#Delphics

[error404-witch-not-found]

Think as a mortal (Φρονει θνητα)

Don't forget your own mortality. It's easy to think "oh, I'm not dying anytime soon!" When in reality, you could die at any moment. This isn't to scare you, it's to remind you that life is short and precious. Make sure to do the things that make you happy; don't put them off. Tell people you love "I love you." Be kind to people. Make the most out of your life while you can, even if it's just little things. Remember, you are mortal; you won't live forever.

[delphic-oracle-cat]

While I love the whole “mungojerrie and rumpleteazer are twins” headcannon, it is infinitely funnier to me if they are just two random unrelated cats who look almost identical and decide to become partners in crime for that reason only

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Karl Josef Schwarzer (German, 1825-1896) After Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475-1564) Delphic Sibyl, ca.1870 Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich

[bits-and-beasts]

heyo! so I was incredibly lucky to be able to participate in a university excursion to Athens Greece (thanks to a bunch of scholarship applications, and funding granted to me by my grandmother) I didn't have internet for most of the trip, so I wasnt able to post while I was gone, but I made a Bunch of little doodles of the things I got to do in the little free time I had!

so here's my little silly sonic-sona exploring Greece!

expect your regular au content to resume shortly when I am less jet lagged!

[my-name-is-apollo]

On the prophetic nature of the Delphic god (Apollo):

What god of heaven suffers earth’s weight, knows every secret of eternity’s course, aware of the world’s futurity, ready to reveal its presence to the nations, and endure contact with humankind? A great and mighty power, whether the utterance it produces determines fate, or whether it merely voices destiny.

- Lucan, Pharsalia (Trans. A. S. Kline)

This is actually the first time I've seen someone talking about the possibility of prophecies determining the fate, so this took me by surprise. Also the first time I've seen the knowledge of the future being a weight that Apollo has to carry, so that's very interesting too.

[voodoocarving]

Apollo, the ancient Greek and Roman god of the sun and light, patron of the arts, leader and patron of the muses, predictor of the future, god of healing, patron of immigrants, personification of male beauty. One of the most revered ancient gods. I tried to saturate the composition as much as possible with attributes and characters that describe Apollo. For example, a muse with a scroll is present here to emphasize his connection with art, poetry and even science. In the background is Daphne, a beautiful nymph transformed by the gods into the first laurel tree, which would later become the sacred tree of Apollo

In contrast to Dionysus, who is the moon god and personifies the element of chaos, Apollo is a solar deity who brings the light of order and harmony. this and other figurines in my Etsy store

[crwnoflaurels]

i am so tired

[sephospaganplace]

There are so so so many ways to experience the gods.

There is no right or wrong way. There is no blunt way. Its all feeling and ephemeral.

If you've felt warmth, if you've had a dream, if you've seen a crow that stares at you for too long, if something inexplicable happens and you're lucky suddenly, if you've caught eyes with a stranger and felt like you knew each other, if the candle flickers a certain way, if one time when you're singing your voice sounds gorgeous in a way you weren't expecting, these are all the presence of a god.

God phoning is popular on witchtok but half the time what they're saying is bullshit. I've very very rarely heard a voice and every single time it was my own voice, just suffused with something, saying something I normally wouldn’t say. Or maybe I would. I've never heard a clear, distinct, audible voice. Its an invisible world we're connecting with, its a different plane. We cannot experience it the same way we experience every day life.

We'll never sit down at a coffee table across from the physical manifestation of our god, and know that its them, not until after. And even then we can never be sure. That’s the nature of it. There are no absolutes, there cannot be. That’s what makes it beautiful. That’s where belief comes in. It isn't about being good enough or worthy enough or devout enough, that doesn't exist. That isn’t what its about at all. You are worthy even if the divine doesn’t manifest in a way we've been told is the only real way, and you are connecting even if you cant see it now. My most intense spiritual experiences are never something I realize are happening in the moment, its always only after that I can see it clearly.

The gods are all around us.

[take-care-with-your-glasses]

BONUS!

Sadly for Six, the website got quite trendy after Rex matched them. Causing the man to hate it even more.

There isn't one day he doesn't go out of Providence and doesn't listen about that blasted app, hating it even more!

In the case of Holiday, well...

Collab meme with my friend and co writer @delphic-warrior00 💕 Lots of work and revision to make it happen, so we would appreciate that if you like it, please let us both know by leaving a little heart! Reblogging is also appreciated. If you're going to repost it, please add the whole set of images and captions so it makes sense.

