Talk:Pythia/Archive 1

To-do list
There was massive confusion between the Pythia and the Delphic Sibyl. After figuring out that these are separate figures, I moved material on the Pythia from the Delphic Sibyl page to this article on the Pythia. I add a bit of relevant material from Talk:Delphic Sibyl:


 * the article should be re-written/expanded to:


 * 1) give some impression of the oracle's role in Greek culture & history: it was consulted before colonial expeditions went out, before major changes in city law-codes, to ask whether a new cult should be founded, during major political crises (see Herodotus), by individuals like Socrates and Xenophon. (some of this material is in the main Delphi article, but more detail can be provided here)


 * 2) cover the Delphic oracle in literature: it shows up briefly in Iliad, central in Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles Oedipus, etc.:


 * 3) have a detailed section on the elaborate ritual of consulting the oracle, and the nature of the Pythia's prophecies: did she speak gibberish that was interpreted by the prophetai, or did she give prophecies herself? Was she in a frenzy, high on ethylene, or did she appear calm and rational? (Despite the recent articles in Nature and National Geographic, this is still a wide-open question.)


 * Perhaps this article should be moved to Pythia and there should be a main Delphic Oracle page...

--Akhilleus (talk) 06:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Recent changes
There's been a lot of expansion in the past few days. It's great that this article is getting expanded, but I disagree with some of the changes. The first two points are things I edited out, the third is something I plan to deal with soon.


 * 1) There's plenty of evidence of Mycenaean settlement in the Apollo sanctuary, but there is, as far as I know, no evidence of continuity of religious cult, and still less of continuity of oracular activity between Mycenaean and archaic times.
 * 2) Calling the Pythia "pythoness" in English is anachronistic. Older scholarship used this term, but I haven't seen too many modern scholars use it, and I don't think that the Pythia herself has a very strong connection to the Python in myth; it's more that the legendary place name derives from Python, and then the place name gives rise to the Pythia's title. I could be wrong, of course, but if we're going to call the priestess a "pythoness" I think we need more recent sources than 1784 to do so.
 * 3) The article gives too much space and credence to the ethylene vapors idea. The Scientific American (and Geology) articles only establish the possibility of the vapors, but don't prove them, and as Fontenrose has shown, the ancient sources do not support the idea that the Pythia was huffing gas. No one talks about the vapors before Plutarch, and the sources do not describe a "high" Pythia, except for one story in Plutarch that he says was unusual. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Akhilleus, thanks for the changes you ave made, some of which have greatly improved my work. I do quibble on some points


 * Regarding the Mycenaeans, it depends upon what one means about evidence of Mycenaean usage at Delphi. See Frederick Poulson's Delphi (London Glydenhall) pp 58-62 and Christopher Mee and Anthony Spawforth Greece: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (OUP, 2001), pp 302-314, who show Mycenaean usage at the site was predominately relgious.  The Greeks themselves accepted that the oracle had existed in Mycenaean times (see Sophocles' Oedipus for example).  Homer in the Odyssey, drawing upon older Mycenaean tradition shows that Agamemnon consulted ancient Pytho, a clear reference to the Oracle.  There was also a Myceanean settlement that appears to have been spacially centred upon the site of the temple, which was cenral to Mycenaean Delphi.  We also know that Mycenaean divinities were more chthonic in character than were the later Olympians (who rejected such symbolism as Titanic).  Regarding the Pythia and Python symbolism, we should remember the female Mycenaean divinity who held two serpents.  William J Broad in his 2006 book on the Oracle does much to draw attention to the hieros gamos nature of the Oracle with the God Apollo.  On name alone we can suggest that Pythia was in another sch union with Python, the "son of Gaia" (remember there are two serpents upon Apollo's caduceus, not one).  Remember that there is also the etymological link of the name Pytho with the smell of hydrocarbons.


