant and remarkably productive classical scholar, he was
also a man whom one would like to have as a friend. His humanity and kindness were legen-
dary; the range of his work was catholic; the mind behind it was a delight. As his grateful
student in all matters concerning Greek tragedy I had the immense pleasure of enjoying his
erudition, sensibility, and keenness of mind. He will be greatly missed.
 The edition here used for Ion is the Oxford Classical Text by James Diggle, and the translations
are based on the annotated edition of the play by Kevin Lee.
 See Lee , , who follows Lesky ,  and , , and Diggle , ; Swift
,  – . For either later or earlier dates, see von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , ; Owen
, xli; Cagnetta , ; Klimek-Winter ; Zacharia ,  – ; Martin .
 On the conception of Greek tragedy as a highly influential political driving force in the context
of Athenian democracy, see recently the collection of essays in Markantonatos/Zimmermann
 with exhaustive bibliography. Books and articles on Euripides’ Ion have proliferated in
the last two decades, placing special interpretative emphasis on the play’s social and political
dimension, as well as its visual and dramatic power and variety; cf. (e. g.) Dunn ; Matthies-
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210 Andreas Markantonatos
shrine serves as the mirror image of an ideal Athens, the repository of those pre-
cious standards of behaviour and high moral principles which an apparently ma-
lignant chain of circumstances combined with the weak sides of the Athenian
character had rendered pointless and irrelevant in post-Periclean Athens and es-
pecially so at the turn of the fourth century BCE.⁵ When looked at this way the
plot of Ion yields a penetrating moral intelligence, at once intimate and forensic;
it yokes effects to their opposite: from a nostalgic appeal for reaffirmation of the
autochthonous legends of the Athenian past, it delivers a piercing truth about
the urgent need to liberate the community from the antiquated extremities of so-
cial exclusivity and thereupon establish civic inclusivity in equal measure in
order to counterbalance the pursuit of elite interests within the polis, from allu-
sive creation of an atmosphere of imminent external danger stemming from par-
anoid explanatory hypotheses about extraordinary events, vivid psychological
verities about those who possess supreme authority over state polity but are ei-
ther deficient in understanding or, worse still, susceptible to conspiracy theories
about impending foreign intrusions.
Delphi, therefore, can be read as both an everywhere bringing out the impor-
tance of the notions of justice and purity, and to great extent also of common
sense, of fairness, of compassion, and of honesty ‒ all of these reminding the
original audience of those currently lost Athenian values enabling the citizenry
to act with greater self-consciousness and to modulate if not avoid habitual, in-
stinctive reactions ‒ and an elsewhere polemically inverse not only to the ethical
disarray of contemporary Athens and the follies and weaknesses of her leaders
but also to unproductive ideas calling for social subordination and political ex-
clusivity as a means of instituting security and battling civil strife. In other
words, Delphi in her role as an idealized Athens constitutes a kind of deep struc-
ture at the centre of the play: it generates light, revelation, in that it records with
intensity and completeness the fontal truths of Athenian democracy, especially
the far-reaching idea that citizenship should not be defined by personal resour-
ces or social status.⁶
sen ; Giannopoulou /; Zacharia ; Craik ; Lee ; Padel ; Arnott
; Cole ; Redondo ; Segal ; Quijada Sagredo ; Thorburn a & ;
Morwood ,  – ; Pellegrino ; Goff ,  – ; Kosak ,  – ; Murna-
ghan ; Hose ,  – ; Chong-Gossard ,  – ; Weiss ; Mirto ,
 – ; Walton ,  –  &  – ; Stehle ; Vickers ; Gibert .
 On the social and political crisis enveloping late fifth-century Athens, see Markantonatos
 and ,  –  with further references.
 On the Delphic oracle and its close association with Athens, as well as its wider role in main-
land Greece, see Parke/Wormell ; Fontenrose  and ; Flacelière ; Parke ;

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The Delphic School of Government 211
In addition to this, and most importantly, it is my contention that through

the carefully engineered interplay between Athens and Delphi Euripides seeks
to bring to the fore the importance of prevision and strategy as fundamental
qualities of leadership; in fact, by transferring his Athenian story to the heart
of the Delphic shrine he focuses attention on Apollo as the archetypal figure
of the discerning visionary and keen-sighted strategist, the perceptive leader ex-
traordinaire, completely lacking in late fifth-century Athens.⁷ In the play, as the
oracular patron of Delphi Apollo serves as the ideal politician who is capable
enough of interpreting present and future under changing circumstances and
against the suspicion of the human characters; more than that, with his prophet-
ic powers he sets the standard by which men should judge their leaders as to
their capacities to conjure up the future and in so doing define effective strategic
planning without yielding to the pull of fear and mistrust. It is beyond accident
that Thucydides, a historian otherwise sparing with his praise, has no qualms
about waxing lyrical on Themistocles and Pericles on the grounds that these
two remarkable Athenian leaders have such an acuteness of mind that enables
them to penetrate the unseen future and thus secure safety and greatness for
their city. According to Thucydides, Themistocles could best conjecture the
course of events in the future (1.138.3, καὶ τῶν μελλόντων ἐπὶ πλεῖστον
γενησομένου ἄριστος εἰκαστής) and foresee the good and evil which lay hidden
in the unseen future (1.138.3, τὸ τε ἄμεινον ἢ χεῖρον ἐν τῷ ἀφανεῖ ἔτι προεώρα
μάλιστα), while Pericles was the best man of all in devising and explaining a
sound policy, in that he could predict the outcome of the war by gauging the
power of his country (2.65, ὁ δὲ φαίνεται καὶ ἐν τούτῳ προγνοὺς τὴν δύναμιν).⁸
In this regard, encumbered though they were with human frailties, both The-
mistocles and Pericles were seen as having a share in the divine; for not unlike
Apollo, the prophet par excellence, as well as the mantic priestess at Delphi, they
analyzed the ever-changing circumstances, so as to draw safe conclusions con-
cerning future policy, thereby increasing the likelihood of their own survival and
Lloyd-Jones ; Roux ; Burkert ,  –  esp. ; Price ; Parker ,
,  & , ,  –  &  – ; Malkin ; Morgan ,  – ; Bremmer
,  – ; Bruit Zaidman/Schmitt Pantel ,  – ; Bowden ; Mikalson ,
 – ; Johnston ,  –  esp.  – ; Bowie ; Graf a,  –  esp.  – 
and b; Evans ,  – ; Scott . On the wide-ranging debate over Athenian citizen-
ship, see the thought-provoking essays in Raaflaub ; Sealey .
 On Apollo and his striking role in the play, see Wassermann ; Erbse ; Koster ;
Winnington-Ingram ; Gellie ; Lloyd ; Neitzel ; Hartigan ; Gavrilov
; Giuliani ,  ff.; Kindt ; Lacore ; Hunter .
 Cf. Hornblower ,  and  – , who expresses some doubt about Pericles’ fore-
sightedness.

