is located near the village of Yenihisar (Yoran) near the town of Söke in the province of
Aydın in the Aegean region. Here one finds an important sanctuary that housed one of the
oracles of Apollo. It was connected to Miletus by sea, and those arriving by ship would
land at the harbour of Panormus and thence follow the Sacred way to Didyma. Until its
destruction by the Persians in 494 B.C. it was administered by the family of the
Branchidae, the descendants of Bronchos, a youth beloved of Apollo. For the last two
kilometers the Sacred Way was lined with seated statues of the male and female members of
the Branchidae family. After his capture of Miletus in 334 B. C. Alexander the Great
placed the administration of the oracle in the hands of the city of Miletus. In 331 B.C.
the oracle proclaimed Alexander "the son of Zeus". In 300 B.C. the Milesians
embarked on the construction of the largest temple in the Greek world. Although work
continued until the middle of the 2nd century A.D. the temple was never finished. Later, a
church and other buildings were constructed, while the Byzantines built a barracks in
which troops were garrisoned. The buildings were damaged by fire and in the 15th century
further damage was caused by a great earthquake. The Temple of Apollo (Didymaion) was the
largest and wealthiest Ionic temple in Anatolia and was renowned for its holy relics, its
treasury, its sacred spring and sacred laurel grove. Investigations in the Temple of
Apollo were first undertaken in 1834 by the French traveller Charles Texier and the
English archaeologist Charles T. Newton, who had conducted the excavations at
The first excavations were begun in 1904 by
Theodor Wiegand under the auspices of the Berlin Museum and continued until 1913. Since
1962 excavations have been conducted by Klaus Tucheld on behalf of the German
The first Temple of Apollo was built in the
Archaic period and the Hellenistic temple which succeeded this was built on the
foundations of the earlier building, materials from which were used in the construction.
The temple we see today is an Ionic structure measuring 60 x 118 m, with a dipteral
arrangement of two rows of columns with 21 on each side and 10 at each end. The columns
are of various styles with pedestals adorned with reliefs. These columns support an
architrave surmounted by a frieze decorated with acanthus leaves and Gorgon (Medusa)
heads. The high pronaos at the top of a monumental flight of steps leads into a naos with
two columns, which gives access to the sacred area or cella in the form of an open
courtyard surrounded by high walls with columns and containing a small Ionic temple which
housed the statue of the god. Didyma was never a large city and its fame was closely
connected with the existence of a sacred spring and the temple founded over it. The
ancient Greeks merely took over the already existing sanctuary and reorganised it.
Didyma was connected to
Miletus by the Sacred Way, the
latter part of which was lined with sarcophagi and statues of lions and sphinxes. The
Branchidae family was responsible for the maintenance of the Sacred Way.
The remains of the earliest temple, which lie
within the later building, have been dated to the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. These consist
of a sacred wall measuring approximately 24 x 10 m, an open-air sanctuary, a portico 16 m
in length, a sacred well and a votive altar.
SUPPLIANTS TO THE TEMPLE
After traversing the entire length of the Sacred
Way, all suppliants to the temple would assemble in front of the building and purify
themselves with the water from the sacred well. They were then obliged to pay a certain
tax proportionate to the seriousness of their request. For a private affair one had to pay
eleven times the standard tax. It was then necessary to sacrifice an animal, frequently a
goat, in order to learn whether or not the god was willing to receive the suppliant's
Before the sacrifice, cold water was thrown over
the animal. If the animal showed no reaction the whole process had to be repeated. The
suppliant then entered the naos and addressed his question to the priest. If there were a
large number of suppliants the next to be received was chosen by lot. The priests then
entered the inner temple and communicated the question to the priestess of Apollo who had
prepared herself by fasting for several days and purifying herself with water from the
holy well. The priestess in the inner sanctuary would drink the water from the sacred
well, chew bay leaves and inhale the gases rising from the well.
She would then begin to utter apparently
meaningless words and sounds, which would be interpreted by the priests, the oracle being
written in understandable language in the chresmographeion, or oracle office, a building
located immediately adjacent to the pronaos. All the words uttered by the priestess were
subsequently communicated to the suppliant by a priest or priests.
Legend has it that it was in this way that
Alexander the Great learned of his coming victory over the Persians.
The pronaos, or forecourt, to which access is
given by thirteen steps, contains twelve columns. The ceiling decorations were of great
magnificence, and the columns of quite exceptional height. It was here that the suppliants
waited for the oracle of Apollo.
Oracular divination was the art of foretelling
the future through the power of the god mediated by the observation of natural events or
objects. Divination in some form or another has been known in all countries in all ages
and spread throughout the Western world in the form of astrology. It is popularly known as
``fortune-telling". Oracular divination rests on conclusions drawn on the basis of
observation and interpretation. In the case of divination based on observation, recourse
is had to the examination of accidental phenomena interpreted by intuition. The soothsayer
who examines the intestines of the sacrificial animal, its shoulder-blade or its
footprints in ashes was obliged to take special measures to ensure the truth of the
oracular pronouncement. The signs chosen for observation by the ancient Greek and Roman
soothsayers included lightning, thunder, the night and call of birds and sacred fowls, as
well as accidental phenomena such as the spilling of salt, sneezing or stumbling.
The term "oracle", which is derived from the Latin "orare", to speak,
was used both for the relation between the soothsayer and the god, and the place where the
divination was performed. One of the oldest oracles was that of Apollo at Delphi on the
skirts of Mt Parnassus at the top of the gulf of Corinth. At first the oracle belonged to
Gaia, the goddess of the earth.
Photographs by:Erdal Yazici,Gungor
Ozsoy,Haluk Ozozlu,Tahsin Aydogmus