 * Regarding the "pneuma" it was not just Plutarch (who was high priest of Delphi and should have known best). Pausanias also mentions it in his "Descriptions of Greece".  Strabo also wrote, "after mounting the tripod the Pythia inhales the vapours and prophesies".  Fontenrose drew heavily on the French work on the site which has been superceded by more modern studies.  Given that there is evidence that the temple of Delphi was originally a temple to Gaia, the Greek idea of the "pneuma of Gaia" being responsible for the oracle rings true.  At least three ancient sources mention the vapours, modern archaeological research has found them, Akhilleus, what is your problem?  Besides, it wasn't just geologists who made the suggestion.  John R. Hale is an archaeologist of repute.  See http://www.louisville.edu/a-s/lbst/staff/jhale.html


 * Regarding Mircea Eliade's speculations about the tripod and shamanism, I would suggest this is unwarrented speculation. (He also suggested that Cannabis was involved!)  Tripods were seen as much more than utilitarian objects, and were frequently given to victors in Athletic competitions and gifts to the gods.  That the Pythia sat on a tripod meant she was offering herself up to possession by the God.  This gave the tripod weigh as a symbol of divinatory power.  See Papalexandrou's The Visual Poetics of Power; Warriors, Youths and Tripods in Early Greece (Lexington Books 2005), pp 9-52 and 189-209


 * Do you want me to amend the article to take account of the references I have mentioned here or will you?


 * Warm regards John D. Croft 22:58, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

John, feel free to make any changes you feel are warranted. Thanks for the Mycenaean info, I wasn't aware of the sources you name specifically. But the question of religious continuity between Bronze age and iron age is very thorny, and I'm very suspicious of taking archaic foundation myths as reliable information about what was going on in the bronze age. I'm also pretty skeptical of the idea that the Mycenaean divinities were more chthonic than the classical Olympian pantheon--that seems like back-projection from classical myth. And as far as I'm aware there's a big gap in any kind of settlement activitiy at Delphi between the Bronze Age and the archaic period, and the evidence for religious activity in the temenos only starts 800 BC. I have no problem with the article mentioning the possibility of religious continuity, of course, I just want it to be specific about what evidence there is and how reliable it is--and to many classical archaeologists, it doesn't look like there's great evidence for continuity of cult from the Bronze Age. So, I think that in the introduction, we should say that there's the possibility of religious continuity from the Mycenaean era--but only the possibility--and then give a more detailed summary of the various positions in the body of the article, where we can also cover whether the legend of Apollo taking over the oracle from Gaia represents a historical memory, etc.

Re: the "vapors", let me be clear: what I'm proposing is making the section more concise, giving it a more skeptical tone, and including the work of Fontenrose. (Note that I think the article should not go into all the detail I'm about to go into.) An account of the geological discoveries belongs in the article, but it has not been proven that ethylene played a role in the oracle. Let's get one thing out of the way first: no ancient source has the phrase "the pneuma of Gaia". This phrase gives the impression that the Greeks saw Gaia as the source of prophecy: but Apollo is the oracular god at Delphi. So I've changed the article to reflect this.

The main reason why I have a problem with the idea of ethylene vapors is that the pneumata are only one of many ancient theories about the causes of the Pythia's prophecies. Furthermore, when the sources mention pneumata they are probably not talking about a physical gas, but rather a metaphysical power.

The best thing I can recommend is to read the ancient sources, not in quotation, but in full, and to read them in Greek if you are able. For instance, Plutarch, whom I agree had insider knowledge, wrote many works on the oracle, and if you read De defectu oraculorum (Moralia 432c-438d is the relevant section), you'll see that it's a dialogue, in which many speakers participate. Each speaker has a different idea of the cause of the Pythia's inspiration, which is a good indication that in Plutarch's day there were many ideas of what inspired the Pythia: the pneumata are only one of the possible causes.

Take a look at Fontenrose, too. His work has little to do with geology, but is based on a close reading of the ancient sources. We translate pneumata as "vapors", but Fontenrose argues that the ancient writers seem to be talking about something that's metaphysical, rather than chemical. Fontenrose notes that Plutarch draws upon Aristotelian and Stoic theories about the power of the earth, and says (p. 197): "These emanations from earth are physical causes of the same breed as the influences of stars and planets that astrologers postulate. This is clear from the argument in De defectu oraculorum (Mor. 432c-438d) in which the speakers do not agree on the causes of the Pythia's inspiration, and in which the earth-exalation theory is opposed to the demonic...Plainly Ammonios and other participants are unaware of any perceptible exhalations, not to mention vapors." If we translate pneumata as "spirits", we might better capture what the speaker in Plutarch's dialogue was talking about. So what about the following passage:


 * "Not often nor regularly, but occasionally and fortuitously, the room in which the seat the god's consulatants is filled with a fragrance and breeze, as if the adyton were sending forth the essences of the sweetest and most expensive perfumes from a spring" (Plutarch Moralia 437c). Fontenrose says (p. 198): "Obviously this fragrant breeze had nothing to do with the Pythia's activity; i.e., her mounting the tripod did not depend on its presence. It did not occur often or regularly; when it came, it did so unexpectedly. Above all, it had no toxic effect--else the consultants would be affected..." So our sweet odor, said to be the scent of ethylene, was not a regular feature of an oracular consultation, but only "occasionally and fortuitously" graced the shrine. Sweet smells are in fact one of the common features of a divine epiphany, and what we should expect in a temple where Apollo was thought to sometimes be present--it's not an indication of gas arising from the earth (see Will 1942 and Amandry 1950 on this point).