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thus the survival and continued well-being of the Athenian citizens without suc-
cumbing to the divisive forces of polarization and the corrosive effects of the dis-
trust and opposition of the people. There are strong grounds for thinking that the
Delphic oracle’s absolute and unerring mantic craft was predicated upon its rare
capacity to construe circumstances, determine and expound the sensible course
of action, and to promote prudent deliberation and collective resolve without im-
posing an asphyxiating authority upon individuals.⁹ In a sense by acting as
guide to interpretation, goad to self-understanding, and aid to foresight Delphic
divination embodies a structure of thought and life which adumbrates the ideal
aims of Athenian democratic politics.
Therefore, far from constituting a mere reflection, the close association of
Athens with Delphi becomes fully dialogic, a transaction across what in the
opening scenes of the drama may still be an ethical void filled only with obsolete
legendary phantasies from the distant Athenian past ‒ yet a transaction that, as
the play unfolds, moves back to recover significant markings and distinguishing
national symbols from that glorious past, especially time-honoured principles
with educative and equalizing power, thereby offering the promise that through
the agency of perspicacious and honest rulers the feeling of distinctive patrio-
tism can be merged in that of human brotherhood for the immense benefit of
the city. And, indeed, it is not difficult to imagine the effect which the powerful
treatment of an emerging magnetic leader such as Ion must have produced on an
audience who were becoming increasingly disillusioned with their political lead-
ers vying for influence against a backdrop of personal intrigues and power-hun-
gry strategies. This is especially so, principally because Ion, the hero-ancestor of
the Ionians, is portrayed as an exceptional individual, nurtured by the streams of
Delphic wisdom and schooled in unalloyed Athenian values, as those are vigi-
lantly preserved within the well-protected precincts of the Pythian sanctuary,
where through their openness to all men with particular resources or talents
the Delphians embody a successful strategy in leadership that promotes unanim-
ity and even-tempered judgement.¹⁰
We need, then, at the very least, to eschew any simple or uniform model of
the relationship between Athens and Delphi in the play; and this means that,
among much else, we need to work towards a recognition of the many challeng-
 Cf. Bremmer , ; Johnston ,  – , who is right to argue that Delphic divination
recognizes the conscious instrumentality of men in bringing about god’s end. For a revisionist
view, see recently Bowden ,  –  and passim.
 On the notion of leadership in ancient Greece, see Markantonatos  with further refer-
ences. Cf. also Rhodes/‘t Hart  with recent insights into contemporary debates over prob-
lems concerning leadership.

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ing complexities of the close connection between these ancient sites of great
Panhellenic importance, as well as the far-reaching social and political effects
this remarkable correlation between sacred places sets in motion in the context
of the Dionysia festival. It is not too bold to suggest that in Ion Euripides gives a
mythical continuum and a model of human motives and reactions which are res-
onant with his own troubled times; more than this, through the constant demon-
stration of the torturing uncertainties that underlie the decisions his characters
take in the process of living he encourages the Athenian audience to become
more conscious of the crucial fact that only political leaders with vision possess
that unique ability to see beyond the present ‒ the here and now. In a period of
social uncertainty and turbulence, during which the security achieved through
political provision is dismantled by factional conflict, and the capacity of
those men in authority for judgement or forethought is obstructed by internecine
passions, the Delphic Apollo, as well as his charismatic son Ion, whose bare and
clumsy ambition of his youth is destined to become cloaked by the great man of
experience and accomplishment, provides a much-needed benchmark for as-
sessing strategic leaders capable of synthesizing the present and future in a
broad sweep. It is fair to say that in earlier times and especially before the Pelo-
ponnesian War the mantle of Apollo and Ion fell on such far-sighted and saga-
cious Athenian politicians as Themistocles and Pericles, who never failed to as-
sume the hard mental labour of deciphering what the future held in store for the
Athenian state without falling victim to the passion and suspicion of the citizens.
Understood as a timeless truth at the close of the fifth century BCE, the Euripi-
dean argument that Athens must search for rulers invested with the leadership
attributes of those provident and judicious men of the past, if she is to survive
in the hour of extreme peril, seems more compelling than ever before.
Sacred Wisdom and the Folly of the World:

Leadership against Crisis
It is widely accepted among Euripidean critics that in Ion ‘[t]he scene is Delphi, but
in a sense it is Athens’.¹¹ Far from claiming that I offer here further evidence of this
unquestioned relationship between Athens and Delphi, exhaustively treated by
more than a few scholars in comprehensive and illuminating discussions of the
play, I shall draw attention to those striking similarities in geography, religion,
 Owen () xxii. Cf. also Kuntz ,  – ; Lee  ad  – ; Zacharia ,  – ;
Stieber ,  – .

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and mythology which buttress my argument that Euripides invests the Delphic sanc-
tuary with multiple layers of distinctly Athenian meaning, so as to bring before our
eyes an image of Athens in its most idealized conception as a profoundly hallowed
place of moral purity and civic harmony.¹² There is a complex of correspondences
between Athens and Delphi, arising out of numerous echoes, doublets, parallelisms,
and pairings which facilitate a reflected duplication of the Athenian city, and not
least its most sacred symbol, the Acropolis, that appears identical with the Pythian
shrine. These geographical, religious, and mythological mirrorings are so discernible
that I would not be wide of the mark to suggest that Euripides’ Ion is one of the most
painstakingly spatialised plays in the tragic corpus. The actual storyline crystallizes
along a consistent thread of spatio-temporal interpenetration of Athens and Delphi,
and scenic presentation takes the form of a long series of perceptions of space
shown from the ideologically-laden perspectives of a host of dramatic characters.¹³
Given that limitations of space prevent us from exploring this extensive net-
work of interconnected themes and images in the depth it deserves, in the fol-
lowing brief review of these contemporary Athenian alignments which are pro-
jected back on the Delphic originals our examples will be scattered and not at
all complete, mostly drawn from the opening scene of the play (1– 183) and
the recognition episodes (510 – 675, 1250 – 1622). To be sure, our purpose is not
to treat all aspects of the play’s Athenian and Delphic groundwork exhaustively,
but to illustrate a number of individual related points, such as the conception of
Apollo’s divine management as both a foretoken of Ion’s human leadership and,
more widely, a timeless paradigm of political farsightedness, as well as the ur-
gent need to redefine and recalibrate central ideological premises of the Atheni-
an state in order to promote a more inclusive political identity and forge a stron-
ger sense of mutual connectedness within the community.
It is not unwise to argue that through the semantic charging of the Delphic
space, which among much else aims to paint a picture of Athens as an ethically
unambiguous force in the Greek world, Euripides evokes Athens’ earlier mo-
ments of self-praise, at which the city imagined herself as a place occupying
the moral high ground of a utopian topography. In a play full of anachronistic
references, questions of self-fashioning and self-enhancement through a con-
stant exploration of ancestral origins and primordial claims to purity of blood
and racial antecedence take on a special relevance to Athenian democratic pol-
itics, principally because this notion of indigenousness, predicated upon an un-
 On idealized conceptions of Athens, see Loraux ,  – ; Mills ,  – . On
Athenian ideology, see Markantonatos ,  – .
 On the focalization of tragic space, see Markantonatos ,  – .

