Definition: Delphi, renowned for its sanctuary and the oracle of Apollo, was a city in the ancient Greek polis of Phocis. Delphi was located on the southern slope of Mt. Parnassus. It was home to the Pythian Games and a famous Greek treasury. [See Delphi on a Map of Greece.]
Delphi was the earliest location of the Great Amphictyonic League. Member city-state swore neither to destroy entirely nor disrupt the drinking water supply of fellow members of the league. Members of the league presided at the Pythian Games.
Alternate Spellings: Delphoi
Examples:
From Pausanias:
"[10.7.1] VII. It seems that from the beginning the sanctuary at Delphi has been plotted against by a vast number of men. Attacks were made against it by this Euboean pirate, and years afterwards by the Phlegyan nation; furthermore by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, by a portion of the army of Xerxes, by the Phocian chieftains, whose attacks on the wealth of the god were the longest and fiercest, and by the Gallic invaders. It was fated too that Delphi was to suffer from the universal irreverence of Nero, who robbed Apollo of five hundred bronze statues, some of gods, some of men."Diodorus Siculus on Delphi and the daughter of the seer Tireseias:
Theoi: Description of Greece, Translated by W. H. S. Jones (1918)
"[4.66.5] Consequently the Cadmeans left the city, as the seer had counseled them to do, and gathered for refuge by night in a place in Boeotia called Tilphossaeum. Thereupon the Epigoni took the city and sacked it, and capturing Daphnê, the daughter of Teiresias, they dedicated her, in accordance with a certain vow, to the service of the temple at Delphi as an offering to the god of the first-fruits of the booty. [4.66.6] This maiden possessed no less knowledge of prophecy than her father, and in the course of her stay at Delphi she developed her skill to a far greater degree; moreover, by virtual of the employment of a marvelous natural gift, she also wrote oracular responses of every sort, excelling in their composition; and indeed it was from her poetry, they say, that the poet Homer took many verses which he appropriated as his own and with them adorned his own poesy. And since she was often like one inspired when she delivered oracles, they say that she was also called Sibylla, for to be inspired in one's tongue is expressed by the word sibyllainein.
Theoi Diodorus Siculus. Library of History (Books III - VIII). Translated by Oldfather, C. H. Loeb Classical Library Volumes 303 and 340. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935.