 * Its interesting that both Will and Amandry were writing before the discovery of the presence of Ethylene in the waters of the Kassotis when it flowed underground into the channels cut into the floor of the adyton. Fontenrose also had no idea that the gas in question was ethylene - a gas used commercially for the ripening of fruit (hence it's sweet smell), and previously used for its anaestehic effects.  In less concentrated it does produces the changes of perception and also a change in the nature of the voice of the speaker, similar to those described by the oracle.  As for the fact that those consulting the oracle only rarely smelt the effects, they were kept isolated from the adyton where the Oracle sat - the name adyton means "not allowed to enter".  They addressed the oracle from behind a screen.  As the adyton was a chamber below the level of the floor of the temple, any gas carried by the underground waters that seep into the chamber would only intermittently be detected at sub-clinical volumes, by comparison to the Oracle herself.  It is also true that the strength of the Ethylene varies over time.  The strength seems associated with the frequency of earthquakes in the region (when there is an earthquake, subterranean stresses and a temperature rise increase the dosage of volatile hydrocarbons in the water.  If there has not been an earthquake in a century or two the dosages are much lower. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.80.77.151 (talk • contribs).


 * This description of the temple isn't accurate. I know that sources on and off the web say the adyton was subterranean, including the Scientific American article, but there isn't archaeological support for this--the excavators went down to the bedrock without finding any kind of subterranean chamber or cave connected to the adyton. The arrangement of the interior of the temple is unclear, but most archaeological discussions of the temple place the adyton at the floor level of the temple (see Mary B. Hollinshead, "'Adyton', 'Opisthodomos', and the inner room," Hesperia 68.2 (1999) 189-218 for a discussion of the adyton of the Temple of Apollo, esp. pp. 192-193). There are several descriptions in which people consulting the oracle enter the adyton, for instance, Herodotus 7.140.2, where the Athenians are in the adyton consulting the oracle (the translation doesn't reflect this very well, the relevant Greek is ἢ οὔ τοι ἄπιμεν ἐκ τοῦ ἀδύτου), or lines 510-515 of Euripides' Ion. in any case, the Pythia definitely wasn't the only person in the adyton--the oracular consultation involved plenty of religious personnel. The spring which was said to have the waters of the Kassotis is below floor level, in a niche or tunnel in the foundation. There's definitely some weird stuff in the foundations, but it's not physically connected to the main rooms of the temple. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The Pausanias passage is 10.5.12, and doesn't tell us much about the Pythia, but note that here too there seem to be many different ideas about the cause of oracular inspiration. Elsewhere (10.24.7) Pausanias says the waters of the Cassotis spring inspire "the women within the temple", but mentions nothing there about vapors, or gases being dissolved in the spring's water.


 * It is interesting that the word "inspire" means to "inhale". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.80.77.151 (talk • contribs).

Strabo 9.3.5 does provide better support for vapors, but notice that it's not an eyewitness account--the passage is introduced by the weaselly "they say". And as we've seen, there were many stories about how the oracle worked, so again, this is only one of the explanations the Greeks had for the oracle. I quote Strabo in part: "from which arises a pneuma enthousiastikos; and that over the mouth is placed a high tripod, mounting which the Pythian priestess receives the breath..." (translation from Perseus Project, modified by me slightly) Even in this passage, the pneuma need not be a physical gas but rather the same kind of metaphysical power of the earth seen in Plutarch's De defectu oraculorum. Strabo does not say that the Pythia "inhales" the pneuma; rather, she "receives" (δεχομένην) the breath, which is a common way of talking about divine possession.

Finally, and in my opinion most importantly, the oracle is one of the best-documented institutions in ancient Greece, playing a major role in Herodotus, Plato, and many poets of the fifth century. None of these sources mention anything like pneumata--that only shows up in Roman-era sources.

