Antheia

This evening I will have the pleasure of working with a friend 
and talented photographer on a shoot where I will be portraying Antheia. 
I have learned so much in the past couple of weeks in doing research 
and thought I would share with you a little story which was related to me.

Antheia, a Pythia and Bakhai of Delphi 

by J. Obendorfer

In Greece, at the precinct of Delphi, on the western slopes of Mt. Parnassos, an oracular temple operated for almost 1,500 years.  Originally sacred to the earth mother, Ge, the oracle eventually came to be identified primarily with Apollo and to a lesser extent Dionysos.  Those wishing to consult the oracle would enter the temple and ask their questions of a Pythia, a priestess, who had entered a trance.  Her responses were sometimes clear and direct, but more often cryptic, even koan-like.

A priestess prepared for an oracular audience by fasting, bathing in the waters of the Kastalian spring, and drinking water from the Kassiotis spring.  She would then enter the Adyton, the innermost chamber of the temple.  She would seat herself on the tripod seat, holding in one hand a krater of water from the Kassiotis spring and in her other hand a spring of laurel.

As was the case with all Pythias, Antheia was born in Delphi.  

The nearest village is Arakova (modern: Arachova), about 3-4 miles to the south and at roughly

the same altitude.  In ancient times, Arakova was a small hub of at most a couple of hundred people, mostly goat or sheep herders.  To the north and west, about 5 miles away, down on the shores of the  Gulf of Corinth, was Itea, a small seaport and farm village.  To the north and east, out of sight over the mountain some ten miles away, was Amphissa, another small farming and herding village.

Although Delphi was (and still is) in a predominantly rural setting, the precinct and its village

were rather cosmopolitan compared to its nearby neighbors.

Delphi was heavily visited, by both ordinary Greeks and the Greek leadership or officialdom,

primarily to make offerings at Apollo's temple and consult the oracle, but also on business,

particularly financial business, to attend the dramatic festival, or to participate in or 

attend the Pythian games.

Then, as now, most the of residents of Delphi made their living in the hospitality trades, and

so I imagine that Antheia was born to parents who worked in the hostelry or innkeeping trade.

From early childhood, Antheia -- without overt defiance -- stepped out out of the usual bounds

and constraints imposed upon female children.  In those days, girls started to work at a fairly 

young age, helping to cook, clean, and perform the other chores needed to keep an inn or a

hostel or a tavern going.

Antheia participated in this, to be sure, but was never really productive at it.  There

was simply not much work to be got of her. Antheia's great love was to wander, usually in 

solitude, along the trails either down to the valley floor and its olive groves, or further up

the mountainside along the seasonal streams to where tree-clad clefts and hollows opened

into the rock.  These places were where Antheia was always strongly drawn, and so in the absence of any supervision, off she would go. If Antheia was needed for a task or chore, and could not be found at the inn, these were the best places to look for her ... if one could find her,

that is.

When asked what she was doing in the hollows or the olive groves, she would simply answer,

"Listening."

In the course of her wanderings, Antheia would come across small shrines dedicated to any one of  several gods:  Apollo, Dionysos, Ge, Themis, Phoebe, Athina, Poseidon.  Often these shrines

were neglected or in disrepair, and she would clean them up, leaving small offerings of food, wine,or flowers.

When Antheia was about fourteen, the pythia Euphrosyne passed from old age, and the acolyte Eirene was named to take her place.  This created an opening for a female acolyte that had to be filled.  The Pythias and Priests that served in the precinct were of course well-acquainted with the girls of the village, and the choice was obvious.  It was clear to them that Antheia had some calling to serve the gods, and on top of that -- she was not innkeeper material, her introversion and quirkiness made her an unlikely candidate for marriage, and all things considered, they might be doing her parents a favor to take her into religious life.  And in any case, those quirks that made Antheia unsuited for business life were encouraging and attractive, from the order's point of view.

And indeed Antheia took to her new role like a duck to water.  While her duties initially involved cooking, cleaning, and attending to the grounds of the precinct -- her chores simply having shifted from inn to temple -- there were less of them, and she had free time to wander about the heights of the mountain,  to sit listening to the murmurs of the pines, the bubbling of the springs, the babble and chatter of the  streams.  She was taught the ancient poems, or hymns, that honored Apollo, Helios, Phanes, Eurynome, Nemesis, Night, Demeter, Hermes, Dionysos, Ophion, and she would recite them as she wandered, both to aid her memorization, and for the pure joy of it.

