The sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi covered an area of 183×128 metres laid out over a series of terraced slopes.

People travelled through the sanctuary via the sacred way, a causeway that ran up to the Temple of Apollo. Along the way, it passed the other sacred monuments of the temenos, such as the shrine of Gaia and the Sibylline Rock, where the Pythia or oracle of Delphi sat and prophesied.

These were not the only monuments lining the sacred way — and many of those buildings bore no relation to the Sanctuary of Apollo’s sacred function. Instead, they were constructed as political statements by the Greek city-states.

Pan-Hellenic Unity and the Persian Wars

Many of these monuments were built in the wake of the Persian Wars to celebrate the Pan-Hellenic unity, which helped the Greeks to victory. The remains used shared mythology and motifs to emphasise the collective identity of the victorious Greeks.

An example of one of these monuments is the Serpent Column. Only the stone base survives at Delphi, but Pausanias describes the column as consisting of three intertwining bronze serpents coiling up a gold tripod. Each coil was inscribed with the names of the city-states that defeated the Persians at the battle of Plataea in 479BC. The column was removed by the emperor Constantine to the new city of Constantinople. Today, the remains can be seen in the museum of Istanbul.

However, not all of the monuments celebrating the defeat of the Persians celebrated Greek unity. For example, the stoa of the Athenians, built in 480BC, was constructed to commemorate the Athenian’s naval victory over the Persians and was decorated with prows from the boats taken from the defeated Persian king Xerxes.

The Treasuries of Athens and Siphnian

The treasuries of Delphi act as subtle examples of gentle one-upmanship amongst the Greek city-states. Shaped like small temples, the treasuries were essentially storehouses for each city’s equipment at Delphi. They were built not only by mainland cities but also by Greek islands and Greek colonies from southern Italy and Asia Minor. The style and decor of the buildings were also used to make statements about how important each Greek state saw itself.

Only the foundations of most treasuries survive. But remains from two of the buildings — the Athenian and Siphnian treasuries — show how architecture and decoration were used to reflect each polis’s wealth and power.

The Siphnian Treasury belonged to the small Cycladic island of Siphnos. It was built between 530-525BC at a time when the island enjoyed great wealth from its gold mines. Unfortunately, little survives in situ, but fragments recovered by archaeologists show how its treasury very clearly advertised Siphnos’s wealth.

The building was ionic and constructed from Naxian and Siphnian marble, specially imported to Delphi and its sculptural decorations were carved from Parian marble. The two porch columns were shaped like Caryatids and the pediments were covered with a sculpted frieze. The eastern pediment is very well preserved and depicts Hercules’s theft of the Pythia’s tripod — a myth directly relating to Delphi and familiar to all the Greek states.

The Athenian treasury was built after the battle of Marathon. Like many of the other treasuries, it did not survive intact, but archaeologists have been able to reconstruct it in situ by matching inscriptions on the blocks of the walls.

Marathon was solely an Athenian victory and the Athenian treasury reminds all the other Greek city-states of this fact. Its sculptural reliefs, displayed in the site museum, celebrate the Athenian victory through reference to another famous mythological triumph of civilisation over the barbarians —the labours of Hercules and Theseus.

After its completion, the treasury continued to be used to display reminders of other Athenian victories. The walls were carved with intricate laurel wreaths and hymns to Apollo, representing Athenian victories at the Pythian Games.

Polis Monuments and the Peloponnesian War

Many other monuments on the site showed a more aggressive display of power and interstate rivalry. These monuments celebrate the victories of individual Greek cities over their rival Greek states.

Many are single monuments, such as the wooden horse of Argos, which celebrated the Argive victory against Sparta in 414BC. But other monuments make a more powerful statement, deliberately overshadowing those of their defeated rivals to drive home their victory.

The most powerful example of this is at the entrance to Delphi. It was here that the Athenians built yet another commemorative monument to the victory of Marathon. However, in 403BC, this Athenian monument was joined by another celebrating a very different victory when the Spartans built the monument of the Spartan Admirals right next to the Athenian memorial. The placement was deliberately designed to overshadowing the original arrangement, emphasising the Spartan naval victory over the Athenians at Aegospotami during the Peloponnesian war.

In 369BC, a third monument joined the group. Built by the Arcadians, this also celebrated a victory over a rival city-state — this time the Spartans. The arcadian monument consisted of nine bronze statues: Apollo, Nike and seven Arcadian heroes, deliberately arranged around the base of the Spartan monument. 

The message could not have been clearer. Apollo, the patron of Delphi, and Nike, the goddess of victory, had helped the Arcadians defeat the Spartans. The encroachment upon the Spartan monument, as much as the reference to divine help, hammered home the gloating message of the memorial.

Sources

Gates, C, 2003, Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome. Routledge: London and New York.

Konstantinou, I K, 1995, Delphi: The Oracle and its Role in the Political and Social Life of the Greeks. Athens: Hannibal.

Ingpen, R and Wilkinson, P, 1990, Encyclopaedia of Mysterious Places —The Life and Legends of Ancient Sites Around the World. Guild Publishing: London.