tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/emperor-nero-25231/articlesEmperor Nero – The Conversation2021-04-07T12:30:36Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1582882021-04-07T12:30:36Z2021-04-07T12:30:36ZNo, the COVID-19 vaccine is not linked to the mark of the beast – but a first-century Roman tyrant probably is<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393412/original/file-20210405-21-1tnf1fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C2496%2C1714&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A medieval tapestry, which shows John, the Dragon and the Beast of the Sea.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(Revelation)#/media/File:La_B%C3%AAte_de_la_Mer.jpg">Kimon Berlin, user:Gribeco, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The mass rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has led to concerns from some people that can be described as rational: What are the side effects? How effective will the shot be? And then there are those who are worried that the vaccine <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/16/covid-vaccine-misinformation-evangelical-mark-beast/">will brand people</a> with the “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation+13%3A16-18&version=NRSV">mark of the beast</a>” as described in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.</p>
<p>The mark of the beast – a cryptic mark in Revelation which indicates allegiance to Satan – has been invoked by fringe Christian figures throughout the pandemic in reference to what they deem to be the evil of masks and vaccines. It ranges from the seemingly metaphorical likening of vaccine passports by a Republican House representative to something like “<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/545649-marjorie-taylor-greene-blasts-covid-19-vaccine-passports-as-bidens-mark-of-the">Biden’s mark of the beast</a>” to the more literal interpretation that those getting a vaccine would be marked as followers of Satan.</p>
<p>It is tempting to dismiss such beliefs out of hand. After all, it is a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/545649-marjorie-taylor-greene-blasts-covid-19-vaccine-passports-as-bidens-mark-of-the">fringe idea promoted by conspiracy theorists</a>. But the idea has gained enough traction that some medical establishments have felt the need to address it head on. Minneapolis-based Hennepin Healthcare, for example, <a href="https://www.hennepinhealthcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/COVID-19-Vaccination-handout_Facts.pdf">states in an online fact sheet</a> that “the COVID-19 vaccines do not contain … The Mark of the Beast.”</p>
<p><a href="https://vandeneykel.hcommons.org">As a scholar of early Christian literature</a>, I would note that the mark of the beast in Revelation has throughout history been misunderstood as referring to various events and phenomena. Its connection to the COVID-19 vaccine is but the latest example of such misunderstanding. </p>
<p>Moreover, I argue that the mark in Revelation is best understood in the first-century context in which it was used, as a polemic against the Roman Empire.</p>
<h2>Reading Revelation with first-century eyes</h2>
<p>The Book of Revelation is a complicated text. Written toward the end of the first century by an author who calls himself John, the text is filled with symbolic imagery that has mystified readers for centuries. </p>
<p>Using visions of angels and demons, death and destruction, John tells a story of an ongoing cosmic battle between good and evil that will end with good triumphing eventually. The beast and its mark are both understood by this author to be evil, and they are some of the most well-known and most misunderstood parts of his story.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation+13&version=NRSV">Revelation 13</a>, John describes the beast as having seven heads and 10 horns, a leopard’s body, the feet of a bear and a lion’s mouth. The beast in this text is powerful, Satanic and is an object of worship.</p>
<p>There is also a second beast that promotes worship of the first. The most notable thing about the second beast is that it causes people to receive a mark on their forehead or right hand with “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation+13%3A16-17&version=NRSV">the name of the beast or the number of its name</a>.” </p>
<p>John concludes this chapter with a riddle: “Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty-six.” (Rev 13:18).</p>
<h2>The beast and the empire</h2>
<p>Throughout history, this number has been used to demonize phenomena that readers are either wary of or don’t fully understand. It should come as no surprise, then, that some have tried to connect the COVID-19 vaccine to the mark in a similar way.</p>
<p>This interpretation is problematic, however, and for two reasons: First, the COVID-19 vaccines are modern phenomena that the author of Revelation and his earliest readers would have no familiarity with. Second, there is another explanation for the beast and its number that makes far more sense historically.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages/main-articles/sign-of-the-beast">Many biblical scholars maintain</a> that the first beast is a symbolic representation of first-century Roman emperors. In this reading, each head would represent one emperor. While <a href="https://www.westmont.edu/%7Efisk/Lecture%20Outlines/Apocgide.htm">there is some debate in scholarship</a> on which specific emperors the author of Revelation is alluding to, there is fairly widespread agreement that Emperor Nero is one of them. </p>
<p>This conclusion is drawn not only from other references to Nero in Revelation, but also from <a href="https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/ancient-rome/rome-and-christianity/">his reputation in the first century for persecuting Christians in Rome</a>. </p>
<p>In A.D. 64, when Nero was emperor, a great fire took hold in Rome and burned for nearly a week. Roman historians <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0132%3Alife%3Dnero%3Achapter%3D38">Suetonius</a>, <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/62*.html">Cassius Dio</a> and <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D15%3Achapter%3D44">Tacitus</a> claim that Nero himself was the one responsible for igniting the blaze, Tacitus adds that Nero attempted to free himself of blame by placing guilt on the Christians living in the city.</p>
<h2>Nero’s number</h2>
