The Oracle at Didyma: A Temple Dedicated to the God Apollo

Michael Streich

Twelve miles from Miletus stands the great Temple of Didyma, welcoming pilgrims and ancient VIPs seeking answers to opportune questions, among them Croesus of Lydia who failed to receive a satisfactory answer from the oracle. The Didyma oracle was the second most important in the ancient world after Delphi and both sites were dedicated to Apollo. The temple itself was the third largest in the ancient world.

 

Long before Greeks migrated to the Anatolian shore, establishing city states like Ephesus and Miletus, the grounds where the great temple would be built were considered sacred, watered by a sacred spring. Eventually, the sanctuary would give way to the construction of the first temple, dedicated to Apollo, the twin brother of Artemis whose own temple in Ephesus would be acclaimed a wonder of the ancient world. Scholars today theorize that had the Didyma temple been fully completed, it also would have been considered one of the ancient world’s wonders.

 

Didyma was one of several ancient Mediterranean oracles consulted by Croesus when the Lydian king contemplated war with Cyrus. Although the Delphi oracle was the only one to give a correct answer to his question, he still showered gold on the Didyma oracle, perhaps because both sites were dedicated to Apollo.

 

During the Persian Wars, Darius I defeated the revolting Ionian city states and in the process, destroyed the temple, carting the statue of Apollo back to Persia. Almost two hundred years later, Alexander the Great returned the statue after defeating the Persians. Sadly, Apollo’s statute was lost in antiquity and has never been found.

 

The Didyma Temple was rebuilt after Alexander’s death by Seleucis, one of his generals. Reconstruction took over six hundred years and was never fully completed. The Didymaeia, a festival held ever four years, brought visitors and pilgrims to participate in the cultural aspects of the celebrations as well as the athletic races held in an arena not far from the oracle.

 

Decline in the Latter Roman Years

 

Both Augustus and Trajan visited Didyma but it was Diocletian that sealed the fate of the ancient oracle. Torn by close advisors including his deputy emperor Galerius, Diocletian consulted the Didyma oracle regarding the growing Christian church. The oracle advised the Augusti to move against the group and thus began the Great Persecution associated with Diocletian.

 

In the subsequent upheavals, Constantine the Great prevailed over his adversaries, becoming the first emperor to embrace Christianity. Although scholars question the depth of Constantine’s faith (he wasn’t baptized until just before he died), the emperor closed Didyma and executed the priests and priestesses that spoke for the oracle as a punishment for their advice to Diocletian. Christian chapels were erected on the site in memory of the martyrs that had lost their lives during the Great Persecution, but these were razed by Julian the Apostate later that same century.

 

The ruins today bespeak on an earthquake that leveled both the Christian churches built on the site in late antiquity as well as the remnants of the once great temple that stood ninety feet high and served as a pilgrim destination for those seeking advice from the oracle. 

[The author visited this temple in 2007. Copyright owned by Michael Streich]