The History of the Oracle of Delphi

Delphi owed its international prominence to the famous oracle of the god Apollo, who foretold the future through his priestess, known as the Pythia. She responded to the questions of visitors while in a trance; her inarticulate cries were interpreted and written down by an official interpreter, in earlier times in hexameter verse, then later in prose. These oracular responses were notoriously ambiguous, and their interpretation was often only 'deduced' after the event to which they referred. This, however, did not deter visitors from journeying to Delphi from all over the Mediterranean