<p>There are a number of other points in Revelation where the author seems to allude to Nero. There is a possible reference to the great fire of Rome later in the text, for example, in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation+17%3A16&version=NRSV">Revelation 17:16</a>. John’s description of one of the beast’s heads being “wounded” may likewise be a reference to Nero’s death, which <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0132%3Alife%3Dnero%3Achapter%3D49">Suetonius describes</a> as a self-inflicted stab to the neck.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages/related-articles/666-in-popular-culture-and-history">perhaps the clearest reference to Nero</a> in Revelation is the infamous “666,” the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation+13%3A17-18&version=NRSV">number of the beast that constitutes the beast’s mark</a>.</p>
<h2>Past, not future</h2>
<p>Although there has been much speculation over the number’s significance in the past, there is a growing body of scholars who believe it to be a direct reference to Nero.</p>
<p>There is a well-known practice in the ancient world called “gematria,” in which letters are assigned numerical values. This allows authors to refer to individuals by using “the number of their name,” rather than their actual name. And <a href="https://digitalcommons.luthersem.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=faculty_articles">biblical scholars have long noted</a> that in Hebrew characters, the numerical value of Nero’s formal title – Caesar Nero – is 666. </p>
<p>This, along with the other allusions to Nero in Revelation, leaves little doubt, I argue, as to who the author is referencing with this number.</p>
<p>There is, however, one piece of this riddle left, and that is what exactly the mark of the beast in Revelation is. Given the symbolic nature of the book as a whole, the reference to being marked on the forehead or hand is likely not something to be taken at face value. </p>
<p>More important is John’s claim that no one would be able to buy or sell anything without having the mark that bears the name of the beast. So, what does one need to buy and sell that would also have the name of the beast on it? One possible answer to that question is money – and we have <a href="http://numismatics.org/ocre/results?q=authority_facet:%22Nero%22&lang=en">numerous examples in the archaeological record</a> of Roman coinage that bears the name Caesar Nero. </p>
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<p>One of the reasons that Revelation is often confusing to those trying to interpret the book today is that they frequently are trained to see it as a book about the future, when in fact it is primarily a book about the past. Clearly, John and his first-century readers would have been able to know the answer to “What is the mark of the beast?” in their first-century context. Otherwise the text wouldn’t have made much sense to anyone when it was first written.</p>
<p>In other words: when John gives his “number of the beast” riddle to readers in the first century, he anticipates that it is a riddle they will be equipped to solve in the first century.</p>
<p>While some may have lingering questions about COVID-19 vaccines, the question of whether those vaccines are linked to the mark of the beast shouldn’t be one of them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Vanden Eykel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some fringe conspiracy theorists are connecting COVID-19 vaccines to the mark of the beast. A religion scholar explains why the biblical reference should be considered in its first-century context.Eric Vanden Eykel, Associate Professor of Religion, Ferrum CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/657972016-09-27T19:24:00Z2016-09-27T19:24:00ZMythbusting Ancient Rome – the emperor Nero<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138565/original/image-20160921-12465-179heqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nero: had a reputation as an arsonist even in antiquity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If asked to think of a single individual who epitomises the decadence, destruction and debauchery of Ancient Rome, the name Nero would surely be on many people’s lips. </p>
<p>Attaining power in A.D. 54 at the tender age of 16, over the next 14 years Nero allegedly murdered his two wives, his mother, and his aunt while also marrying two different men and sleeping with his mother and a Vestal Virgin. </p>
<p>As if these sexcapades and murders weren’t enough to keep the youthful emperor busy, he is also supposed to have set fire to Rome, played (or fiddled) while the city burned, and then blamed the Christians in order to deflect attention from himself. The image of the capricious and crazed Nero is immortalised in films and TV series such as Quo Vadis and I, Claudius, not to mention in the computer software Nero Burning ROM.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138565/original/image-20160921-12465-179heqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138565/original/image-20160921-12465-179heqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138565/original/image-20160921-12465-179heqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138565/original/image-20160921-12465-179heqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138565/original/image-20160921-12465-179heqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138565/original/image-20160921-12465-179heqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138565/original/image-20160921-12465-179heqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138565/original/image-20160921-12465-179heqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Nero</em> by Abraham Janssens van Nuyssen (1620)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But are any of these stories that feed our popular conception of the emperor Nero actually true? We’d like to tackle two of the most pervasive misunderstandings about Nero’s reign – that he was responsible for setting fire to Rome and that he had a sexual relationship with his mother, Agrippina the Younger. </p>
<p>These tales can be found in our ancient historical sources (all of which were written at least a generation after Nero’s death) but should not be taken at face value. This is because they are reported by sources as rumours, rather than facts. </p>
<h2>Did Nero set fire to Rome?</h2>
<p>Nero had a reputation as an arsonist even in antiquity, with rumours that he started the Fire of Rome in A.D. 64 appearing in the histories of Tacitus and Cassius Dio and the biography of Nero by Suetonius. While most scholars now agree that Nero was not responsible for the fire, the <a href="http://www.viralnova.com/emperor-nero/">modern-day rumour mill</a> (as represented <a href="http://www.ifsecglobal.com/great-fire-london-5-blazes-devastated-world-cities">by the Internet</a>) is loath to exonerate the emperor. </p>
