Delphi, of Ancient Greece

choi

Delphi | Fortune-Told; How the oracle at the centre of the ancient Greek world survived for over 1,000 years.
www.economist.com/news/books-and ... -survived-over-1000
(book review on Michael Scott, Delphi; A History of the Centre of the Ancient World)

Note:
(a) Delphi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi
(section 8 Excavations)

The “i” is pronounced the same as “eye,” both Oxford dictionaries and www.m-w.com say.
(i) Apollo slew Python
(A) Python (mythology)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(mythology)
(always represented in Greek sculpture and vase-paintings as a serpent)

This “Python” is pronounced the same as “python” next.
(B) python (b):
“1580s, fabled serpent, slain by Apollo near Delphi, from Latin Python, from Greek Python ‘serpent slain by Apollo,’ probably related to Pytho, the old name of Delphi, perhaps itself related to pythein ‘to rot,’ or from PIE *dhubh-(o)n-, from *dheub- "hollow, deep, bottom, depths," and used in reference to the monsters who inhabit them. Zoological application to large non-venomous snakes of the tropics is from 1836, originally in French”
Online Etymology Dictionary, undated
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=python

For PIE, see Proto-Indo-European language
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language
(C) Oxford dictionaries has the same etymology:

python (n; “late 16th century (in the Greek sense): via Latin from Greek Puthōn, the name of a huge serpent killed by Apollo. The current sense dates from the mid 19th century”)
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/python
(ii) Pythia (n; from Puthō, a former name of Delphi): “The priestess of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece”
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/Pythia

The “y” in Pythia and Python are pronounced differently, despite the same etymology.


(b) Delphi is “at the foot of Mount Parnassus * * * These [oracles] were often couched in ambiguous terms so that the consultant could not complain if things went wrong. The best-known case is that of the fabulously wealthy Croesus, king of Lydia: he asked in 547BC whether he should invade the Persians and was told that if he crossed the River Halys he would destroy a great empire. Croesus took this as an encouragement to attack King Cyrus; unfortunately, the empire that was crushed was his own.”

Croesus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croesus
(595 BC – c 547 BC; king of Lydia from 560 to 547 BC; section 2 Biography, section 2.1 Apollo's intervention)

choi

(continued)

(c) Delphi “survived the conflicts—the invasions of the Persians and Gauls, the Peloponnesian wars, its own sacred wars, the rise of Macedon and then Rome. And it benefited from them when the winners commemorated their victories with gifts and ever more elaborate monuments and buildings.”
(i) The Dying Gaul; An ancient Roman masterpiece from the Capitoline Museum, Rome. National Gallery of Art, Dec 12, 2013-Mar 16, 2014
www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/press/exh/3655.html
(“created during the first or second century AD” at Rome)
, which was copied--by Roman(s)--after a Greek bronze statue "commissioned some time between 230 and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatian, the Celtic or Gaulish people of parts of Anatolia (modern Turkey)."  Dying Gaul
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul

(The Wiki offers no citation but it is believed so.)
(ii) Peloponnesian War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_war
(431-404 BC; Result Peloponnesian League victory [over Athens])
(iii) The Sacred Wars
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Wars
(refer to several wars over control of Delphi: (i) First Sacred War (595 BC - 585 BC), between the Amphictyonic League of Delphi and the city of Kirrha; (ii) Second Sacred War (449 BC - 448 BC), an indirect confrontation between Athens and Sparta; Third Sacred War (356 BC - 346 BC), between the forces of Thebes [in Greece, not that in Egypt] and Phocis for control of Delphi)

(d) “A variety of activities took place at Delphi, notably the Pythian games. There were athletic competitions and others in music, painting, dance and mime.”

Panhellenic Games
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhellenic_Games
(The Olympic Games were the oldest of the four, said to have begun in 776 BC; Neither women nor non-Greeks were allowed to participate, except for very occasional later exceptions, such as the Roman emperor Nero)
(e) “That egregious competitor, the emperor Nero, took part and, inevitably, won. Later, in a fury at an oracular pronouncement, he tried ‘to block the mouth of the cave (from which vapours emerged to inspire the Pythia) with the bodies of slaughtered men.’”
(i) Nero
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero
(37-68; section 2.9 The revolt of Vindex and Galba and the death of Nero)
(ii) Ozzywiz, Emperor Nero - Olympic Champion. h2g2, Jan 2, 2001
news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A493689

* h2g2
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H2g2
(was founded by Adams in 1999 and was run by the BBC between 2001 and 2011)

(iii) “to block the mouth of the cave (from which vapours emerged to inspire the Pythia) with the bodies of slaughtered men.”
(A) Economist is quoting Michael Scott’s book.
(B) books.google.com/books?id=AuHEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA211&lpg=PA211&dq=nero+%22to+block+the+mouth+of+the+cave%22+pythia&source=bl&ots=USAv35MYBa&sig=qP71XHcUwdOdg3ihcR_HyBAeqRY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BPagU-zlHpPMsQTp0ICIBw&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=nero%20%22to%20block%20the%20mouth%20of%20the%20cave%22%20pythia&f=false
(p 211: “Later sources [after Nero's death] speak of a further series of oracular responses to Nero: that the oracle had told Nero it would prefer some poor men's meager offerings to the emperor's lavish gifts, and that it had alluded to Nero's murdering of his own mother (who statue stood in the sanctuary) by saying 'Nero, Orestes, Alcmaeon, all murderers of their mothers.' In response, according to these later sources, Nero's uncontrolled fury led him to attempt to block the mouth of the cave (from which vapours emerged to inspire the Pythia) with the bodies of slaughtered men”)