of the best preserved in Greece. The foundations of the stage are extant, as well as the orchestra, and the walls and seats of the auditorium. There are thirty-three tiers of seats in seven sets, and a paved diazoma. The sculptures from the stage front, now in the museum, have the labours of Heracles as their subject. The date of the theatre is probably early 2nd century B.C.
The stadium lies, as Pausanias says, in the highest part of the city to the north-west. It stands on a narrow plateau of ground supported on the south-east by a terrace wall. The seats have been cleared, and are in a state of extraordinary preservation. A few of those at the east end are hewn in the rock. No trace of the marble seats mentioned by Pausanias has been found, but they have probably been carried off for lime or building, as they could easily be removed. An immense number of inscriptions have been found in the excavations, and many works of art, including a bronze charioteer, which is one of the most admirable statues preserved from ancient times.
II. History.—Our information as to the oracle at Delphi and the manner in which it was consulted is somewhat confused; there probably was considerable variation at different periods. The tale of a hole from which intoxicating “mephitic” vapour arose has no early authority, nor is it scientifically probable (see A. P. Oppé in Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxiv. 214). The questions had to be given in writing, and the responses were uttered by the Pythian priestess, in early times a maiden, later a woman over fifty attired as a maiden. After chewing the sacred bay and drinking of the spring Cassotis, which was conducted into the temple by artificial channels, she took her seat on the sacred tripod in the inner shrine. Her utterances were reduced to verse and edited by the prophets and the “holy men” (ὅσιοι). For the influence and history of the oracle see Oracle.
Delphi also contained the “Omphalos,” a sacred stone bound with fillets, supposed to mark the centre of the earth. It was said Zeus had started two eagles from the opposite extremities and they met there. Other tales said the stone was the one given by Rhea to Cronus as a substitute for Zeus.
For the history of the Delphic Amphictyony see under Amphictyony. The oracle at Delphi was asserted by tradition to have existed before the introduction of the Apolline worship and to have belonged to the goddess Earth (Ge or Gaia). The Homeric Hymn to Apollo evidently combines two different versions, one of the approach of Apollo from the north by land, and the other of the introduction of his votaries from Crete. The earliest stone temple was said to have been built by Trophonius and Agamedes. This was destroyed by fire in 548 B.C., and the contract for rebuilding was undertaken by the exiled Alcmaeonidae from Athens, who generously substituted marble on the eastern front for the poros specified (see Cleisthenes, ad init.). Portions of the pediments of this temple have been found in the excavations; but no sign has been found of the pediments mentioned by Pausanias, representing on the east Apollo and the Muses, and on the west Dionysus and the Thyiades (Bacchantes), and designed by Praxias, the pupil of Calanias. The temple which was seen by Pausanias, and of which the foundations were found by the excavators, was the one of which the building is recorded in inscriptions of the 4th century. A raid on Delphi attempted by the Persians in 480 B.C. was said to have been frustrated by the god himself, by means of a storm or earthquake which hurled rocks down on the invaders; a similar tale is told of the raid of the Gauls in 279 B.C. But the sacrilege thus escaped at the hands of foreign invaders was inflicted by the Phocian defenders of Delphi during the Sacred War, 356–346 B.C., when many of the precious votive offerings were melted down. The Phocians were condemned to replace their value to the amount of 10,000 talents, which they paid in instalments. In 86 B.C. the sanctuary and its treasures were put under contribution by L. Cornelius Sulla for the payment of his soldiers; Nero removed no fewer than 500 bronze statues from the sacred precincts; Constantine the Great enriched his new city by the sacred tripod and its support of intertwined snakes dedicated by the Greek cities after the battle of Plataea. This still exists, with its inscription, in the Hippodrome at Constantinople. Julian afterwards sent Oribasius to restore the temple; but the oracle responded to the emperor’s enthusiasm with nothing but a wail over the glory that had departed.
Provisional accounts of the excavations have appeared during the excavations in the Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. A summary is given in J. G. Frazer, Pausanias, vol. v. The official account is entitled Fouilles de Delphes. For history see Hiller von Gärtringen in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, s.v. “Delphi.” For cult see L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Creek States, iv. 179-218. For the works of art discovered see Greek Art. (E. Gr.)
DELPHINIA, a festival of Apollo Delphinius held annually on
the 6th (or 7th) of the month Munychion (April) at Athens.
All that is known of the ceremonies is that a number of girls
proceeded to his temple (Delphinium) carrying suppliants’
branches and seeking to propitiate Apollo, probably as a god
having influence on the sea. It was at this time of year that
navigation began again after the storms of winter. According
to the story in Plutarch (Theseus, 18), Theseus, before setting out
to Crete to slay the Minotaur, repaired to the Delphinium and
deposited, on his own behalf and that of his companions on whom
the lot had fallen, an offering to Apollo, consisting of a branch of
consecrated olive, bound about with white wool; after which
he prayed to the god and set sail. The sending of the maidens
to propitiate the god during the Delphinia commemorates this
event in the life of Theseus.
See A. Mommsen, Festeder Stadt Athen (1898); L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie (4th ed., 1887); P. Stengel, Die griechische Kultusaltertümer (1898); Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités; G. F. Schömann, Griechische Altertümer (4th ed., 1897–1902).
DELPHINUS (“The Dolphin”), in astronomy, a constellation
of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century
B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.); and catalogued by Ptolemy
(10 stars), Tycho Brahe (10 stars), and Hevelius (14 stars),
γ Delphini is a double star: a yellowish of magnitude 4, and a
bluish of magnitude 5.
DELTA (from the shape of the Gr. letter Δ, delta, originally
used of the mouth of the Nile), a tract of land enclosed by the
diverging branches of a river’s mouth and the seacoast, and
traversed by other branches of the stream. This triangular tract
is formed from the fine silt brought down in suspension by
a muddy river and deposited when the river reaches the sea.
When tidal currents are feeble, the delta frequently advances
some distance seawards, forming a local prolongation of the
coast.
DELUC, JEAN ANDRE (1727–1817), Swiss geologist and
meteorologist, born at Geneva on the 8th of February 1727, was
descended from a family which had emigrated from Lucca and
settled at Geneva in the 15th century. His father, François
Deluc, was the author of some publications in refutation of
Mandeville and other rationalistic writers, which are best known
through Rousseau’s humorous account of his ennui in reading
them; and he gave his son an excellent education, chiefly in
mathematics and natural science. On completing it he engaged
in commerce, which principally occupied the first forty-six years
of his life, without any other interruption than that which was
occasioned by some journeys of business into the neighbouring
countries, and a few scientific excursions among the Alps.
During these, however, he collected by degrees, in conjunction
with his brother Guillaume Antoine, a splendid museum of mineralogy
and of natural history in general, which was afterwards
increased by his nephew J. André Deluc (1763–1847), who was
also a writer on geology. He at the same time took a prominent
part in politics. In 1768 he was sent to Paris on an embassy
to the duc de Choiseul, whose friendship he succeeded in gaining.
In 1770 he was nominated one of the Council of Two Hundred.
Three years later unexpected reverses in business made it advisable
for him to quit his native town, which he only revisited
once for a few days. The change was welcome in so far as it
set him entirely free for scientific pursuits, and it was with
little regret that he removed to England in 1773. He was made
a fellow of the Royal Society in the same year, and received the
appointment of reader to Queen Charlotte, which he continued