<p>There are two reasons usually given for why Nero set fire to Rome. The first is that he was a mad megalomaniac who burned down the city simply because he could. There is a story told by Suetonius that when a man said to Nero, ‘When I am dead, let the earth be consumed by fire’, the emperor replied, ‘No, while I live!’ </p>
<p>The second reason often proffered is that Nero wanted to rebuild Rome according to his own plans, which included a sumptuous new residence for himself, the “Golden House” (<em>Domus Aurea</em>). There is a modern myth that the new palace was built solely for <a href="http://listverse.com/2014/02/02/10-of-the-wildest-parties-in-history/">parties and orgies</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138566/original/image-20160921-12475-1kguljn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138566/original/image-20160921-12475-1kguljn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138566/original/image-20160921-12475-1kguljn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138566/original/image-20160921-12475-1kguljn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138566/original/image-20160921-12475-1kguljn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138566/original/image-20160921-12475-1kguljn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138566/original/image-20160921-12475-1kguljn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>The Fire of Rome</em> by Hubert Robert (1785)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Art Project/Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If we examine our historical accounts closely, the only evidence for Nero the arsonist comes from rumour and hearsay. This is freely admitted by the historian Tacitus: even though Nero was out of Rome when the fire started, a rumour spread that the emperor had sung of the destruction of Troy from his palace stage.</p>
<p>Cassius Dio describes chaos in the streets as the fire took hold, as people ran about asking each other how the blaze started. In such a desperate situation, without reliable channels of information, it is easy to see how rumours could start. </p>
<h2>Did Nero commit incest with his mother?</h2>
<p>Nero has not only earned an undeserved reputation as an arsonist, but also as an incestuous deviant. His alleged sexual antics with his mother Agrippina have earned him a place on a list of the “<a href="http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-11-most-depraved-things-the-roman-emperors-ever-di-1479671517">most sexually depraved things Romans ever did</a>” and in news stories about his “<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1217587/Wine-women-slaughter-The-truth-Emperor-Neros-pleasure-palace.html">pleasure palace</a>”. As with the story of the Fire of Rome, this image of Nero derives solely from ancient rumours, not from facts. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138567/original/image-20160921-12458-xo6c81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138567/original/image-20160921-12458-xo6c81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138567/original/image-20160921-12458-xo6c81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138567/original/image-20160921-12458-xo6c81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138567/original/image-20160921-12458-xo6c81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138567/original/image-20160921-12458-xo6c81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138567/original/image-20160921-12458-xo6c81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138567/original/image-20160921-12458-xo6c81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Agrippina the Younger from Stuttgart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Roman people loved to speculate about the emperors and their sex lives. One story involves Nero and his mother being carried through Rome in a litter (a portable couch concealed by curtains), only for the emperor to emerge with suspicious stains on his clothes. People started to whisper that the pair had been doing more than reviewing imperial legislation behind the curtains.</p>
<p>Even more scandalous was the fact that the emperor took a mistress who turned out to be the spitting image of his mother – a situation which got tongues wagging throughout Rome. </p>
<p>These rumours can be explained as responses to an unusual political situation. Nero was only 16 when he was acclaimed emperor, and his mother Agrippina asserted herself as the emperor’s guardian by appointing men loyal to her in key positions. Her extraordinary influence is demonstrated by contemporary coins with busts of both the emperor and his mother on the “heads” side. This coin made Agrippina look like she was Nero’s equal.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138568/original/image-20160921-12481-1qt4s9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138568/original/image-20160921-12481-1qt4s9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138568/original/image-20160921-12481-1qt4s9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138568/original/image-20160921-12481-1qt4s9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138568/original/image-20160921-12481-1qt4s9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138568/original/image-20160921-12481-1qt4s9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138568/original/image-20160921-12481-1qt4s9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138568/original/image-20160921-12481-1qt4s9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gold coin showing facing busts of Nero and Agrippina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Agrippina’s unprecedented position was the subject of continual speculation throughout the city of Rome, according to Cassius Dio, because the people could not obtain accurate information about affairs inside the palace. Without reliable information, rumours spread based on cultural preconceptions: in the Roman world, it was believed that a woman could not exert political power unless it was gained by underhanded or immoral means.</p>
<p>One particularly pervasive rumour developed after Agrippina began to lose influence over Nero, as he began to pay more attention to his comely courtier Poppaea Sabina. Agrippina allegedly dressed herself up to the nines and propositioned her son as he lay in a drunken stupor after a long liquid lunch. </p>
<p>Cassius Dio remarked: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whether this actually occurred, now, or whether it was invented to fit their character, I am not sure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fact that our ancient historians do not believe such tales should give us pause.</p>
