There were oracles in many places in Greece and Asia. The most noted were at Dodona in Epirus, and at Delphi, at the foot of Mount Parnassus. At Dodona it was Zeus who spoke by the rustling of the sacred oaks. At Delphi it was Apollo who was consulted. Below his temple, in a grotto, a current of cool air issued from a rift in the ground. This air the Greeks thought[59] was sent by the god, for he threw into a frenzy those who inhaled it. A tripod was placed over the orifice, a woman (the Pythia), prepared by a bath in the sacred spring, took her seat on the tripod, and received the inspiration. At once, seized with a nervous frenzy, she uttered cries and broken sentences. Priests sitting about her caught these expressions, set them to verse, and brought them to him who sought advice of the god.
The oracles of the Pythia were often obscure and ambiguous. When Croesus asked if he should make war on the Persians, the reply was, "Croesus will destroy a great empire." In fact, a great empire was destroyed, but it was that of Croesus.
The Spartans had great confidence in the Pythia, and never initiated an expedition without consulting her. The other Greeks imitated them, and Delphi thus became a sort of national oracle.
=Amphictyonies.=--To protect the sanctuary of Delphi twelve of the principal peoples of Greece had formed an association called an Amphictyony.[60] Every year deputies from these peoples assembled at Delphi to celebrate the festival of Apollo and see that the temple was not threatened; for this temple contained immense wealth, a temptation to pillage it. In the sixth century the people of Cirrha, a neighboring city of Delphi, appropriated these treasures.[61] The Amphictyons declared war against them for sacrilege. Cirrha was taken and destroyed, the inhabitants sold as slaves, the territory left fallow. In the fourth century the Amphictyons made war on the Phocidians also who had seized the treasury of Delphi, and on the people of Amphissa who had tilled a field dedicated to Apollo.
Still it is not necessary to believe that the assembly of the Amphictyons ever resembled a Greek senate. It was concerned only with the temple of Apollo, not at all with political affairs. It did not even prevent members of the Amphictyony fighting one another. The oracle and the Amphictyony of Delphi were more potent than the other oracles and the other amphictyonies; but they never united the Greeks into a single nation.