Establishing a historically accurate table of contacts between Rome and Delphi is next to impossible given that the available documentation constitutes a reliable record of what people held to be true, which is not necessarily the same as what really happened. When Livy or Dionysus of Halicarnassus say that Tarquin the Proud sent his sons to consult the oracle at Delphi, they are writing what others have handed down to them in written documents and which are regarded as history. At the same time, they knew that the stories of the kings of Rome contained much legend – the kings themselves were largely legendary figures ; but even legend had to be reported and faithfully transmitted to future generations as part of Rome’s legitimate heritage. Furthermore, most of the sources we have are the works of Romans, or Greeks who have long since accepted Rome’s worldwide imperium.

The earliest source for contact between Rome and the Delphic oracle is Quintus Fabius Pictor, sent by the Senate to consult the Pythia during the Second Punic War. Rome was in dire straits, and a consultation of the Sibylline Books had produced indications on how to obtain the favour of the gods against Carthage. Fabius Pictor’s mission was to ask the oracle about the proper rituals needed to honour the Sibylline recommendation (see below). Only fragments of Fabius Pictor’s first-hand account have survived. Scholars may believe that Livy used his work to write his own history of Rome, they still can’t say with any certainty how much he used, whether he copied entire passages, whether he elaborated on or on the contrary toned down a different version of events.

Be that as it may, the absence of accurate historical records does not that mean that the available documents have nothing to tell us. Even if one were to push scepticism to an extreme and consider that none of the histories is historically accurate, the legends that have been handed down to Western civilisation since the third century B.C.E. reveal something about the nature of Rome’s contacts with Delphi and how Romans regarded its oracle. For legend could only survive disguised as history if people were ready to admit that it at least had a semblance of reality.

Below is a list of stories recording contacts between Rome and Delphi from the monarchy until the age of Augustus.

Nine of the cases mentioned involve war : war against Veii, the Samnites, Carthage, Syria, Macedon, civil wars. Seven times out of nine, the oracle’s response more or less helps the Romans on the road to victory. Twice, however, it appears to take a different, more neutral stance with regard to Rome’s advances. The first time, in Phlegon of Tralles’ marvellously ridiculous story of the ghost of Buplagos and a decapitated head that makes dire predictions against Rome’s army who is on the verge of bringing down the wrath of Athena. The second time, the oracle designates Romans by the words “the weaker men” and the enemy they vanquish (Philip V) as the “stronger man.” Both of these writers are Greek. Phlegon of Tralles was a freedman of the emperor Hadrian. His work survives in fragments. He is obviously not a contemporary of the events he relates, nor did he entirely invent them, wherein precisely lies the value of his fantastic story : nearly 300 years after the war between Rome and Antiochus III, this writer was still continuing to hand down the tradition of anti-Roman sentiment in the Greek East, attributing the same sentiment to the Pythian oracle. Both he and Plutarch, who lived long enough to see Hadrian become emperor, refer to a period in time when Rome was slowly but surely extending its imperium over Hellas, thus posing a threat to the traditional independence of the Greek poleis. Indeed, the extension of Roman power meant the obsolescence of the Delphic oracle on all matters of politics and public life. In the war against Perseus, the victorious Aemilius Paullus makes an offering, but apparently feels no need to consult the oracle. In fact, after Phlegon’s and Plutarch’s stories, the four remaining consultations of the oracle in the last century of the Roman Republic are almost certainly not historical ; in any case, they concern only private interests. The last case especially, written towards the end of the 6^th century C.E., is a clear work of Christian polemic against the pagan practise of divination.

It is worth noting that the widespread authority that these stories enjoyed means that the influence of the oracle on Roman culture was greater than the sum of its responses to questions. Despite the infrequency of actual contact, the mere fact that for centuries Delphi was a recognised centre for enquiry on many subjects puts the cliché about Roman disdain for the Greek way of life in a different light. And on another note, I notice that it somehow escaped Jewish and early Christian writers that the Delphic oracle functioned in the pagan world somewhat like the voice of the Lord, audible only to a chosen few like Moses and the Prophets, functioned in Jewish Scripture. The Romans, on their side, consulted the Sibylline Books, a sort of holy scripture, which some Christian writers did try to interpret in a Christian light. More than 15 centuries after the official end of paganism in the Roman Empire, I would venture to say that in the context of divine utterances, the oracle at Delphi showed some affinity with what was to become an important Chrtian tenet : liberty of conscience. Though God spoke to mortals, and called for conversion to a morally good life, He yet remained distant, not interfering directly in human affairs, to some people’s exasperation. Similarly, Apollo’s oracle in Delphi was not known to direct human affairs, but only advise, more often than not in quite ambiguous terms. That left mortals free to make their own final decisions about their lives. So it would seem that Apollo was a great enough god not to have to tell everyone what to do.

Mauricius Fabius

Notes

1. There is solid archaeological evidence that the Etruscan city of Caere, approximately 36 miles north-west of Rome, maintained a treasury in Delphi. Herodotus (I. 167) says that after the Battle of Alalia, the inhabitants of Caere sent a penitential embassy to Delphi. R. M. Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy, Books I-V, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965, p. 216.
2. Traditionally, the Sibylline Books had been brought by the Sibyl of Cumae to Tarquinius Priscus who only acquired a portion of the original collection. The Books were supposed to contain Apolline oracles allowing special priests to predict or at least orientate Rome’s future.
3. Joseph Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle, Its Responses and Operations, with a Catalogue of Responses, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978, p. 259.
4. Idem., p. 345.
5. Parke and Wormell, A History of the Delphic Oracle, vol. 1, Oxford, 1961, p. 275.
6. Fontenrose, p. 349.