<h2>The purpose of rumour</h2>
<p>Sociological studies of rumours have shown that they develop in situations when people do not have good information to explain current events. The rumour that Nero started the fire of Rome can be explained as an attempt by people to make sense of a confused, traumatic situation during which little or no official information about what actually happened was available.</p>
<p>The sight of the <em>Domus Aurea</em> being built so soon after the fire undoubtedly fanned the flames of rumour, pointing the finger at the emperor himself. The same point can be made about Nero’s alleged incestuous relationship with his mother. The stories about the sexual relationship developed as a way of explaining both Agrippina’s extraordinary power and prominence as well as her fall from favour.</p>
<p>Our ancient sources are clear about the fact that they are reporting rumours and innuendo. Suetonius, the biographer of Nero, reports that the emperor was merely <em>thought</em> to have desired his mother, but was persuaded not to act on his feelings. Similarly Tacitus reveals that, while some <em>believed</em> in the <em>rumour</em> that Nero started the fire, there were also those who did not.</p>
<p>If our ancient authors knew these stories were just rumours, why did they record them? There are various reasons for this. There was certainly a tradition in ancient historiography of reporting different versions of events and allowing the reader to make up their own minds. The stories are also very entertaining: we should never forget that these histories and biographies were designed to bring pleasure to their readers. </p>
<p>Finally, the salacious rumours served a political purpose. An emperor’s sex life was not simply juicy gossip for the masses: his private peccadilloes were believed to reflect the character of his government. Rumours, even if ultimately untrue, helped to define the expectations of a good emperor in the minds of the readers.</p>
<p>Slightly different motivations underlie the circulation of these rumours about Nero as facts in the modern world. They are enjoyable and entertaining to read, appealing to our cultural preconceptions of ancient Rome and its emperors as corrupt and morally bankrupt.</p>
<p>But perhaps most significantly, they enable us to impose a moral distance between ourselves and our ancient forebears. Making the past seem strange and unfamiliar helps to forget that the same problems still exist in the present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65797/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caillan Davenport receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shushma Malik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The image of a crazed and capricious Emperor Nero is immortalised in popular culture: from fiddling while Rome burns to having a sexual relationship with his mother. The historical evidence, however, is rather different.Caillan Davenport, Lecturer in Roman History and ARC DECRA Research Fellow, Macquarie UniversityShushma Malik, Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/617382016-07-21T20:17:54Z2016-07-21T20:17:54ZFriday essay: secrets of the Delphic Oracle and how it speaks to us today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131329/original/image-20160721-31129-11e95cj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Temple of Apollo at Delphi, where the wisdom of the oracle was dispensed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Janet Lackey/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine a place to go in times of doubt and uncertainty, where one can find out what to do and what to avoid, straight from a reliable source. A place where all questions have tangible answers and all problems a solution. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, such a place does not exist today. But did it once? </p>
<p>In the ancient world, oracles such as the one at Delphi famously promised to reveal the past, present and future. They were the apex of a sizeable pyramid of institutions and individuals dealing in futures (of the non-economic kind), which also included itinerant seers and personal oracle collections. </p>
<p>Yet Delphi and its like rarely provided simple answers. Take the famous example of King Croesus of Lydia. Croesus asked at Delphi whether he should wage war against the Persians. He was told that he would destroy a great empire. </p>
<p>Taking the response to predict victory, he launched a military confrontation with Xerxes, Persia’s mighty king. Croesus did end up destroying an empire – his own. </p>
<p>This example is by no means unique. The ancient historian <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-histories-by-herodotus-53748">Herodotus</a>, who reports it in The Histories, cites many similar stories of prediction and fulfilment. And the picture does not look much different in many other ancient reports of Delphic prophecies. </p>
<p>More often than not, it seems, those drawing on the gods to know the unknowable did not receive a straightforward answer. Instead, they faced a new question: did they understand the real meaning of the prophecy? </p>
<h2>A voice of authority</h2>
<p>In the ancient world, the Delphic Oracle was the highest religious authority. Nestled on Mount Parnassus in Phocis in central Greece, the oracle was open for business once a month except during winter. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131309/original/image-20160720-31134-171649y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131309/original/image-20160720-31134-171649y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131309/original/image-20160720-31134-171649y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131309/original/image-20160720-31134-171649y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131309/original/image-20160720-31134-171649y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131309/original/image-20160720-31134-171649y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131309/original/image-20160720-31134-171649y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Veduta Of Delphi, With A Sacrificial Procession by Claude Lorrain, (1645).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the core of the oracle’s operations was a priestess, the Pythia, who delivered the responses directly to the enquirer from the inner sanctum of Apollo’s temple. She was considered a mouthpiece of the omniscient god of prophecy. </p>
