Oracle Interpreter
Put the Pythia's answers into verse for the kings and farmers who climb to Delphi. Every answer must be true, ideally in at least two ways.
c. 800 BC – AD 390About the role
For more than a thousand years, the biggest decisions in the Greek world were taken to Delphi. Kings, generals and farmers climbed the mountain, asked the Pythia a question and received an answer, which the temple's interpreters set in verse. King Croesus was told that if he went to war, he would destroy a great empire. He did. It was his own.
At the Sanctuary of Apollo, you'll join the temple staff on consultation days, receive petitioners, hear the Pythia's answer and set it down in hexameter. Petitioners are members with real questions about their lives. They will leave with an answer. What it means is up to them.
What you'll do
- Welcome petitioners and write down their questions on a wax tablet.
- Check that each petitioner has brought the customary offering, usually a goat.
- Set the Pythia's answer in hexameter, with room for interpretation.
- Read the answer aloud with a straight face, and decline to elaborate.
- Keep the queue moving. Consultations happen once a month.
What we're looking for
- A feeling for poetry, and for ambiguity.
- A calm voice and an unreadable expression.
- Comfort with mountain paths and long queues.
- Discretion. Some of the questions are very personal.
Perks
- A laurel wreathApollo's own plant. Worn on consultation days.
- An archive of past answersEvery prophecy since the sanctuary opened. None of them, technically, wrong.
- A view over the gulfFrom the temple steps. The best in Greece, by consensus.