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remitting and unspoiled blood tie to a host of native royal founders, is treated,
rather surprisingly, within the context of democratic ideology as incontrovertible
evidence of moral incorruptibility and irreproachable integrity. By priding them-
selves on being the unmediated progeny of the land, Athenians seek to lay great
stress upon the strong character and ethics of their race; further than this, their
sense of justice acquired by their intergenerational purity of birth forms the bed-
rock of a long line of successful military campaigns against hateful oppressors
and vicious wrongdoers, among which the return of the bodies of the Argive
dead to Adrastus and the help given to the Heraclidae against the cruelty of Eur-
ystheus take pride of place.¹⁴
It is, therefore, no accident that this inherited ‘landedness’, despite its unreal-
istic foundation, together with the concomitant feelings of confidence and inde-
pendence arising from deeply instilled self-worth, allows the Athenian citizen to rec-
ognize that the liberty of all is instrumental in promoting the possibility of unity and
prudence. In this regard, the equalizing effect of autochthony is the root and matrix
of democracy understood as a fine combination of the rule of law and the instruc-
tion of reason. All this appears directly significant in the situation of political tur-
moil that threatened to engulf the Athenian state in the closing years of the fifth cen-
tury BCE, during which men in authority were unable to lay down steadfast
principles of moral behaviour and social analysis, including how to explain
human reactions under various conditions, and to learn the right ways to apply
them and, when appropriate, revise them in particular cases. In any event, the emer-
gence and evolution of Athenian democracy presuppose the existence of political
rulers with a strong sense of public moral duty. Democratic leaders must reconcile
the conflicting intentions of the Athenian citizens in a purposive whole, with the aim
of preserving the common life and social order fostered in the political community;
what is more, they must prevent the indulgence of exclusive interests, and by exer-
cising judgement, so as to reduce man’s vulnerability to an unpredictable turn of
events, they must act as successful conjecturers of the near and distant future
under rapidly changing circumstances.
Already the Prologue scene sets out to open up a double perspective on two
of the most serious issues of the play: birth and ancestry. In an extensive expos-
itory narrative Hermes makes a point of juxtaposing Athens and Delphi, while at
the same time reminding the audience of the inescapable fact that these two di-
vinely protected places lie beneath the most ancient and holy site in the uni-
verse, the profoundly revered abode of the gods on Mount Olympus. He surely
means for the spectators to ponder the deeper significance of lineage in both
 Cf. Mills ,  – .

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the divine and human spheres, given that gods and men are indentified by their
ancestors; in fact, knowledge of their heredity affects their sense of personal
worth, and gives their lives more importance and their glory more value. One
should observe additionally that Hermes positions himself in the patriarchal
order of Olympus, in that he proudly enlists his male ancestors, Atlas and
Zeus, without detailing the matrilineal members of his family tree, thereby ad-
umbrating certain threads of patterning concerning the priority of the male to
the female in genealogical accounts which are woven throughout the play.¹⁵
As a true master storyteller Hermes recounts those events that serve as points
of cohesion and in an external way provide the necessary drive to keep the
play moving; and, moreover, he throws much light upon numerous mighty is-
sues revolving about the ensuing scenes:¹⁶
Ὁ χαλκέοισιν οὐρανὸν νώτοις Ἄτλας

θεῶν παλαιὸν οἶκον ἐκτρίβων θεῶν
μιᾶς ἔφυσε Μαῖαν, ἣ ’μ᾽ ἐγείνατο
Ἑρμῆν μεγίστῳ Ζηνί, δαιμόνων λάτριν.
ἥκω δὲ Δελφῶν τήνδε γῆν, ἵν᾽ ὀμφαλὸν
μέσον καθίζων Φοῖβος ὑμνῳδεῖ βροτοῖς
τά τ᾽ ὄντα καὶ μέλλοντα θεσπίζων ἀεί.
ἔστιν γὰρ οὐκ ἄσημος Ἑλλήνων πόλις,
τῆς χρυσολόγχου Παλλάδος κεκλημένη,
οὗ παῖδ᾽ Ἐρεχθέως Φοῖβος ἔζευξεν γάμοις
βίᾳ Κρέουσαν, ἔνθα προσβόρρους πέτρας
Παλλάδος ὑπ᾽ ὄχθῳ τῆς ᾿Aθηναίων χθονὸς
Μακρὰς καλοῦσι γῆς ἄνακτες ᾿Aτθίδος. (1– 13)
Atlas, who with his back of bronze rubs up against heaven, the ancient dwelling of the
gods, fathered Maia on one of the goddesses. She it was who bore me, Hermes, to Zeus
the supreme god, and I am the gods’ servant. I have come to this land of Delphi, where
Phoebus, sitting at the very navel of the earth, sings to mortals, continually explaining
in prophecy the things that are and those that are to be. Now there is a city of the Greeks,
far from unknown, which is named after Pallas, who carries a spear of gold. In this place
Phoebus had intercourse with the daughter of Erechtheus, Kreousa, against her will, where
the north-facing cliffs beneath Pallas’ hill in the land of the Athenians are called ‘Long
Rocks’ by the lords of Attic soil.
Much as the human agent is seen as no more than a mere part of the mighty
sweep of events, especially as regards the daughter of Erechtheus, Creusa, who
is overwhelmed by the sheer force of Phoebus Apollo (10 – 13), all-powerful dei-
 Cf. Rabinowitz ,  – .