In due course, the day arrived when Antheia was assigned to assist the pythia Eirene in preparation for an oracular audience.  She went with Eirine to the small arroyo below the Phaedriades, where the waters of the Kastalian spring pour into the marble baths. She helped Eirine undress and bathe, dry, and regown in the purple and white robes of a Pythia.  Antheia led Eirine to the Kassiotis spring, where Eirine drank of the sacred waters, and led her by the arm -- for Eirine was glassy-eyed, already half-way to trance -- to the temple.  She sat behind the tripod during the audience, listening to Eirene speak in a clear voice that both was and was not her own.  At its end,  when Eirene wavered in exhaustion, Antheia helped her down from the high tripod seat, gave her water  to drink, a small slice of meat to eat, and squeezed the balls of Eirine's feet as she had been taught.   It was then that the glassiness left Eirene's eyes, and Antheia smiled at her friend's return to ordinary consciousness.

And Antheia's days passed like this for many years.  She sat atop the shining rocks in the burning summer sun, closed her eyes, and could see the golden glow that suffused the mountainside. She could feel the dark and empty hollows of the underworld beneath her.  She herself bathed in the water of the Kastalian spring, floating for hours in the cool, silky waters that swirled through the marble baths before pouring out down the mountain side.  She spent hours preparing incenses and torches and  candles.  At night, she would dream of the rustling of the trees, the flow of the springs and streams. Many, many times, when the querents would come before the Pythia and speak their questions, Antheia  was there, sitting in the shadows behind the tripod, ready to assist Eirene or Chysanthe or Eidothea when the audience was over. The interaction between querent and pythia, between pythia and the Gods,  was never twice the same.  It was always electric, buzzing, in flickering light and curls and twists of incense smoke that floated towards the ceiling.

In between oracular audiences, there was always something going on.  Banquets in honor of visiting dignitaries.  Listening to the chorus of wolf howls from the higher slopes of the mountain -- signs  of Apollo in his Lykeios, or wolf, aspect.  Singing in accompaniment to the lyre of the priest Apollodoros.  And pervading all, the sense that Apollo was both nearby and far way at once.

When she was twenty-one, she was initiated into the mysteries of Dionysos: woken hours before dawn on a cold winter night, taken up to the very summit of Mt. Parnassos where the bitterly cold winds blew, drank of the waters of Lethe (forgetfulness) and Mnemosyne (memory), and the drugged wine that loosened the bonds of the mind.  It was there she learned to dance, first in rythym, and then with abandon.  She came down the mountain with a red wine stain on her forehead and another between her breasts, her mind reeling at the sudden realization: Dionysos and Hades, Lord of the Underworld, are one.

It was on a visit to her parent's inn down the mountainside that the word came.  Eidothea had fallen gravely ill, and succumbed swiftly fever.  The order gathered in grief and buried their sister. And when the rites had been observed, and the paeans recited, they met to select a

new pythia.  The vote was taken in secret, and counted by the priest Apollodoros.  When he looked up from his tabulations and his eyes met Antheia's, she knew of course, because intuition is the essence of a priestess of Apollo.

"I give you," Apollodoros said, "the very worthy Pythia.  Antheia."

And so it was Antheia' turn to the bathe in the waters of the Kastalian spring, to don the purple

and white robes, and the serpent pendant.  She drank from the Kassiotis spring, but her mind remained clear as Dianthe and Eirine led her to the temple.  She felt growing apprehension at this: for Eirene was always half-lost to trance before she entered Apollo's shrine.  But Eidothea had always stressed that every pythia's route to trance was different, that she would have to find her own way.

She swallowed, and consciously deepened her breath.  A slow processional walk across the Adytum, into the Antron where only the priestesses were allowed to go.  The torches were lit. Heaps of incense were thrown into the braziers.  She knelt, briefly, before the bronze of Apollo, and prayed that he would guide her words.  Then she climbed onto the footstool, turned, and sat down on the tripod seat. She gathered the fabric of her himation wrap around her.  Crysanthe handed her the krater of water.  Eirine held the sprig of laurel before her, and she inhaled its scent.

The world seemed to shift, and yet not shift.  It was as every surface in the room rippled, like

cloth rippling in a wind.  She felt dizzy, unsteady, and closed her eyes.  Voice that were not voices began to whisper, voices that seemed to come from everywhere, echoing off the stone walls and floor.  The voices ebbed and flowed, and somehow it seemed to her that the trees were speaking, the rocks and stones were humming, even the streams had their own voice -- It was hard to concentrate, hard to tease one voice from another.

"Who is wisest?" asked a human voice.  Antheia realized, distantly, that the querent was standing before her.

The rush of voices in her head stopped.

There was utter silence.

And then one lone voice, a very soft voice, a gentle voice, whispered to her.

"Socrates," she repeated.  "Socrates is wisest."