So, based on Fontenrose's reading of the primary sources, I simply don't think intoxicating gas played a role at Delphi. Therefore, I don't find the geological discoveries all that interesting. In any case, all the team has demonstrated is a possibility that ethylene was present at the shrine--it's impossible to say what the exact state of things was in antiquity, and how great the concentration of gas would have been at that time. It's an intriguing possibility, but not a proven one--and at least one scholar has forcefully argued that the ancient sources don't support it.


 * But not since 2003 when the new discoveries were made. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.80.77.151 (talk • contribs).

Why is the vapor theory so persistent? I think its popularity comes from the belief that the Pythia gave prophecies in a frenzy, and the desire to seek a cause for that frenzy--drugs, gases, whatever. As Maurizio and others have demonstrated, though, the Pythia gave prophecies herself, in an intelligible voice, and while she was in a state of divine inspiration, it's not the kind of raving lunacy often pictured. We don't need any external causes to explain that--there's plenty of cross-cultural evidence of divine possession occuring without ethylene, burning laurel leaves, cannabis, or anything else. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Akhilleus, thank you for the long and reasonably argued case you present. Regarding the pneuma - I find the clear separation you make (based in part upon Fontenrose) as a reflecion of modern sensibilities upon ancient sources.  The treatment of the pneuma as merely a spiritual and non physical reality is denied repeatedly by ancient useage which treats it as BOTH a spiritual AND a physical reality.  Fontenrose to quotes from the French based study of the excavations of Delphi which claimed there were no fault lines that were associated with Delphi, whilst the more modern work of Jelle de Boer shows in fact there is an intersection of two fault lines that intersect exactly at the site of the adyton.  Given this reality, and the finding of ethylene in the waters of the Kassotis, you are asking us to believe this was purely fortuitous and had no effect upon the Oracle.  This to me is an argument I find difficult to accept.


 * Regarding the "possession" I would refer you to the cases preserved, where there is in fact 2 differing kinds of experience recorded. The first in which the oracle seemed to be in possession of her facualties, albeit speaking in such a fashion as to convince others she was filled by the presence of Apollo.  The second, in which her life was shortened by the experience and she threashed around wildly whilst in the state described.  There is also the research reported that Oracle's lives were shortened by being an Oracle (given the wealth she had one would have expected the opposite).  But I can see we are going to get no where on these matters - I feel an agreement to disagree will immensely strengthen the quality of the article if both points of view are presented.  Given the fact that on the "Science of the Pythia" it currently does present the strong case for the ethylene (and Akhilleus I don't subscribe to the explanation that one can explain the accuracy of the by suggesting simply that the Pythia was "under the influence").  You could, I feel, profit from a better understanding of the entheogens (See the Wikipedia on the subject), drugs and other methods associated with altered states of consciousness that were important in mystical, ritual or religious activity.


 * Finally regarding the Mycenaean connection, I feel I should perhasp find some way of incrporating the arguements I raised (whilst not eliminating your skepticsm on the mater. Perhaps you could do the same with regard to the other.


 * John D. Croft 19:55, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

John, thanks for reading my comment in an open spirit, and for reading it at all, since I tend to write very long comments! I agree that incorporating disagreement into the article will make it stronger, so I'll try to get an edit done soon, and you can see what you think.

Let me just repeat that Fontenrose's argument has nothing to do with geology. It's a philological argument--it's about how we should interpret the Greek text of our ancient sources. If one is going to disagree with Fontenrose, s/he has to show that Fontenrose has understood the Greek incorrectly, or has misinterpreted the intellectual context of the writers, something along those lines. In other words, you can't disprove Fontenrose's reading of Plutarch by finding new geological data--you have to disprove his argument by providing a more convincing reading of Plutarch/Strabo/Pausanias. Fontenrose's arguments need to be in the article--if you look at the Delphic Oracle entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, it's clear that his interpretation of what Plutarch is saying commands wide agreement among classicists.