<p>On consultation day, people flocked to Delphi to enquire about an eclectic mix of concerns: politics and warfare, of course, but also religion, health, lovesickness and offspring – to name just a few issues. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131303/original/image-20160720-31137-j3xg0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131303/original/image-20160720-31137-j3xg0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131303/original/image-20160720-31137-j3xg0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131303/original/image-20160720-31137-j3xg0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131303/original/image-20160720-31137-j3xg0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131303/original/image-20160720-31137-j3xg0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131303/original/image-20160720-31137-j3xg0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Priestess of Delphi by John Collier, 1891.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among those consulting the oracle were some of the most (in)famous and illustrious individuals of the ancient world. Socrates’ friend Chaerephon enquired whether anyone was wiser than Socrates. Apparently he was told that no-one was. </p>
<p>Yet what did this really mean – that Socrates was indeed the wisest person in the world or that there was someone equally knowledgeable? Another predictable question is the one Cicero asked: how to become famous.</p>
<p>The neurotic Roman emperor Nero, meanwhile, tried to learn the timing of his own death from the Delphic oracle. He was told to “beware of the 73rd year” and so considered himself safe, but was murdered shortly after by Galba who was – you guessed it – 73 years old. </p>
<p>Alexander the Great did not even get to ask a question, arriving at the oracle on a day it was closed. The Pythia declined to deliver prophecies. Yet “no” was never an option for Alexander. </p>
<p>When he tried to drag the priestess into the temple by force, she cried, “You are invincible, youth!” – whereupon Alexander turned around and left. He had the prediction he wanted. </p>
<p>Everyone, it seems, got the oracle they deserved. The questions asked at Delphi and at the numerous other oracular centres of the ancient world reveal as much about the enquirer as the capacity of the Pythia to anticipate past, present and future events. </p>
<h2>How did it work?</h2>
<p>How did the Pythia deliver the prophecies? Modern visitors to the oracle are obsessed by the question. Surely there is a secret to be revealed? A mystery to be uncovered? Or at least a clever trick to be unmasked? </p>
<p>Interestingly, the ancients themselves seemed entirely oblivious to the “how”. They did not ask – let alone answer it for us in any satisfying way.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131310/original/image-20160720-31125-m0ebzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131310/original/image-20160720-31125-m0ebzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131310/original/image-20160720-31125-m0ebzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131310/original/image-20160720-31125-m0ebzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131310/original/image-20160720-31125-m0ebzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131310/original/image-20160720-31125-m0ebzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131310/original/image-20160720-31125-m0ebzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King Aegeus consults the Pythia, who is seated. Attic red-figure kylix, 440–430 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Was the answer obvious to them? Or was this, perhaps, a religious secret not to be discussed? Whatever the case, for years, the theory that the Pythia was “inspired” by vapours emerging from the ground has fascinated present-day visitors of the ancient oracle. </p>
<p>This theory, based on late, unreliable and misunderstood evidence, has once again been reignited by <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2001/010717/full/news010719-10.html">new geological research</a> in the area of Delphi demonstrating the presence of light hydrocarbon gases, which are known to have hallucinogenic effects. The mystery lives on – as do the vapours. </p>
<p>One thing, however, is clear as soon as one considers the prophecies themselves. The oracles that have come down to us – around 600 questions and answers from Delphi preserved in a wide range of historical and literary texts and in the form of inscriptions – are not the result of some drug-induced state of mind. Most likely they are the product of oral tradition spun around events that may or may not have really happened at Delphi and elsewhere.</p>
<p>As a result, many oracles are like poetry in the often astonishing and exhilarating ways their central images and metaphors always and invariably find a specific referent in the world: figurative and concrete, allusive and illusive.</p>
<p>Phalanthus of Sparta, for example, received a prediction that he would win both a city and a territory “when rain falls from cloudless sky”. After several failed attempts to take a city, he remembered the oracle. Surely it was impossible for him ever to win military success – just as unlikely as for rain to fall from clear sky.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131340/original/image-20160721-31137-ebkbmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131340/original/image-20160721-31137-ebkbmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131340/original/image-20160721-31137-ebkbmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131340/original/image-20160721-31137-ebkbmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131340/original/image-20160721-31137-ebkbmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131340/original/image-20160721-31137-ebkbmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131340/original/image-20160721-31137-ebkbmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131340/original/image-20160721-31137-ebkbmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In despair, he laid his head in his wife’s lap and bemoaned his fate. His wife, however, felt such sympathy for her husband that she started to cry. </p>
<p>Her name, we learn, was Aethra (ancient Greek for “clear sky”) and her tears the drops of rain that fell seemingly out of the blue. The same night Phalanthus sacked the city of Tarentum in southern Italy.</p>
<h2>The real and the imaginary</h2>
<p>Oracles like this one typically feature paradoxes, metaphors and images that are also the heart of poetic language. The reading of these prophecies, then, requires extraordinary diligence, a special sense for words and their meaning, and the willingness and capacity to look at the world in new and creative ways.</p>