Also, this is a collab post, so please keep in mind that the love is for the both of us.

[higherentity]

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Worship the Gods (Θεους σεβου)

Give the gods the respect and acknowledgment that they deserve. Worship them through your life and the things that you say and do. Give offerings to them and perform devotional acts for them. Show the gods that you haven’t forsaken them like the rest of the world has. Keep their spirits and myths alive by worshiping them

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[jeannereames]

Hello Mrs Reames! Quick question as someone that is still new to Alexander the Great, I was on TikTok the other day and someone posted a TikTok of an incident in which Alexander the Great supposedly dragged the oracle of Delphi out by her hair because she couldn't give him a prophecy that day, is this true?

Alexander and the Delphic Oracle

First, before answering, let’s do a quick PSA. I’m sure the asker meant to address me in the most polite way they knew how, and I’ve run into this error frequently with undergrads, who (at least in American public schools) are told to address a female teacher as “Ms.” or “Mrs.”

Thus, I offer this correction as gently as possible. But it’s important in an era when titles are being withheld from women as a means of belittlement—then, if a woman dares to object, they’re made fun of or called uppity and “sensitive.”* Again, I’m sure the asker here did not mean anything unkind (or they wouldn’t be asking me something in the first place!). So this is NOT a slap at them. But I’m not a Mrs. (I'm not married, and Reames is my birth name). I’m Dr. Reames or Professor Reames. You can even call me Jeanne (as long as you’re not a student in my class, ha). If you’re a (US) college student and unsure if your instructor has a PhD, “professor” is always safe. 😊

Now, to the question….

Plutarch tells a rather peculiar little story of new King Alexander, on his way home from a meeting of the Corinthian League (in Corinth), stopping at Delphi to ask the oracle a question. I should add, this event occurs right after Plutarch’s description of ATG’s meeting with the Cynic philosopher Diogenes. (E.g., it’s part of a “theme.”)

Now, the Delphic oracle wasn’t open for consults all the time. She only heard them a day or so a month…and that for only some months of the year. He came at the wrong time of year (winter, when Dionysos held the oracle, not his half-brother Apollo). So she told him, “No.” Reportedly, he stormed to her little house in the village of Delphi to manhandle her, intending to drag her to the oracle for his query. She replied, “Son! You’re invincible!” Pleased with that, he let her go.

And Plutarch presents this as if it’s all a-okay.

This is weird. It’s weird that Plutarch, a priest of Delphi from Chaironeia, wasn’t up in arms about this clear affront to an honored oracle (and an old woman). It’s an act of asebia (impiety). But it would be even weirder if Alexander had actually done it. Alexander, the uber-pious.

Plutarch is the ONLY one to tell this story. Anywhere.

Yet there’s a story remarkably like it with different players set during the Third Sacred War when the Phokians had seized the Oracle. It’s this event that set off the war, and which brought ol’ Philip into southern politics and eventually landed him a seat on the Amphictyonic Council as a staunch “Defender of Apollo.” Philomelos was the leader of the Phokians early in the war. Below are both accounts, starting with Diodoros’s (original source likely Kallisthenes, who wrote a history of the war).

With the oracle in Philomelus’ hands, he instructed the Pythia to continue prophesying from the tripod in the traditional way. When she refused, he threatened her and compelled her to mount the tripod. To this display of excessive force, she responded by declaring that he could do whatever he wanted—and he was pleased by this and declared that he had the oracle that suited him. He immediately had the oracle inscribed and set up for all to see, in order to make it clear that he had the god’s permission to do whatever he wanted, and he convened an assembly at which he boosted morale in the ranks by telling them about the prophecy (Diod. 16.27.1-2, Waterfield trans).

And now, wishing to consult the god concerning the expedition against Asia, [Alexander] went to Delphi; and since he chanced to come on one of the inauspicious days, when it is not lawful to deliver oracles, in the first place he sent a summons to the prophetess. And when she refused to perform her office and cited the law in her excuse, he went up himself and tried to drag her to temple, whereupon, as if overcome by his ardour, she said: “Thou art invincible, my son!” On hearing this, Alexander said he desired no further prophecy, but had from her the oracle which he wanted (Plut. Alex. 14.4, Perrin trans.)