So let me make another comment on the pneuma. You're right to point out that this word can refer to something spiritual or physical. However, it's important to realize that pneuma was a key term in ancient physics, especially for the Stoics. We should also remember that the statements about the pneumata are not made by Plutarch in his own voice; rather, it's a character in the dialogue, a man named Lamprias, who clearly speaks from a Stoic perspective. For the Stoics, pneuma is a sort of matter, but one which binds other types of matter together and gives it a particular form. I quote from an online Dictionary of the History of Ideas:


 * In Stoic theory the world is an organic whole, a rational being, conceptually divisible
 * into two principles, active and passive: the active principle is pneuma (“fiery breath”),
 * a vital, all-pervasive power which gives quality and coherence to the passive principle,
 * “matter” (earth and water). Pneuma and matter together constitute “body,” and body
 * is all that exists. Particular material objects, whether animate or inanimate,
 * are differentiations of pneuma in matter, ...

Pneuma could be conceived of as the world-soul: "These things [meteorological phenomena], and the mutual harmony of the parts of the cosmos, certainly could not happen as they do unless they were bound together by one divine and continuously connected pneuma" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, 2.19).

Pneuma also composes the souls of individual human beings. As Galen said:


 * For they [the Stoics] claim that the soul is a kind of pneuma, as is nature too;
 * the pneuma of nature is more fluid and cool, while that of the soul is drier and
 * hotter. Consequently, [they also think this]: that pneuma is a kind of matter
 * proper to the soul, and in form the matter is either a symmetrical blend of
 * airy and fiery substance; ... (Galen, On the Habits of the Soul, 4.783)

If Lamprias is operating with these Stoic notions, he is not speaking of gases when he mentions pneumata. Rather, he's talking about something that Stoic physical theory sees as a type of matter, but something we would see as immaterial and metaphysical--"spirit" in the sense of an animating power, the "soul" that pervades the cosmos. Note that there's some imprecision in Lamprias' terminology: he calls the source of the Pythia's inspiration pneumata, dynamis (a "force" or "power"), or rheuma ("current"). Dynamis and rheuma aren't words that indicate vapors, in my opinion.

If you haven't, I strongly urge you to read all of De defectu oraculorum. If you read it in full, you'll get a much different impression of what Plutarch is saying than when passages are quoted in isolation. For instance, Lamprias says that the pneumata may have been lessened or extinguished by various changes. Usually, all that gets quoted from that section is the passage where Lamprias says that earthquakes make the pneumata shift places or stop entirely. But he also says that a plague can alter the pneumata (Plutarch Moralia 434c):


 * "...when the earth is shaken beneath by an earthquake and suffers subsidence
 * and ruinous confusion in its depths, the exhalations shift their site or find
 * completely blind outlets, as in this place they say that there are still traces
 * of that great earthquake which overthrew the city. And in Orchomenos they
 * relate that a pestilence raged and many persons died of it, and the oracle
 * of Teiresias became altogether obsolescent and even to this day remains
 * idle and mute."

If a plague can affect the pneumata, we're not dealing with a geological theory, but something metaphysical.

Just a brief comment on Hale et al.'s articles. Obviously they've shown that there's ethylene at Delphi--but I don't find the figures presented in the Geology article helpful. There's ethylene in the water of the Kerna spring--they found 0.3 nM/L of water. Is this enough to cause any perceptible effect in someone who drinks the water? The articles don't say. To me, 0.3 nM/L doesn't seem like a very significant quantity. Let's say I drink a liter of water--that's a lot of water! And I've ingested a small quantity of ethylene--what does that do to me? Not much, I'd guess. Futhermore, they found no ethylene in the travertine of any of the sample sites, which suggests that in recent times there hasn't been much ethylene in the air.

But of course, these findings only tell us what's been going on in the recent past--it only suggests that ethylene might have been present in classical times. The articles can't tell us how much ethylene was there in classical times--and to me, at least, it seems rather doubtful that the levels of ethylene they observed were sufficient to create the 20% concentration needed to induce a euphoric state, especially since it's not all that likely that the Greeks built an airtight space in the temple.

Also, in my opinion, Hale et al. don't handle the ancient sources all that well. They never engage Fontenrose's argument, and they call Cicero a poet (technically correct, but his poetry is the least relevant aspect of his career in almost any context, including this one). In the Clinical Toxicology article, they treat Lucan as if he's writing history, although it should be obvious that Lucan is freely inventing Claudius' consultation with the oracle.

