Oracle

An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination.When the Prytanies' seat shines white in the island of Siphnos,White-browed all the forum—need then of a true seer's wisdom—Danger will threat from a wooden boat, and a herald in scarlet. An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination. The word oracle comes from the Latin verb ōrāre, 'to speak' and properly refers to the priest or priestess uttering the prediction. In extended use, oracle may also refer to the site of the oracle, and to the oracular utterances themselves, called khrēsmē (χρησμοί) in Greek. Oracles were thought to be portals through which the gods spoke directly to people. In this sense they were different from seers (manteis, μάντεις) who interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs, animal entrails, and other various methods. The most important oracles of Greek antiquity were Pythia (priestess to Apollo at Delphi), and the oracle of Dione and Zeus at Dodona in Epirus. Other oracles of Apollo were located at Didyma and Mallus on the coast of Anatolia, at Corinth and Bassae in the Peloponnese, and at the islands of Delos and Aegina in the Aegean Sea. The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in frenzied states. Walter Burkert observes that 'Frenzied women from whose lips the god speaks' are recorded in the Near East as in Mari in the second millennium BC and in Assyria in the first millennium BC. In Egypt the goddess Wadjet (eye of the moon) was depicted as a snake-headed woman or a woman with two snake-heads. Her oracle was in the renowned temple in Per-Wadjet (Greek name Buto). The oracle of Wadjet may have been the source for the oracular tradition which spread from Egypt to Greece. Evans linked Wadjet with the 'Minoan Snake Goddess'. At the oracle of Dodona she is called Diōnē (the feminine form of Diós, genitive of PDyaeus; or of dīos, 'godly', literally 'heavenly'), who represents the earth-fertile soil, probably the chief female goddess of the proto-Indo-European pantheon. Python, daughter (or son) of Gaia was the earth dragon of Delphi represented as a serpent and became the chthonic deity, enemy of Apollo, who slew her and possessed the oracle. The Pythia was the mouthpiece of the oracles of the god Apollo, and was also known as the Oracle of Delphi. The Pythia was not conceived to be infallible and in fact, according to Sourvinou-Inwood in What is Polis Religion?, the ancient Greeks were aware of this and concluded the unknowability of the divine. In this way, the revelations of the Oracles were not seen as objective truth (as they consulted many) . The Pythia gave prophecies only on the seventh day of each month, seven being the number most associated with Apollo, during the nine warmer months of the year; thus, Delphi was the major source of divination for the ancient Greeks. Many wealthy individuals bypassed the hordes of people attempting a consultation by making additional animal sacrifices to please the oracle lest their request go unanswered. As a result, seers were the main source of everyday divination.