Chris Welsch, of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, learns at Delphi that "Know Thyself" really means "Find out for Thyself"...
I had arrived by bus from Athens at about 1 p.m. with the mistaken assumption that guides would be lined up outside the gates of the ruins, just waiting to interpret Greek history. There weren't any. So I went back to my hotel in modern Delphi and spent a couple of hours consulting the Internet and the phone book. I learned that there are four guides in Delphi who don't work full time for bus-tour companies. And for the next three days - orthodox Easter weekend - they were working full time for the bus-tour companies.
From what I knew of the Oracle, this situation wasn't unusual; getting information here, historically, was never easy. The cautionary inscription "Know thyself" greeted every traveler who crossed the threshold of the Temple of Apollo. The Oracle's responses to questions, especially for the unprepared, were often caustic or misleading. So perhaps this made sense. I would have to learn what I could on my own.
I don't know whether it was on the internet that he also came up with the sort of strange list of people who had been to Delphi in ancient times: "I stood on the ancient ground where Agamemnon, Socrates and Cicero, among others, had humbly stood, hoping to get answers to their big questions." Strange list, but in fact true - or at least, attested:
- Agamemnon: Od. 8.79-81
- Socrates [personal visit, not the consultation by Chaerephon about Socrates]: Aristotle, cited by Diogenes Laertius, II.23 [Socrates sect. VII] [Google Books]; cf. Guthrie, Socrates, p. 85
- Cicero: Plutarch, Life of Cicero 5.1 [link]
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