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This archaeological
travel article was first published in:
Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece: Everything You
Always Wanted to Know About Ancient Greek Philosophy but didn't
know who to ask.
Ed. Patricia F. O'Grady, Ashgate Publishing 2005.
'The memory of the pleasure which this spot afforded me will
not be .. easily erased. The columns... are so exquisitely fine,
the marble mass so vast and noble, that it is impossible perhaps
to conceive greater beauty and majesty in ruin'.
Richard Chandler Travels in Asia Minor 1764
The
setting
A monument of enormous
proportions and grandeur, the temple of Didyma vies for the most
impressive site on Turkey's west coast. This is no gentle, graceful
shrine, quietly echoing former glories, instead it shouts loud its
power and prestige. Here as you walk beneath soaring columns, or
down dark vaulted corridors to the innermost holy of holies, you
can still feel the might and influence wielded by the old gods.
An ancient voice
As famous in its heyday as the oracle at Delphi, Apollo's prophetess
at Didyma was visited by pilgrims from across the Greek world. The
oldest oracular responses date back 2,600 years. One inscription
answers a question whether it was right to engage in piracy - the
god's response, 'it is right to do as your fathers did'. The site
itself is older still, and like the name, Anatolian. Even before
the Greeks settled here, the location with its laurel trees and
holy spring was sacred.
The sacred way
I first visited Didyma when walking across Turkey retracing the
footsteps of Alexander the Great. Setting out from ancient Miletus,
I headed into the hills searching for the Sacred Way, connecting
city and temple, repaved by the Emperor Trajan cAD100. It's not
for the faint hearted, but if you have time, fitness, and water,
ask a villager in Akkoy if he'll take you on the old way (eski patika)
to Didyma. The statues and monuments that once lined the route are
gone (some are stored in the British Museum), but you can still
pick out the processional path, and the waystations where pilgrims
rested.
If you can't face an endurance test, the greatest section of the
Sacred Way is easier to hand, unearthed in recent times by German
archaeologists immediately north of the temple. Beside antique baths
and shops, lies a grand boulevard laid out in giant white slabs
that dazzle in the Mediterranean light. Here you can tread the very
footsteps of the ancients, the pilgrims coming to seek Apollo's
guidance, or the tourists en route to the Great Didymeia festival
held every four years.
Tourists - ancient and modern
The modern road is lined with souvenir shops and tourist touts,
but don't turn your head in dismay. Little has changed. 2,000 years
ago, travellers would have run the gauntlet of local guides, the
exegetai 'explainers' who took them around for a fee, and the trinket
sellers, with their Apollo pots, or miniature temples - silver for
the wealthy, terracotta for the masses.
'the mighty ruins lie as they originally fell, piled up like shattered
icebergs' Sir Charles Newton 1863
Excavation
A few centuries back,
the temple was almost hidden from view, covered in a mound of detritus
following an earthquake. Now the temple stands completely exposed.
Great Ionic capitals with swirling volutes lie scattered about.
Enormous Medusa heads that decorated an architrave atop the columns
sit prone on the ground.
The Didymeia festival
Walk around to the west where a collapsed column lies, its segments
like giant fallen dominoes. Imagine it re-erected into the sky along
with the other 119 columns that surrounded the temple - a vast sacred
grove turned to stone. Strolling back along the south side, picture
the festival in full swing, the songs of poets in the air, and the
steps beside you crammed with spectators watching athletes race
in the stadium.Quite how the oracle functioned remains obscure:
The oracle in action
The... singer of prophecies, is filled with divine radiance,
either when holding a rod ... originally handed over by some god,
or sitting on an axon (tripod ?) she foretells the future, or dampening
her feet ... or breathing from the water, she receives the god.
Iamblichus De Mysteriis 3.11
Persian destruction
Her prophecies were written down, there was even a place for them
to be transcribed, the 'chresmographeion', but where this was, and
where supplicants waited eagerly for answers is unclear. We do know
that Apollo's mouthpiece fell silent at times. 2,500 years ago Didyma
was sacked and looted, either by the Persian king Darius following
the area's revolt in 494, or by Xerxes after the invasion of Greece
in 479.
The Branchidae
The priests who administered the temple, the Branchidae (named after
Branchus, a shepherd seduced by Apollo and given the power of divination)
willingly handed over the treasures, including Apollo's bronze statue.
Their sacrilege was infamous in antiquity. They were resettled by
the Persian king in Central Asia, and their descendants extraordinarily
discovered by Alexander the Great north of Afghanistan in 329BC.
For their ancestors' act of treason he killed all the men and sold
the rest into slavery.
Into the holy of holies
Next, walk through the porch, and single out the column bases carved
in the most stunning designs, a feature almost unique in the Greek
world. Down one of the dark passages, you'll come into the temple's
heart, its cella. So large, Strabo reports that to roof it proved
impossible. Instead it was left open, a court planted with laurel,
Apollo's hallowed tree, with a shrine housing the god's image and
sacred spring.
Alexander the Great
After 150 years silence, the spring magically gushed again and the
oracle spoke forth when Alexander the Great liberated the region
from Persian control. The prophetess declared Alexander 'born of
Zeus' and forecast his triumph over Persia. One of his successors,
Seleucus, returned the stolen Apollo statue from Persia c300BC,
and set to work rebuilding the temple you see today.
Unfinished work
For nearly 700 years it remained a building site, with up to 8 architects
and 20 construction companies working simultaneously. But this vast
wonder was never finished. Alongside knife-edge masonry remain protruding
nodules inscribed with Greek letters, referring to the workmen who
worked on a block, but never dressed it smooth. Even unfinished,
it was considered in antiquity one of the greatest of all Greek
temples. It is without doubt one of the biggest.
The old gods outlawed
Didyma's end came in 385AD with the edict of Theodosius:
'no mortal man shall have the effrontery to encourage vain hopes
by the inspection of entrails, or (which is worse) attempt to learn
the future by the detestable consultation of oracles.'
Apollo's oracle was silenced forever, and a Christian church erected
in the temple's cella.
Visit Didyma
Why not go and see Didyma for yourself. Peter will personally show
you around the ancient temple on our
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