With Philomelos, there is no question later in Diodoros that his act was impiety. His eventual death is (partly) attributed to it. Plutarch picks up this event, dusts it off, recasts the “inquirer,” and—moreover—uses it as affirmation of Alexander’s “invincibility.” Remember “The Invincible” was his nickname in Greece in his own day. The Romans called him Magnus (the Great).

In short, Plutarch retooled the story to suit his own purposes.

So no, it never happened. At least, not with Alexander. (And he’d have been horrified, I think, to hear he’d been accused of any such thing.)

Plutarch makes these detail changes when it suits him. I have an article coming out in a year or so where I discuss this tendency and bring the receipts (of quite a few examples)—including one I think a lot of folks here will find VERY interesting. But I’m not the only one saying it about this event in particular. It’s been noted as an “odd” episode before, including by Hamilton, if I recall (who did the commentary on Plutarch). But Lara O’Sullivan really showed where it came from, source-wise, in her “Callisthenes and Alexander the Invincible God,” P. Wheatley and E. Baynham, eds., East and West in the World Empire of Alexander: Essays in Honour of Brian Bosworth. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press (2015), 35–52.

Some may still wonder why Alexander wouldn’t have gone to the oracle?

He didn’t need to. His father already had. And if later historians (such as Diodoros) reinterpreted her pronouncement to be about Philip’s murder, not the fall of Persia, it was a positive reply at the time. Going to Delphi again might risk something less flattering/hopeful. Not to mention, it was the wrong time of the year, and Alexander knew that. He had more important fish to fry. He wasn’t going to hang around, waiting (for months) for an auspicious day.

He was good with the oracle his father had got. After all, he’d been trumpeting for months that “only the name of the king had changed.” The original oracle would do just fine.

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*A BIG stink was made here in the US by the conservative media over Dr. Jill Biden being “Dr.” The initial "rebuke" stemmed from the fact her degree is “just” a doctor of education. When that faced pushback, however, conservatives on social media began to fuss, well, she wasn’t a MEDICAL doctor, so didn’t “deserve” that title. Which is silly. Doctor is the correct title for a medical doctor, as well as for a host of professional degrees, including a doctor of education, a doctor of theology, a doctor of business, etc. The degree that takes the longest to complete is the PhD, or doctor of philosophy. We’re ALL “doctors.” The problem for them was a professional woman who dared to use her title. Wasn’t she an uppity bitch?

[nothoughtsgayboy]

I decorated a notebook I was given by a university so I could have a small helpol book to take around with me. In it I started writing some of the Delphic Maxims (in no paticular order), and Maxim 21 stuck with me a lot: 'cling to discipline.'

Now, I tend to be a pretty undisciplined person, I'm not going to lie and say I'm not. In college, I struggle focusing on stuff I'm not good at, or that doesn't interest me, and I'm not very intrinsically motivated to put in any effort into these things.

On Friday I was in maths class. It was the end of the day, and we were just reviewing a paper we completed before the holidays. I'm not very good at maths at all, and normally by now I'd be totally checked out, but I kept thinking about that Maxim. Cling to discipline.

I don't know what happened, but I've never been so locked in during a maths lesson. It felt nice and productive. Normally in a maths lesson I feel like I'm trailing behind and I get discouraged quickly. Not this time.

I got loads of questions wrong? Now I know how to answer them next time.

I hope my maths lesson tomorrow will be like this aswell!

[delphic-oracle-cat]

If someone is criticizing Cats and they use the point of “it doesn’t have a plot” I refuse to try to hear them out

[alchemisoul]

* You're not responsible for every thought that comes in and out of your head. They're not necessarily within your control, not initially anyways.

It is within your power, however, to decide which ones you want to hold on to and those you wish to discard.

You're responsible for observing thoughts that flow inward and choosing whether or not you act on them, buy into them, or take ownership of them.

#KnowThyself

#TheWolfYouFeed

#IsTheOneThatWins

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

koios and phoebe are neurodivergent4neurodivergent

i put this in my fic but I’m sharing here too tee hee

Phoebe was the Weird Girl™️ in the family. She’d walk around with a snake around her shoulders (his name is Phocis btw) and skip parties to explore the world (this is how she found Delphi).

Koios would BEELINE for the door whenever he heard Phoebe Found Something™️, and as the Titan of inquiry, he would be DYING to know what it was.

They ping-pong off each other very well hehe. Phoebe will randomly ask about something and Koios with either go “INFODUMP” or “we need to figure this out NOW”

and they go on a scavenger hunt for answers :3

Nobody was surprised when they announced their engagement ♥️