 See also Hamilton ,  – .

Angemeldet
ties such as Apollo and Athena are not inimical to mankind, given that Apollo is
depicted as granting humans special clairvoyant penetration and insight in their
view of present and future, while Athena is described as keeping guard over the
Athenian city. By juxtaposing Apollo with Athena Euripides artfully weds the
Delphic story with a bright mythological vision of Athenian grandeur under di-
vine protection. This is the first instance among many in which a linking between
themes and images is enforced by textual contiguity. Accordingly, and most im-
portantly, the relationship between Athens and Delphi is thrown into high relief
by their placement close together in the preamble of Hermes’ account of past
events. Both these famous sites seem to belong to a larger domain that contains
them both: the realm of the Olympian gods. The superimposition of one god
upon the sphere of influence of another god offers the mechanism for transiting
from one world to another in the Euripidean play. The process is so deeply in-
volving that the audience are encouraged to think that one world displaces
the other, including its legendary traditions and ideological foundations.
Further than this, detailed spatial information about the place where Apollo
raped Creusa allows the world of the fifth-century Athens to open up here, with
its own mythological underpinnings and central characters. This sense of con-
temporaneity becomes a great deal more intense in view of the foregoing anach-
ronistic mention of Athena’s golden spear (9), which no doubt hints at the colos-
sal bronze statue of Athena Promachos sculpted by Pheidias. This statue of
Athena stood on the Acropolis, and fable has it that the gilded tip of her
spear and the crest of her helmet were visible from afar.¹⁷ In the following
lines (14– 27) the contemporary flavouring of the Prologue is further reinforced
by the direct reference to the story of Erichthonius and the daughters of
Aglauros, which provides the aition of a widespread custom promoting the au-
thoritative self-definition of the Athenian citizen body.¹⁸ The birth of Erichtho-
nius from the earth and his adoption by goddess Athena, together with the hor-
rible death of the daughters of the Athenian king Cecrops, another prototype
ancestor of the Athenians, when they disobeyed Athena’s instructions not to
open the chest where the child Erichthonius was kept with two snakes to
guard him, and the sacrifice of the daughters of Erechtheus for the safety of
the city in its war against the Eleusinians, bear out the uninterrupted habitation
in Attica. At a deeper level, however, the evocation of these traditional tales
about bloodrights tied to ancestral legacies aims to foreground the terrible vio-
lence inherent in crushing disasters brought about by a thoughtless moment or
 Cf. Lee  ad  – . See also Niels , .

 Cf. also Mikalson ; Parker .

Angemeldet
the unspeakable terror inspired by self-denying actions dictated by the predom-

inance of the collective over the individual will. It is important to reflect that, as
well as symbolizing the triumph of equity and the defeat of wrong, the notion of
Athenian autochthony as the never-weakening spring of an unsuppressible en-
durance enfolds instances of noble heroism along with monstrous applications
of eternal laws, the workings of which can at times be merciless and unfeeling.¹⁹
Hermes continues to narrate the extraordinary events leading up to the
adoption of Creusa’s son by the Delphic priestess; in particular, he focuses atten-
tion on the remarkable circumstances surrounding the discovery of the newborn
infant at the entrance of Apollo’s temple, describing with vividness and a mys-
terious solemnity of tone how both human and divine spheres came together
within the bounds of the oracular shrine in order to procure the child’s safety.
Euripides obviously means us to see that beneath all the movement and turmoil
of the action there is present continually a pervading sense of divine providence,
and a meditative and empathetic spirit consistent with the quintessential demo-
cratic values of humanity and kindness. The Pythian priestess immerses in the
flow of Apollo’s grand plan, allowing the plan to register in her its guiding
ideas; in fact, far from rehearsing the problematical blending of salvation and
violence, as this is depicted in autochthonous legend, her act of warm compas-
sion for the helpless baby is prefatory to further striking gestures of unwonted
kindness resulting in a series of near misses around family aggression. There
seems to be no reason to doubt that the rescue of the infant from certain
death through an act of human sympathy prompted by divine concern gives dra-
matic embodiment to the heart-thought of the play ‒ that is, the spirit of moder-
ation fostered by perspicacious leaders may avert ruin. To be sure, this unselfish
exercise in clemency, together with the realization that in a city torn by internal
discord human well-being depends on the integrity of the community and the
capacity of its rulers to take decisions untainted by petty self-interest, helps to
achieve a stable political equilibrium in a city like Athens:
κυρεῖ δ᾽ ἅμ᾽ ἱππεύοντος ἡλίου κύκλῳ

προφῆτις ἐσβαίνουσα μαντεῖον θεοῦ·
ὄψιν δὲ προσβαλοῦσα παιδὶ νηπίῳ
ἐθαύμασ᾽ εἴ τις Δελφίδων τλαίη κόρη
λαθραῖον ὠδῖν᾽ ἐς θεοῦ ῥῖψαι δόμον,
ὑπέρ τε θυμέλας διορίσαι πρόθυμος ἦν·
 On the centrality of the theme of autochthony in the play, see Montanari ; Rosivach
 and ; Walsh ; Zeitlin ; Saxonhouse  and ; Dougherty ; Sha-
piro ; Loraux ,  and ; Westra ; Dunn ,  – ; Calame ;
Leão ; Kasimis .