<p>The exiled king Arcesilaus enquired at Delphi about the possibility of returning to Cyrene. The oracle foretold that his family would remain in power for eight generations, but added a personal message to the king: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As for yourself, when you return to your country, be gentle. If you find the oven full of jars, do not bake them but send them off with the wind. But if you do heat the oven, enter not the land surrounded by water, for otherwise you will die, and the best of the bulls with you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>After his return to Cyrene, Arcesilaus took great care to sidestep the prophecy but readily took revenge on his adversaries. When some of them fled into a tower, he had wood stacked around it and set it on fire. Too late he registered that in doing so he had “heated the oven full of jars”. Arcesilaus died soon after in the coastal town of Barca. </p>
<p>Some oracles and the accounts told about them are not authentic. The Pythia cannot possibly have predicted the events leading up to Arcesilaus’ death. Yet this does not mean we can simply dismiss this evidence as the stuff of literary fiction. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131307/original/image-20160720-31151-bnnno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131307/original/image-20160720-31151-bnnno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131307/original/image-20160720-31151-bnnno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131307/original/image-20160720-31151-bnnno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131307/original/image-20160720-31151-bnnno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131307/original/image-20160720-31151-bnnno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131307/original/image-20160720-31151-bnnno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lycurgus Consulting the Pythia by Eugene Delacroix, 1835/1845.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Questions of authenticity are relevant to the social and political histories of the ancient world and the role of oracles within them. The cultural historian and historians of religions also want to know: What kind of questions did the ancients put to the oracle, real or imaginary? How far into the future did they look? And what religious beliefs, insights and general truths are contained in the stories told about the oracle?</p>
<p>For the ancients, Delphi was as much a place of the real as the imaginary. It was a site to which one could travel and ask questions. But it was also – perhaps even more so – an imaginary site around which meaningful religious narratives could be spun. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131339/original/image-20160721-31137-1k5pwu7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131339/original/image-20160721-31137-1k5pwu7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131339/original/image-20160721-31137-1k5pwu7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131339/original/image-20160721-31137-1k5pwu7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131339/original/image-20160721-31137-1k5pwu7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131339/original/image-20160721-31137-1k5pwu7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131339/original/image-20160721-31137-1k5pwu7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Remains of the Oracle of Zeus at Dodona.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The evidence from another oracular site confirms this. At the Oracle of Zeus at Dodona, enquirers at the oracle wrote their questions onto lead tablets, which were then folded and submitted to the sanctuary. Hundreds of these tablets have been found, giving very good insight into the questions asked at that oracle:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Did Dorkilos steal the cloth?</p>
<p>God. Gerioton asks Zeus concerning a wife whether it is better for him to take one.</p>
<p>Cleotas asks Zeus and Dione if it is better and profitable for him to keep sheep.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And, <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8674516&fileId=S0075426900094064">somewhat more sensitively</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lysanias asks Zeus Naios and Deona whether the child is not from him with which Annyla is pregnant.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In their straightforwardness, these questions resemble those oracles from Delphi that were inscribed in stone right after the consultation and so less likely to be subject to embellishment. Taken together, this evidence illustrates that in the main very simple questions were asked at oracles – relegating the elaborate tales of prediction and fulfilment to the realm of the imaginary. </p>
<p>Note also that to answer these questions does not require great predictive capacities. Good common sense and, perhaps, some insight is all that’s needed. Nor do these questions really concern the deep future: mostly they reflect simple concerns of the day to day. </p>
<h2>Delphi’s modern legacy</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the Delphic oracle is no longer in business – at least, not of the oracular kind. In 390/1 CE the Roman emperor Theodosius I closed it down in a bid to end pagan cults. However, the excavated site is now a booming tourist destination and well worth the visit. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131330/original/image-20160721-31125-1wg2j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131330/original/image-20160721-31125-1wg2j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131330/original/image-20160721-31125-1wg2j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131330/original/image-20160721-31125-1wg2j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131330/original/image-20160721-31125-1wg2j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131330/original/image-20160721-31125-1wg2j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131330/original/image-20160721-31125-1wg2j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131330/original/image-20160721-31125-1wg2j4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Altar of Apollo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andy Hay/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Every time has its own oracles. The legacy of Delphi lies not so much in fortune-tellers, soothsayers and horoscopes: the central and authoritative role of the oracle in the ancient world is reflected in more serious ways we try to anticipate the future.</p>
<p>We have an enduring desire to enquire into what is beyond the here and now, which manifests in our – frequently futile – attempts to control what comes next.</p>
