The Toilets and Other Plumbing of Delphi

Location of Delphi, near the Gulf of Corinth.

Delphi, in Greece northwest of Athens, was a religious center for two millenia, from 1600 BC until 395 AD.

Diodorus Siculus wrote in the first century BC of a much earlier goat herder named Coretas. One of his goats fell into a crevasse in the ground and began behaving strangely. Coretas climbed down into the crevasse and found that he was filled with a divine presence, and he could see out of the present into the past and the future.

Coretas told nearby villagers, who started visiting the crevasse and experiencing the convulsions and inspired trances. Yes, sure, some villagers disappeared down into the crevasse in their frenzied state, but that's a risk that comes with theophanies!

The Tholos at Delphi.

                   
By 1600 BC a shrine had been erected at the site. The shrine was initially dedicated to Gaia, the Mother Goddess of west Asia, according to Aeschylus in the prologue of his Eumenides.

Then the myth held that the office of Oracle was held by the goddesses Themis and Phoebe. Later, the site was believed to be sacred to Poseidon, the deity of earthquakes known as "Earth-Shaker". During the Greek Dark Ages (11th-9th century BC), the temple was turned over to Apollo. A modern interpretation holds that Apollo was a late addition to the Greek pantheon from Lydia, in today's Turkey, and that he was originally the Mesopotamian diety Aplu, an Akkadian name for "son".

Then there is the silly sounding deity Απόλλων Σμινθεύς, or Apollo Smintheus, Apollo Mouse-Killer. Mice aren't the top of the food chain, but they are a source of disease and so old Mouse-Killer gets credit for preventative medicine.

The Tholos was constructed in 380-360 BC. It had 20 Doric columns around an outer perimeter with a diameter of 14.76 meters, and with 10 Corinthian columns in the interior. It is said to have been built by Theodorus the Phocian.

Back in the day, pilgrims coming to Delphi would land at the shore of the Gulf of Corinth, several miles away. They would proceed up the valley below the sacred site, turning and approaching by way of the Tholos. They would purify themself on the way toward the most sacred area where the Oracle presided.

Oracular activity continued until 395 AD, when Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I shut it down. The famous final pronouncement of the oracle was:

Oh, and Theodosius I was dead within two years, and within 20 years the Western Roman Empire had finished falling to the barbarians.

See my Greek travel pages for lots more background on Delphi.

Now there is a convenient toilet and sink near the Tholos, so modern day pilgrims can purify themselves, or at least, well, you know.

Back to the history...

Continuing west, following the geography and jumping back and forth in time, we come to the gymnasium and its (plumbing related!) baths. This originally dates from the 4th century BC, but was rebuilt by the Romans.

The circular frigidarium or cold bath was 9 meters in diameter and 1.8 meters deep.

Looking the opposite direction, up the tall and steep slopes of the southern wall of the valley, we see a ravine separating the two Phaedriades, the two peaks overlooking Delphi.

And, where the modern road crosses that ravine, as seen at right, you still find the spring of the Castalian Fountain. The area of the fountain itself tends to be blocked off because of falling rock.

The very recently excavated Castalian Bath, seen at left, is where all visitors to Delphi stopped to wash their hair. It is also where the Roman era poets paused to receive inspiration. This was believed to be the very spot where Apollo killed the monster, Python, and so it was especially sacred.

The Castalian Spring and sacred bathing for cleansing purposes date back to Mother Goddess days, long before the Delphi of Classical Greek tradition.

What you see here is a 6th century BC marble-lined basin surrounded by benches.

Here is the main temple in Delphi, what everything was building up to — the Temple of Apollo.

The front of the temple, its entrance, was at the far or left end in this view, the end toward the mountain.

For those allowed to enter the temple, the Sanctum Sanctorum, the Holiest of Holies, was at the opposite end of the temple, nearest the viewpoint in the pictures at left and below.

This was where the Pythia or the Oracle of Delphi sat on a tripod above a crevasse. It seems that the crevasse emitted ethylene gas, and that this ethylene seep led to the Oracle's strange mental states.

The idea was that the god Apollo spoke through his Oracle, also known as the Pythia.

The Pythia had to be a woman "of blameless life" chosen from the peasants of the area. She sat on a tripod over a crevice. Apollo was said to have killed and buried a mythic Python, really a dragon and not a large snake as the term now means. The temple was thought to be built over the buried dragon, or the chthonic Python in the parlance of their time.

The fumes rising from the decaying body of the Python would intoxicate the Oracle (or Pythia, get it?) and put her into a trance in which Apollo possessed her.

The Oracle would babble semi-coherently. Her ravings would then be "translated" by the temple priests into elegant hexameters. You betcha!

See the area toward the rear of the temple, at the far end from the standing partial columns. The Oracle's seat and crevasse are thought to have been in the area where the large stone floor plates are tilted together.

If you go to the south side, the long downhill face of the temple, toward the southwest corner (downhill and away from the entry end), you may spot this passage leading back toward the area underneath the Oracle's seat!

Yes, you can crawl back into that passageway.

But alas, there seems to be no active ethylene seep.

Meanwhile, there is a modern public toilet at the archaeological site. It's seatless, and the toilet paper is stashed up on top of the high tank.

Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. [....] Poor sanitation, bad hygiene, and unsafe water — usually unsafe because it has fecal particles in it — cause one in ten of the world's illnesses. [....] Diarrhea — nearly 90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water — kills a child every fifteen seconds. The number of children who have died from diarrhea in the last decade [1998-2008] exceeds the total number of people killed by armed conflict since the Second World War.

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.

Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.

Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.

Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.

If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):

• Travel suggestions
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