Angemeldet
οἴκτῳ δ᾽ ἀφῆκεν ὠμότητα καὶ θεὸς

συνεργὸς ἦν τῷ παιδὶ μὴ ’κπεσεῖν δόμων·
τρέφει δέ νιν λαβοῦσα, τὸν σπείραντα δὲ
οὐκ οἶδε Φοῖβον οὐδὲ μητέρ᾽ ἧς ἔφυ,
ὁ παῖς τε τοὺς τεκόντας οὐκ ἐπίσταται. (41– 51)
It happened that, with the sun’s orb starting its course, the priestess was just making her
way into the oracular seat of the god. Catching sight of the helpless infant she was aston-
ished that some Delphian girl had dared to get rid of the offspring she had borne in secret
in the god’s house, and she was ready to remove the baby from the sanctuary. But pity got
the better of her harsh feeling, and the god helped to prevent the child from being cast out
of the temple. She picked it up and reared it and did not know that Phoebus was its father,
or the mother who gave it birth, and the child does not know his parents.
As already suggested, in the play there are several effective reinforcements of the
theme of compassion and sound judgement as deterrents to violent planning
and ferocious behaviour. The extraordinary tale of Ion’s rescue by the Delphic
priestess, partly engendered by Apollo’s unvoiced intervention, paves the way
for a series of selfless acts to alleviate suffering and mitigate aggression. It is
worth noting that Ion is the protagonist in no less than three striking examples
of merciful handling of human and animal creatures; in fact, in those cases Ion
comes very close to using mortal violence, but in a rethinking of his deadly rage
he has a change of heart and spares his victims’ lives. His second thoughts, aris-
ing not only from his ability to think sensibly and to take good decisions, but
also from his deeply seated feelings of respect and civility, reveal the twofold
struggle between opposite motives in his breast, as he attempts to check his
youthful impetuosity by showing benevolence and generosity as proper ethical
commitments to Apollo. His moral maturity, understood as a deep and consistent
moral judgement, emanates from principle-based reasoning honed up by an in-
tense and unwavering consciousness of responsibility to act in accordance with
divine laws and regulations. It is no accident that all three instances of arresting
what had seemed the consummation of a ruthless killing are closely associated
with Apollo, whose temple and altar serve as a crucial backcloth to this salutary
harnessing of emotional impulses.²⁰
Firstly, it is the birds flocking the Delphic temple and searching for a place to
build their nests: Ion, worried lest they should foul the shrine, shoos them away
by repeatedly threatening to shoot them down with his bow and arrows (158,
 On the play’s moral dimension and the ethical choices facing Ion in his struggle to discover
his true identity, see Burnett ,  passim and ,  – ; Willetts ; Troiano
; Yunis ,  – ; Farrington ; Belfiore ,  – ; Mueller ; Iakov
; Meinel ,  – . On tragic morality, see Lawrence .

Angemeldet
164– 165, 173). The thought nonetheless that birds can serve as messengers from
the gods is powerful enough to overcome his initial tendency to use physical
force (47– 48); αἰδοῦμαι (179), in particular, brings forth the great impact of rev-
erence on human lives, especially once it is touched by those humbling feelings
of shame and humility.²¹ It is important to recognize that at the beginning of the
play Euripides is at pains to draw a picture of Ion as a devoted follower of Apollo
who is at one with mildness and goodness ‒ in a word he strives to be just, and
for that reason he understands divine power as the combination of celestial wis-
dom and kindly beneficence. Secondly, it is Xuthus, who immediately after com-
ing out of the oracular temple and in infinite delight in having received a favour-
able response from the Pythian priestess attempts to embrace Ion as his long-lost
son, but he is greeted with mocking incredulity and menacing warnings of in-
stant death. Once more Ion threatens to take a life with his bow and arrows,
but his initial indignation subsides once he learns of Apollo’s riddling prediction
(524– 527).
And finally, it is Creusa, who after having been condemned by stoning for
the attempted murder of Ion takes refuge at the altar of Apollo in the hope of es-
caping immediate punishment for her crime. Although Ion and his attendants
are in hot pursuit of Creusa, seeking to wreak vengeance on her for her homici-
dal intrigue, they yield to the divinely established rules of asylum (1250 – 1319).
Ion withdraws, but not without bitter protest against what strikes him as an un-
merited entitlement to suppliant invulnerability for all and sundry regardless of
their moral disposition; in fact, he resents the fact that sacred immunity from all
reprisals favours equally both the good and the evil (1312– 1319). His fierce cri-
tique of the time-honoured conventions of asylum exemption not only indicates
that a long road awaits him before acquiring leadership status, as he is still
caught in the temporal gap between the original uneasiness of what the extraor-
dinary happenings at the Delphic precinct signify and the final comprehension
that behind this concourse of untoward events there was a synthesizing con-
sciousness doing its work in spite of human aspirations or doubts, but also
gives special focus to the Athenian political doctrine, indissolubly linked to au-
tochthonous ideas about ethical purity, that with unshrinking determination and
unswerving integrity the indigenous populace of Attica were the first to use law
for honouring the good and punishing the evil.²²
 Cf. Cairns ,  – ; Lee  ad .

 See (e. g.) Lysias’ Funeral Oration ( – ), which is the most concise exposition of Athenian
ideology.

Angemeldet
This unjust depreciation of a divinely sanctioned prerogative shielding sup-

pliants from the shafts of ferocious aggressors in a sacred panoply impenetrable
and complete gives rise to the forceful intervention of the mantic priestess, who
guided by the invisible hand of Apollo rehearses her earlier act of mercy before
the Delphic temple, only this time she does so on exiting the building in order to
chastise an adult Ion (1320 – 1335). Echoing Hermes’ description of the miracu-
lous events surrounding the salvation of the helpless infant, especially the
priestess’ choice to ignore her harsh feelings and give way to compassion and
kindness (47, οἴκτῳ δ’ ἀφῆκεν ὠμότητα […]), the condemnation of Ion for
being too harsh on Creusa throws into high relief the faulty reasoning behind
his implacable wrath (1327, […] καὶ σὺ δ’ ὠμὸς ὢν ἁμαρτάνεις, ‘But you are
wrong in being so harsh’). Favourable as she is to Ion, the prophetess is quick
to note that this kind of unforgiving rage may endanger his safe return to Athens
and his unruffled welfare therein (1333). Once again Ion is willing to discard his
violent plans and pay heed to good advice instead; like a true democratic leader
he is ready to look at decision-making in dialogic terms, thereby abandoning the
monotone absolutism of uncritical retaliation, while at the same time remaining
receptive to accepted thoughts and procedures that promote far-sighted self-dis-
cipline on the part of the individual to secure his own good. To put it another
way, in order to remain καθαρός he needs to espouse a mode of moral and polit-
ical deliberation that counteracts the deleterious effects of thoughtless retribu-
tion and of unexamined preconceptions about law and justice.
Returning to our discussion of the opening movements of the play, as the action
strides forward, a succession of topographical mirrorings, visual reflections, and pic-
torial replications thickens the atmosphere of the inextricable interdependence of
Athens and Delphi in ethical motives, religious principles, and mythological tradi-
tions. Without wishing to offer a prolix account of the methods of associating the
Delphic precinct with the Athenian city, so expertly and thoroughly examined by
Mary Stieber in her well-argued monograph on the Euripidean language of
craft,²³ I shall very briefly highlight some points of interest primarily concerning
symbolic connections and parallelisms. After hiding into a coppice of bay trees,
Hermes is imagined as observing the action from afar without wishing to intervene
with what fate has ordained for Ion ‒ this he leaves to his brother Apollo, the master
plotter par excellence, who sets about modulating the events as circumstances
change rapidly for the human characters. Ion enters the scene armed with bow
 Stieber ,  – . On the play’s rich imagery as regards the descriptions of Apollo’s
temple and Ion’s tent, see Barlow ,  – ; Immerwahr ; Mastronarde ; Müller
; Goff ; Zeitlin ,  – ; Pellegrino ; Fletcher ; Athanassaki ;
Chaston ,  ff.; Torrance ,  –  and  – ; Saggioro .

