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H., though in this part of his work rather regardless of chronological order (Hauvette, p. 323), clearly places these gloomy oracles before the expedition to Tempe (ch. 172-4), in the spring of 480 B.C., and apparently even before the first meeting of envoys from the patriotic Greek states at the Isthmus (ch. 145. 1) in the autumn of 481. But both the tone and the substance of the oracles point to a date when the hope of holding Thessaly has been abandoned, when Delphi has despaired of the Greek cause, and when Attica is menaced by immediate invasion, i.e. between the abandonment of Tempe and the resolution to hold Thermopylae (Hauvette, p. 327; Munro, J. H. S. xxii. 306). After the loss of Thermopylae (pace Macan, ii. 232) Athens would have no time for a double consultation of the oracle. The authenticity of the first oracle is proved by the fact that no one would later have invented gloomy predictions and advice falsified by the event, as well as by the adaptation in Aesch. Pers. 83 f.

τὸ ἱρόν: not the temple itself, but the whole precinct (vi. 19. 3) with its varied contents. Here the inquirers, after lustration with water from the Castalian spring and coronation with laurel, prayed and sacrificed, and unless they possessed the right of προμαντηίη (i. 54. 2 n.) waited for the turn assigned them by lot. They then were taken into the sanctuary (ἄδυτον, μέγαρον), in which was a golden statue of the god, and in the dark background the tripod on which the Pythia sat (cf. i. 47. 2 n.).

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