Rebecca Frank (Oberlin College)
In this paper, I address how Imperial Greek philosophers discuss Delphic ambiguity in their writings. I argue that the Delphic oracle was used as a literary motif, serving as a key medium through which philosophers debated questions of the gods and divination in the Imperial Greek world. Although the Delphic oracle’s political power and popularity decreased from the Hellenistic age onwards (e.g. Parke, Levin), Delphi still held a prominent position in the philosophical literature of the imperial era. The first and second centuries CE saw an increase in philosophical discussions of oracular divination, as philosophers debated the veracity of oracles, the source of their prophetic power, and their role in the Imperial Roman world. The Delphic oracle lies at the heart of many of these discussions. Studies of the Delphic oracle in this period have been focused on the physical state of the oracular sanctuary (e.g. Weir, Heineman), or on the way imperial Greek authors treat oracular divination more broadly (e.g. van Nuffelen). I demonstrate how, at a time when oracular sanctuaries such as those at Didyma and Claros were actively engaging in the philosophical and theological debates of the day (e.g. Lane Fox, Busine), philosophers themselves chose to use the Delphic oracle in particular as a medium through which to explore philosophical questions.
The purpose of the Delphic oracle’s famous ambiguity was a matter of considerable disagreement among philosophers during the first and second centuries CE. Lucian (e.g. Zeus Rants, Dialogues of the Gods 16), Oenomaus of Gadara (The Unmasking of the Swindlers), and Maximus of Tyre (e.g. Orations 11, 29) mock the Delphic oracle for the Pythia’s riddling responses, using the oracle to critique both oracular divination and the image of the gods that emerged from their communications through oracles. In contrast, Dio Chrysostom (e.g. Discourse 10) and Plutarch (e.g. De E apud Delphos, De Pythiae oraculis) defend the Delphic oracle by reframing the terms of the debate, arguing that the god’s words were not deliberately ambiguous, but acquired this reputation unfairly, and presenting the Delphic oracle as a mechanism through which the god instructs and guides humans. I argue that within these debates, a constructed image of Delphic divination emerged that had little connection to the role or use of the oracle in the Roman Imperial world. Instead, the Delphic oracle was used as a literary motif that philosophers could use to support as well as to attack theories of divine ontology and the connections between humans and the gods.