Date: July 20, 2016 (Full moon)
Venue: Delphi
Hour: 20:00
Free admission

 

According to the legend, retold by Philostorghios, Oribasius was sent in 362 by the emperor Julian the Apostate to the Delphic oracle. He found it stripped of its treasures in a desolate state. In recompense for the gifts and services offered by his emperor to the temple, he received one of the last prophecies of the Delphic Pythia:

 

Εἴπατε τῷ βασιλεῖ, χαμαὶ πέσε δαίδαλος αὐλά,

οὐκέτι Φοῖβος ἔχει καλύβην, οὐ μάντιδα δάφνην,

οὐ παγὰν λαλέουσαν, ἀπέσβετο καὶ λάλον ὕδωρ.

 

Tell the emperor, the splendid mansion has fallen to the ground.

Phoebus no longer has his abode, the prophesying laurel

or the talking well. The talking water has also dried out.

— Passio Artemii 96.1284.45–7, Cedrenus 1.532.8–10

 

 

This phrase has been called “one of the few texts in world literature which sound so heartbreaking and like a funereal bell tolls the end of an era”. Modern historians however, greatly doubt its authenticity. Some considered it the invention of a monotheist wanting to demonstrate the futility of Julian’s faith in the oracles of the idolaters. Others consider it a corrupted version of a cry for help expressed rather hyperbolically by the priests of the Oracle or by Orivasius himself in the form of an epigram.    

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oribasius

 

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Centuries later, Greek poets, writers, essayists and translators meet at Delphi to pronounce…the oracles of the New Era.

 

Participants in alphabetical order (list not finalized)

 

– Papadaki Athena

 

– Papalexopoulou Aristea