Regarding your suggestion that I look into entheogens a bit more, I think this is exactly the feature of the vapors theory I like least--the idea that an external influence has to be the cause of an altered state of consciousness. Obviously drugs play a role in some religious activity but it's quite possible to enter an altered state without any chemical influences--meditation or intense concentration can bring on an inspired state. We don't need to invoke the influence of hydrocarbon gases, especially when the ancient sources aren't telling us to look for any. --Akhilleus (talk) 08:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Are you arguing then that the fact that the maps of the temple shows the intersection of two fault lines directly beneath the adyton, and that ehylene has been discovered in the waters of te Kassiotis, and that ethylene produces symptoms very like those described for the Pythia, and that major upsurges in ethylene production occrred after major earthquakes on the site (as did major surges of opularity for te Oracle) is all coincidence after the 4th centry BCE? How do you explain the finding of the block on the floor with the anchor points for the tripod, with the holes for the "vapours" to enter.  The sweat smelling nature of Apollo is all recorded after his seizure of the Oracle at Delphi where the sweet, fruity smell was associated with his "possession".  I find it hard to believe tha this is "mere coincidence".  But hey, to each is own!


 * John D. Croft 09:36, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

How has it been established that "major upsurges in ethylene production occrred after major earthquakes on the site"? Hale et al. propose this as a theory but provide no proof. Of course, they also propose that earthquakes reduced the production of ethylene (e.g. Geology 29.8 (2001) 707). It's reasonable enough to say that earthquakes would have varying effects, but this seems a bit too convenient--the earthquakes become a magic bullet that increases or decreases ethylene production as needed by the theorist.

This theory of earthquakes + ethylene doesn't fit very well with the oracle's history. The oracle becomes prominent in the 7th century AD, and its major period of popularity is the 5th-4th century BC. If the oracle depends on ethylene, and ethylene production is stimulated by an earthquake, we should expect that these periods began with an earthquake; but none is recorded. The only earthquake in this time frame occurred in 373 BC, in the middle of the period of the oracle's greatest prestige. The earthquake doesn't seem to have affected the oracle's functioning. This earthquake was severe--the temple was damaged or destroyed, and was rebuilt between 373 BC and 329 BC (probably nearer the end of that period), so the oracle seems to have functioned for some years in a severely damaged temple. The oracle only declines later in the 4th century, and most scholars see this not as the result of a decline in ethylene, but as the result of Macedonian domination of the Delphic Amphictyony.

On the other hand, another earthquake happened around 23 AD, a period when the oracle was at a relatively low ebb. Again there doesn't seem to be a change in the operation of the oracle; when Plutarch writes De defectu oraculorum near the end of the 1st century or beginning of the 2nd, the topic of discussion is why the oracle has declined compared to its glory in centuries past; the 23 AD earthquake clearly did not spur an increase in the oracle's popularity (which still functioned, even in this period when the ethylene emissions were supposedly at a low level). And of course the cessation of the oracle in the 4th century AD has nothing to do with an earthquake, but everything to do with religion.

The more serious problem, I'll repeat, is that it's unknowable how much ethylene was present in antiquity. Hale et al. say so:


 * "The concentration of gases that were produced by the ground vent at the time the oracle was functioning is unknown. In all likelihod, the strength of the vent varied over the centuries due to geological conditions...It is unclear that if 1800 years after the reported cessation of the vent, the gases present today reflect the same proportion as existed in ancient times." (Spiller et al., Clinical Toxicology, 40.2 (2002) 190)

We can't really know how strong hydrocarbon emissions were in antiquity. But we can measure what's there now, and from the figures given in de Boer et al. (the Geology article) it only looks like there are trace amounts of ethylene--not enough to cause a trance state. But I can't be sure, because the authors never tell us how significant the amounts of ethylene they detected are! I really don't think it's too much to ask that a scientific article explain the significance of the data it presents, but we don't get that analysis in the Geology article. The authors are certainly asking us to believe that ethylene levels were much higher in classical times, but it's not clear why that would be the case. On the sweet smell of Apollo, you might want to look at my comment below, which quotes other passages where sweet smells are associated with divine presences. Apollo smelled sweet when he was born, and I really doubt that was because of the presence of ethylene. Moreover, in the same Plutarch dialogue we've been discussing, a sweet smell is said to come from a prophet's mouth as he speaks, and I really don't think Plutarch means that the prophet is exhaling ethylene.

The piece of the floor with the cuttings for the tripod is quite interesting, but no one really knows what's going on with it. However, a fairly wide range of explanations has been put forward, many of which have nothing to do with vapors--for instance, Roux (Delphes, pp. 110-117) proposes it was used in a chthonic ritual.--Akhilleus (talk) 05:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)