<p>Economic forecasts try to model future expectations based on past experiences, but – much like ambiguous oracles – they are usually vague enough to allow for a way out if things go wrong: <em>past returns do not indicate future gains…</em></p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131332/original/image-20160721-31159-vh1bmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131332/original/image-20160721-31159-vh1bmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131332/original/image-20160721-31159-vh1bmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131332/original/image-20160721-31159-vh1bmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131332/original/image-20160721-31159-vh1bmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131332/original/image-20160721-31159-vh1bmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131332/original/image-20160721-31159-vh1bmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131332/original/image-20160721-31159-vh1bmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A modern oracle?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeffrey L. Cohen/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Google and other search engines invoke the idea that the entire, collective knowledge of humanity – everything that can possibly be known – is only a few clicks away. This is, of course, mere illusion. As with the ancient oracles, answers provided in this way are only ever as good as the question asked.</p>
<p>Finally, the language in which many politicians cloak promises of events to come is directly reminiscent of the metaphors and ambiguities of many Delphic responses. The example of Croesus’ “great empire that will be destroyed” seems uncomfortably apposite in light of modern-day conflicts and international politics.</p>
<h2>Know thyself!</h2>
<p>Given that the oracular is still very much alive we may wonder how Delphi still speaks to us today, which insights remain relevant and what kind of knowledge stands the test of time. </p>
<p>The ancients themselves asked the oracle that last question. Both Croesus of Lydia and Chilon of Sparta enquired at Delphi about what was best to know. Both received a response saying that to “know thyself” (<em>gnōthi seauton</em>) was best.</p>
<p>Know thyself! In many ways this is the tag line of the Delphic brand. The motto was inscribed into the forecourt of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, clearly visible to those wishing to consult the oracle. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131338/original/image-20160721-31137-22bsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131338/original/image-20160721-31137-22bsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131338/original/image-20160721-31137-22bsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131338/original/image-20160721-31137-22bsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131338/original/image-20160721-31137-22bsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131338/original/image-20160721-31137-22bsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131338/original/image-20160721-31137-22bsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131338/original/image-20160721-31137-22bsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Head of Nero (reign 54–68 CE). After 64 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is also the implicit moral message of many accounts of oracle consultations recounting the (frequently unhappy) consequences of misinterpreting the oracle’s words. Overconfidence ends in downfall. If only Croesus had looked beyond his own circumstances… If only Nero had considered the world in more complex terms…</p>
<p>Oracles did not provide simple answers to simple questions – nor do their modern counterparts. Rather, all attempts to look into the future provide the incentive for us to examine our own expectations, to confront our own desires and our own ways of make-believe. </p>
<p>If we rise to the challenge we find more often than not that things are different from how they first appear. Delphi continues to remind those of us prepared to listen that, to be successful in the world, we must consider other realities which may look very different from our own.</p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Have you ever been to “Delphi”? If not, check out the online <a href="http://www.homeromanteion.com">Homeromanteion</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Kindt receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).</span></em></p>Cicero asked: ‘how to become famous?’ Nero sought to know the timing of his death. The Oracle at Delphi offered pronouncements on all manner of topics - yet as with Google today, the question posed was as important as the answer.Julia Kindt, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/554032016-02-25T15:55:58Z2016-02-25T15:55:58ZBagpipe bandits: how the English blew Scotland’s national instrument first<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112942/original/image-20160225-15160-rb9vda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This could come to blows</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zoetnet/6157173870/in/photolist-ao68hb-4y5LxV-yEv2G1-4y9ZYG-am6UVC-5eFzMz-4ya11o-cpDinJ-4uaqGB-nvsxks-am46fx-fHsLC-4y5LqB-4WPCqz-dun225-4WTUc7-584U6X-2ivDeB-6fbTej-4fZgtT-v1DpgG-8KEd4T-py15S5-9VetDC-5edobD-5ednuV-8mnm6G-783jaN-ng1RF3-bpWbNj-pDec53-afK9pD-8uzCL1-rf78P9-pi9vpm-e3fG7y-am47BP-i5BTD-iuXZCq-8uzD7w-7DKyB9-piydqi-oyz7HB-3iUxqF-5eh8gw-5eFyHK-4ya155-ouN43d-5ecLQc-8dLnBf">zoetnet</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Great Highland bagpipe is as central to Scottish identity as tartan and Robert Burns. Walk down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and you’ll hear that familiar wail, while pipers gather each year to empty their lungs at everything from local competitions to the famous <a href="http://www.edintattoo.co.uk">Edinburgh Military Tattoo</a>. The pipes were not invented in Scotland, though. In fact, they are part of a much older tradition that some may find unpalatable: the English were playing the pipes hundreds of years before the Scots got their hands on them. </p>
<p>Bagpipes are actually a family of instruments, and most countries from India to Scotland and from Sweden to Libya boast at least one indigenous variety. They <a href="http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199203833.001.0001/acref-9780199203833">date back</a> over 3,000 years, but appear to have been developed from the hornpipe, which <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bagpipes.html?id=a6MIAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">goes back</a> even further. Through the millennia, bagpipes have appeared in an incredible number of varieties – big like a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVPjHB9oEc">zampogna gigante</a>; small like a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OVYA-DJ_og">musette</a>; droneless, or with two or more drones (or reeds); and with either one or two chanters (or pipes). </p>