Angemeldet
and arrows and carrying a broom made of bay leaves; his monody (112– 183), in par-
ticular, paints a picture of the Delphic shrine as a heavenly place of civic harmony,
where Ion, the temple-servant and keeper of the god’s treasure, is given to a fulfill-
ing life of dedicated service to Apollo and his prophetess.
Furthermore, the ecphrasis of the Parodos (184 – 236) is rich in references to
Athens and its impressive monuments: the serving women marvel at the temple
of Apollo, describing with genuine enthusiasm the metopes (190 – 204) and the
pediment (215 – 218), and comparing the loveliness and solemnity of the build-
ings with the exquisiteness of the shrines one can encounter in Athens. Their ap-
preciative comments on the sheer beauty of the temple’s symmetry and sculptur-
al ornamentation bring to mind distinctly Athenian landmarks: the first metope
depicting the killing of the Lernaean hydra by Heracles with the help of his
nephew Iolaus is reminiscent of the eastern metopes of the temple of Hephaestus
or Hephaisteion, located at the north-west side of the Athenian Agora, which de-
scribe the twelve Heraclean Labours; what is more, the decoration of the pedi-
ment representing the gigantomachy, during which Pallas Athena demonstrated
her prowess in defeating mighty Enceladus, a victory celebrated annually at the
Panathenaea with a robe embroidered accordingly, finds a visual analogue in the
fourteen east metopes of the Parthenon, on which the cosmogonic battle be-
tween the Olympian gods and the Giants serves as a powerful symbol of the tri-
umph of civilizing forces over the world of monsters. It is worth noting that an
impressive image of the chariot of the Sun with its four horses ascending the
scales of heaven and bathing the Delphic sanctuary in bright light punctuates
the remarkable entrance of Ion onto the stage, thus acting as a harbinger of bet-
ter times to come for the human protagonists (82– 88). Perhaps this may be a di-
rect echo from the fourteenth plaque of the Parthenon metopes, on which the
Sun-god with his chariot is rising from the sea, thereby foreshadowing the defeat
of the gruesome Giants at the hands of the Olympian divinities and Heracles.²⁴
In the same way, as well as alluding to such recognizable Acropolis monu-
ments as the temples of Athena Polias (235 – 236) and Athena Nike (452– 460),
along with the Erechtheum (281– 282), Euripides means for his audience to be
put in mind of Athenian iconography in the detailed description of the decora-
tion of a tent at Delphi, which is hurriedly but elaborately constructed to hold a
large gathering of Delphic people in what comes close to being a genuine Attic
symposium (1147– 1166). There are good grounds for suggesting that the Atheni-
an spectators would have found iconographical realities affecting their response
to this remarkable ecphrasis, insofar as part of the ornate imagery of the precious
 Cf. also Praschniker ,  – ; Brommer ,  & .

Angemeldet
textiles thrown over the roof of the tent and hung at its sides might have been
interpreted as celebrating Athenian valour on the battlefield, especially in
view of depictions of Greek vessels combating barbarian ships (1159 – 1160).
This purposeful play on archetypical Athenian triumphs such as the naval battle
of Salamis is intensified by the ensuing reference to a textile depicting snakey-
tailed Cecrops and his daughters (1163 – 1165), a suitable finishing touch to
what appears to be a phantasmagoria of vastly symbolic descriptions tinged
with Athenian significance. It is important not to overlook that once again the
uplifting image of Helios driving his chariot and bringing on the brilliant light
of the Evening Star is included within a highly descriptive context
(1148 – 1149), thereby strengthening the thematic connection between Ion’s
monody and the ecphrasis of the Delphic pavilion.
In the midst of this remarkable correlation of Delphi with a highly improved
version of the Athenian polis through a constant allusion to ocular analogues
and pictorial similitudes, onto which the doctrines and ideals of the Athenian
nation have been duly mapped over centuries of constitutional reform and polit-
ical self-fashioning, there lie two adjacent scenes. By running a common thread
through all the intricate windings of a complex argument concerning Athenian
ethics and beliefs, the following two scenes slot together in a powerful peripe-
teia, thereby confounding the Apollonian programme and opening up the possi-
bility of unanticipated complications: the recognition scene between Xuthus and
Ion, featuring, among much else, a telling comparison between Athens and Del-
phi as sacred sites of Hellas-wide influence (585 – 647), and the intrigue scene be-
tween the Old Man and Creusa, precipitating the doom of Ion within the time-
frame of the drama contrary to all expectations (735 – 1047).
The evaluation of Athens and Delphi has an undeniable social and political
importance, inasmuch as it reflects current feeling in Athens; more than this,
and most importantly, it adumbrates the play’s double turn, namely the com-
plete reversal of Apollo’s plan to lead Ion into Athens without revealing his
true identity until time is ripe to break the news to unsuspecting Creusa. Similar
social and political concerns weave in and out of our field of vision throughout
the scene with Creusa and the Old Man hatching a murderous plot against Ion;
these concerns interlace in a manner strongly reminiscent of Ion’s meditation on
Athenian autochthony and monarchic government, although kept in the back-
ground, more strictly controlled in Creusa’s and the Old Man’s bloodthirsty de-
signs and plans. Both scenes aim to show that excessive thoughts of retribution,
engendered by a profound distortion of Athenian ideals which can become high-
ly dangerous when put into devious political practice, primarily because they
treat righteousness as inseparable from vindictiveness, are powerful enough in
their cruelty and unreasonableness to overthrow divine providence. It is such