<p>The drones can be vertical or horizontal, compressed into a little barrel or dangling on the piper’s back, and the bag can be inflated by a mouthpiece or by bellows. The bag can be covered in brocade or tartan, left as a tanned skin, or even made of Gore-Tex. Each has its own scale, tone and sound, all of which tells a tale about their home country.</p>
<h2>Bag-innings</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bonnie banks O’ Umbria?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stockholm_-_Antikengalerie_5_-_Büste_Kaiser_Nero.jpg#/media/File:Stockholm_-_Antikengalerie_5_-_Büste_Kaiser_Nero.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Early documents about bagpipes are scarce. Though literature featuring bagpipes in Ancient Greece is dubious, sources confirm that the instrument was known to the Romans. The ancient historian Dio Chrysostom <a href="http://www.loebclassics.com/view/dio_chrysostom-discourses_71_philosopher/1951/pb_LCL385.165.xml">described</a> Emperor Nero as being able to play the pipe both with his mouth and by squeezing a bag under his armpit. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3916199-the-bagpipe">According to</a> the most widely accepted opinion, the Romans brought the instrument into Britain after their invasion in AD 43.</p>
<p>It is not until the Middle Ages that the bagpipe tradition took off in a significant way, however. By that time there are copious references all across Europe. A remarkable episode in British bagpipe literature is the <a href="https://archive.org/details/oldenglishriddl01wyatgoog">Exeter Riddles</a>, a manuscript containing Anglo-Saxon riddles possibly collected by <a href="http://www.britannia.com/bios/leofricex.html">bishop Leofric</a> (1016-1072). Riddle 31 tells of a beautiful, noble bird resting on a man’s shoulder, with its beak facing downwards and its feet in the air. <a href="http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1928">The answer</a> to the name of the bird is the bagpipe, since its beak is the chanter and its feet are the drones. </p>
<p>The first time the term “bagpipe” appears in its English-language form is several hundred years later, <a href="http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/cat/dml.cfm">in 1288</a> (albeit modified for a Latin text). It appears in an entry in the Book of the Treasurer of King Edward I, “cuidam garcioni cum una bagepipa pipanti coram rege de dono ipsius regis, ij s.”. This translates as “a certain servant with a bagpipe who piped before the king was given two shillings” – a good sum, roughly the weekly income for an agricultural worker at the time.</p>
<h2>Wha’s like us?</h2>
<p>The first unquestionable appearance of the bagpipe in Scotland is not until the 15th century, in carvings in Rosslyn Chapel and Melrose Abbey, respectively of an angel-piper and a pig-piper. It is reasonable to think that the tradition was absorbed into Scotland from the south, before developing its own characteristics. By the 16th century it was Scotland’s military instrument, and a carrier of public events. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ye Jacobites by name …</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/melodeonjohn/19837300939/in/photolist-wdXmrZ-wpdLN4-wFoSkY-bo2mhH-yGAgeP-yGAgg2-8vfQMM-8JqBqm-8pxesd-fu8MTK-fdY1uX-fuoWZ9-fu9Qpk-fup5UU-fuojr3-mCCFdL-nYDJfM-8Mu96b-4TLhjK-cRBqJm-ixpTZX-8uzCL1-8Ch2S1-8Mu8ZQ-8uwyZv-6gfKMa-8JqBof-dCpjWL-hiYW9p-mCE7Nv-6DQZed-dae8Go-fesMdF-8CEhn9-8DR9f3-9saxqp-5bNWVW-fBVZJ3-8QodX3-fytumW-oPETHQ-8M5zeK-8MqKB5-8M9qYA-8Mcg5P-8MrCab-8MwVJW-dwzZy9-dysjhE-dvDN5R">Jock Stewart Redmond</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much 18th-century Scottish material about the bagpipe is linked to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/scotland_jacobites_01.shtml">Jacobitism</a>, the movement that sought the return of the Catholic Stewart kings to the British throne following the removal of James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Jacobites saw the bagpipes as an icon of Scottish national belonging and military pride, while their Hanoverian opponents used the instrument in propaganda to caricature the Jacobites. </p>
<p>This politicisation of the bagpipes led to a common belief that they were banned in Scotland. Partly the source of the confusion is the <a href="http://www.mqup.ca/traditional-gaelic-bagpiping--1745-1945-products-9780773521346.php">Disarming Act of 1746</a>, to which a passage added two years later ordered “restraining the Use of the Highland Dress”. It included tartan and plaid, but never the bagpipes. The misconception was probably strengthened by episodes such as the <a href="http://thepipesofwar.com/production-blog/?p=107">hanging of piper James Reid</a> of Dundee. He was captured in 1745 in Carlisle and sentenced to hanging for treason, having taken part in Jacobite rebellions. He may have been a piper, but his hanging had nothing to do with disobeying the Disarming Act.</p>
<p>The bagpipes have been banned – but in Poland during World War II. Original research from the Ethnographic Museum of Warsaw in collaboration with Poznan’s Museum of Musical Instruments shows footage documenting how Germans ordered Poles not to play their version of the pipes, perhaps threatened by the instrument’s ability to stir nationalist spirits. Such is the information that comes out of bagpipe studies, which has been undergoing a revival of late – and is indeed the subject of a paper at a <a href="https://www.thepipingcentre.co.uk/bagpipe-education/international-bagpipe-conference-2016/">conference in Glasgow</a> on February 26-28. So while the Scots may have made the instrument their own over the centuries, they share the piping tradition with the hands of many nationalities – including the English. Widdye credit it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vivien Williams received the Stephen Copley Postgraduate Research Award (BARS) in 2012. She is affiliated with Edinburgh University’s Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and with the International Bagpipe Organisation as co-organiser of the third International Bagpipe Conference.</span></em></p>There’s something every Scot should know about those caterwauling pipes.Vivien Williams, Research Assistant (Musicology), University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.