Angemeldet
a beautifully conceived coup de théâtre; for the slowly built up ironies of the hid-
den truth explode in diametrically different ways with regard to gods and men.
Both Hermes and Xuthus are enlisted as strong advocators of Ion’s unobtrusive
entry into the Athenian city, for the reason that this kind of discretion will avert
Creusa’s retaliation and therefore secure the throne without peril (Hermes:
69 – 79 and Xuthus: 569 – 581); but it is only the first, keeping himself from
view inside the copse of sacred bay next to the temple, who comes to know
that Apollo’s designs are upset, and the issue of Ion’s ancestry is resolved within
the Delphic precinct, whereas the latter remains in the dark about the earth-shat-
tering developments in the recognition scene between Ion and Creusa.²⁵
Attractive though it is for a homeless youth, the prospect of following Xuthus
to Athens and enjoying the privileges of dynastic rule therein does not in the
least inspire Ion with warm enthusiasm; in fact, Ion launches into a critique
of Athenian political life, thus elaborating on the caustic effect of polarization
and factional conflict. He is sensible of the poignant truth that in a city, where
private welfare takes priority over the public good, the citizens cease to be
able to respond successfully to the vicissitudes of history, and thus consistent
and rational policy is not possible. Retreat from politics is a negative corollary
to this ferocious competition for personal influence:
οὐ ταὐτὸν εἶδος φαίνεται τῶν πραγμάτων

πρόσωθεν ὄντων ἐγγύθεν θ᾽ ὁρωμένων.
ἐγὼ δὲ τὴν μὲν συμφορὰν ἀσπάζομαι,
πατέρα σ᾽ ἀνευρών· ὧν δὲ γιγνώσκω, πάτερ,
ἄκουσον. εἶναί φασι τὰς αὐτόχθονας
κλεινὰς ᾿Aθήνας οὐκ ἐπείσακτον γένος,
ἵν᾽ ἐσπεσοῦμαι δύο νόσω κεκτημένος,
πατρός τ᾽ ἐπακτοῦ καὐτὸς ὢν νοθαγενής.
καὶ τοῦτ᾽ ἔχων τοὔνειδος, ἀσθενὴς μένων
†μηδὲν καὶ οὐδὲν† ὢν κεκλήσομαι.
ἢν δ᾽ ἐς τὸ πρῶτον πόλεος ὁρμηθεὶς ζυγὸν
ζητῶ τις εἶναι, τῶν μὲν ἀδυνάτων ὕπο
μισησόμεσθα· λυπρὰ γὰρ τὰ κρείσσονα.
ὅσοι δέ, χρηστοὶ δυνάμενοί τ᾽, ὄντες σοφοί,
σιγῶσι κοὐ σπεύδουσιν ἐς τὰ πράγματα,
γέλωτ᾽ ἐν αὐτοῖς μωρίαν τε λήψομαι
οὐχ ἡσυχάζων ἐν πόλει ψόγου πλέᾳ.
τῶν δ᾽ † αὖ λογίων τε † χρωμένων τε τῇ πόλει
ἐς ἀξίωμα βὰς πλέον φρουρήσομαι
ψήφοισιν. οὕτω γὰρ τάδ᾽, ὦ πάτερ, φιλεῖ·
 Cf. also Wolff ; Lee ,  – .

Angemeldet
οἳ τὰς πόλεις ἔχουσι κἀξιώματα,

τοῖς ἀνθαμίλλοις εἰσὶ πολεμιώτατοι. (585 – 606)
It is clear that things at a distance have a different appearance when seen close up. I wel-
come the way things have turned out, in that I have found you to be my father. But listen,
father, to what has been on my mind.
They say that the renowned earth-born inhabitants of Athens are not a people brought
in from outside. I shall land there suffering from two disadvantages: being the son of an
outsider and being myself born out of wedlock. Burdened by this slur, if I stick to a position
without influence, I shall be spoken of †as a nobody†. But if I aim for a place in the first
ranks of the city and strive to become someone, I shall be detested by the powerless. Supe-
riority causes offence. On the other hand, from those who are sound as well as capable, but
in their wisdom keep quiet and do not rush into the business of public life, I shall attract
ridicule for being foolish, because I do not stay in the background in a city full of censure.
Then again, if I manage to acquire a standing superior to those †again chroniclers† having
dealings with the city I shall be hemmed in by their votes. This is the way things tend to be,
father. Those who control cities and enjoy privilege are full of hostility towards any rival
contenders.
It is fair to say that Ion offers a rival account of the way the Athenian city is
which appeals to the audience’s historical experience at the close of the fifth
century BCE. The disintegration of community, together with the degenerative
force of cynicism and intolerance, precipitates the falsification of such democrat-
ic foundations as the autochthony myth. The misapplication of important nation-
al traditions and premises, which ensure that political impartiality among all
citizens is realized to the fullest extent possible, undermines the wider commit-
ment to inclusiveness and equal sovereignty. More importantly, Ion castigates
Athenian politics on the grounds that the polis no longer expresses, reconciles,
and promotes the beliefs and desires of ordinary men, thereby failing to provide
citizens with a social identity and a conscious understanding of those public vir-
tues encouraging men to explore each other’s views and in so doing reach con-
sensus.
Furthermore, Ion’s eulogy of Delphi as an ideal place where all citizens are
integrated in a unique civic sensibility is in keeping with the motive of associat-
ing the Athenian city with the Delphic sanctuary through contiguity. The con-
trasting accounts of strife-torn Athens and peaceful Delphi paves the way for
the ensuing scene with Creusa and the Old Man, in which the absence of insight-
ful leadership, together with the inability to transcend narrow self-interest, ag-
gravates the weaknesses of the Athenian characters. It is Apollo’s intelligent re-
sourcefulness and unconditional kindness, coupled with Ion’s stolid self-control
and unflinching morality, that promote prudent deliberation and collective re-
solve, thus bringing a salutary ending to what at first seemed a hopeless situa-
tion of inevitable familial disaster and kindred murder:

Angemeldet
ἃ δ᾽ ἐνθάδ᾽ εἶχον ἀγάθ᾽ ἄκουσόν μου, πάτερ·

τὴν φιλτάτην μὲν πρῶτον ἀνθρώποις σχολὴν
ὄχλον τε μέτριον, οὐδέ μ᾽ ἐξέπληξ᾽ ὁδοῦ
πονηρὸς οὐδείς· κεῖνο δ᾽ οὐκ ἀνασχετόν,
εἴκειν ὁδοῦ χαλῶντα τοῖς κακίοσιν.
θεῶν δ᾽ ἐν εὐχαῖς ἢ λόγοισιν ἦ βροτῶν,
ὑπηρετῶν χαίρουσιν οὐ γοωμένοις.
καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἐξέπεμπον, οἱ δ᾽ ἧκον ξένοι,
ὥσθ᾽ ἡδὺς αἰεὶ καινὸς ἐν καινοῖσιν ἦ.
ὃ δ᾽ εὐκτὸν ἀνθρώποισι, κἂν ἄκουσιν ᾖ,
δίκαιον εἶναί μ᾽ ὁ νόμος ἡ φύσις θ᾽ ἅμα
παρεῖχε τῷ θεῷ. ταῦτα συννοούμενος
κρείσσω νομίζω τἀνθάδ᾽ ἢ τἀκεῖ, πάτερ.
ἔα δέ μ᾽ αὐτοῦ ζῆν· ἴση γὰρ ἡ χάρις,
μεγάλοισι χαίρειν σμικρά θ᾽ ἡδέως ἔχειν. (633 – 647)
Now listen, father, to the good things which I enjoyed here. First of all, leisure, a thing most
dear to men, and a modicum of care. No base fellow ever pushed me out of his way. This is
intolerable: to yield and give way to one’s inferiors. In prayer to gods or converse with men,
I waited on those who were cheerful not sad. As I used to send some on their way, other
visitors would arrive, so that I was always welcome, a fresh face to fresh arrivals. And
what is prayed for by men, even if against their will, namely to be just, both the law
and my nature presented me as such to the god. Pondering these things I reckon that
life here is better than there, father. Let me continue to live right here! For the delight in
being pleased with great things and in being contented with small is just the same.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the plotting scene with Creusa and the
Old Man expands the situation illustrated in both Ion’s virulent criticism of Athe-
nian political practices and his profuse praise of the Delphic way of life; in fact,
it is in the same mould, though dramatically a great deal stronger; for, as well as
highlighting the power of fear and anger to poison the citizen’s understanding of
his political condition, it showcases with intensity and completeness the harmful
effects of man’s vulnerability to fraudulent manipulation and staggeringly ab-
surd conspiracy theories.²⁶ After Ion’s disquisition on the corrosive effects of sus-
picion and deceit in Athenian politics, there comes as a resounding verification
of this social fragmentation and ethical degeneration the murder plot, a hideous
perversion of the autochthonous principle. It will take a series of corrective
measures on the part of Apollo to lay out a new narrative grid; in particular,
in the closing scenes of the play the intervention of the Delphic priestess
(1320 – 1368) and the epiphany of Athena (1549 – 1622) allow the characters to fol-
low a set of tracks that will lead smoothly from the troubled present to the glo-
 See also Gauger ; Yoon ,  – .

Angemeldet
rious future. While weaving the thread of divine causation into the human action
of discovery and adaptation, Euripides stamps the play with its characteristic
feature, the difficulty to come to terms with the simple truth that the fons et
origo of Athenian democracy is not only the constant reaffirmation of the legen-
dary virtues of the past, but also the wisdom, justice, and power of upright and
legitimate leaders. He strongly believes that, as well as promoting abilities cru-
cial to the creation of a decent political culture of constructively addressing the
world’s most pressing problems, democratic politics should always aim to incul-
cate the all-important skill of critical thinking and logical foresight.
Conclusion
In the first Book of his Histories Thucydides expresses admiration for Themisto-
cles’ inborn talent to be the best prophet of the future (1.138.3); what is more,
Herodotus’ Book 9 describes how, under the terrifying threat of the Persian inva-
sion, the xenophobic Spartans made Teisamenus the diviner and his brother
Hagias Spartan citizens with full civic rights in order to win the war (9.33).
This exceptional individual enfranchisement, which has no parallel in Spartan
history, evinces the great importance of foresight in ancient Greece. The ability
to predict the future is the most precious attribute of leadership; in fact, by be-
coming ἄριστος εἰκαστής of future events a political leader proves his direct at-
tunement with powers more than human. And, indeed, this momentary unity of
purpose between man and god obliterates those prejudices that hinder the
healthy growth of democracy, given that democratic interests and motivations
are largely predicated upon the wide-ranging debate over the expansion of
civil and political rights vis-à-vis the toleration of traditional conventions.
Euripides’ Ion seeks to encourage the Athenians to see their fellow man from
new points of view and so affect their behaviour in salutary ways; in fact, it
presses the point that citizen status should be defined by merit alone. Although
some would say that Greek tragedy’s power to do so is limited and unpredicta-
ble, and a society that depends on annual dramatic performances to immunize
its masses against ignorant animosities and internecine rivalries depends on a
tool too small for the job, the striking image of Creusa standing confuted and
convinced at the end of the play, bravely admitting that with his prophetic wis-
dom Apollo was capable of orchestrating and fomenting the necessary alliances
to secure the survival of the Athenian nation (1609 – 1613), should be interpreted
as a clarion call to late fifth-century Athens to drink deeply from the common
heritage of Delphi. In his Geographia Strabo draws attention to the distinctly the-
atrical outline of the Delphic site by describing it as πετρῶδες χωρίον

Angemeldet
θεατροειδές (9.3.3). One is tempted to argue that similarities run deeper than
mere natural features: both the Delphic oracle and Attic drama aimed to instruct
the Greeks in the democratic method of resolving difficult matters by debate,
thus cultivating a garden of co-operation, fairness, and vision, where men of
genius were capable of seeing glimpses of the future.

Angemeldet

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Andreas Markantonatos

The Delphic School of Government:

Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS

Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS

In addition to this, and most importantly, it is my contention that through

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Sacred Wisdom and the Folly of the World:

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 Cf. Mills ,  – .

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Ὁ χαλκέοισιν οὐρανὸν νώτοις Ἄτλας

 Cf. Rabinowitz ,  – .

Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS

 Cf. Lee  ad  – . See also Niels , .

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the unspeakable terror inspired by self-denying actions dictated by the predom-

κυρεῖ δ᾽ ἅμ᾽ ἱππεύοντος ἡλίου κύκλῳ

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οἴκτῳ δ᾽ ἀφῆκεν ὠμότητα καὶ θεὸς

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 Cf. Cairns ,  – ; Lee  ad .

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This unjust depreciation of a divinely sanctioned prerogative shielding sup-

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οὐ ταὐτὸν εἶδος φαίνεται τῶν πραγμάτων

 Cf. also Wolff ; Lee ,  – .

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οἳ τὰς πόλεις ἔχουσι κἀξιώματα,

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ἃ δ᾽ ἐνθάδ᾽ εἶχον ἀγάθ᾽ ἄκουσόν μου, πάτερ·

 See also Gauger ; Yoon ,  – .

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Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS

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