‘How does religious practice in the worship of Apollo and Dionysus at Delphi in the 4th century BCE compare with Friedrich Nietzsche’s conception of the two gods?’ — by Jessamyn Madden-Aberdein

Nietzsche’s 1872 publication The Birth of Tragedy is both a first in terms of Nietzsche’s major publications, and a first in examples of the modern conception of Apollo and Dionysus as forces in ‘violent opposition to one another’[1]. His text unsuccessfully attempted to resolve discrepancies in Schopenhauer’s theory of art[2] by examining Athenian tragedy as an example of Apollo and Dionysus (order and chaos respectively) coming together to create Schopenhauer’s ‘genuine aesthetic experience’. This characterisation had a significant impact on modern western understanding of the two gods, however it does not reflect what evidence of religious practice in classical Delphi suggests about the ancient conception of these two gods. Detienne argues that we must use the contextual information from contemporary religious practices to fully understand the relationships between these deities[3], and acknowledge that ancient Greek religious practice indicates the gods are not always regarded as entirely separate entities[4]. For Apollo and Dionysus, we have some evidence of the role of the cult of the Thyiades in the 4th century BCE temple to Apollo, but arguably the most accessible evidence we have for religious practice is in the form of music and hymns.

THYIADES IN THE TEMPLE

The Dionysian cult of the Thyiades are most often referred to as operating within the Parnassian wilderness, but also work within the temple of Apollo for certain events. Apollo was only considered to be in residence at the 4th century BCE temple at Delphi for nine months of the year — for three months in the winter, he visits the Hyperboreans. (Plut. De E apud Delphos 284d-394c.) During this time, the priests of Apollo left the temple to consider who would be appointed the Pythia in the coming year, and the Thyiades took over the temple.[5] They staged certain festivals and rituals in honour of Dionysus within the temple — unfortunately we know very little about these beyond their names. A particularly important one we know of is the ritual awakening of Dionysus Liknites (of the Winnowing Basket). This ritual was performed inside the temple of Apollo, around what was believed to be the remains of Dionysus (Plut. Mor. 365a)[6]. Others, such as the Heroïs Festival, which may have been connected with Semele in some way[7], we know almost nothing about — to the extent that we cannot even specify how regularly these festivals were held.

Several scholars have theorised that the Dionysian festivals are linked to the agricultural calendar, specifically the cycle of cereal crops and grains[8]. This is highly debated however, with arguments suggesting that the festivals do not seem to occur exactly annually so are too sporadic to line up with a crop cycle[9] or, on the other hand, cereal crop cycles being closer to 16 months than an exact year[10] — hence the irregularity in the festivals’ occurrences when framing them in a 12 month year. The latter seems more likely, as Kerényi raises the theoretical potential for Delphi to have operated on two different religious calendar years simultaneously. Orphic worship of Dionysus operated on a trieteric calendar wherein one cycle of the ritual calendar took two years. The awakening festivals that begin a new cycle of the ritual calendar can work placed into any kind of yearly calendar — in the case of Delphi, years were marked by the position of Sirius, so their new year began in Apellaios (July) with Apollo’s return from the Hyperboreans. However, early versions of this myth suggest this only happened once every two years, similar to the trieteric system used in Dionysian worship.[11] Kerényi theorises that this indicates Delphi adjusting its calendar to fit the Athenian calendar and adjusting the festivals to Apollo to fit into that timeframe instead. This seems to be a very reasonable suggestion: the cult to Dionysus that pre-existed at Delphi may well have developed along the Orphic tradition, and evidence from the Corycian Caves[12] indicates that the worshippers of Dionysus were mainly local farming people. Therefore, a trieteric calendar may have been more logical for them, as it was closer to the crop-cycle year that definied their livelihoods. Therefore, the relationship of the Thyiades with the Apollonian element of the 4th century temple seems to indicate dual worship with reasonable certainty: two gods in Nietzsche-esque opposition with one another would have no reason to share a temple — there was no shortage of space to build separate sanctuaries for both gods, and we know that there were sanctuaries to other gods, such as Athena, built in Delphi.

Moreover, the calendars of the two gods suggest they performed different functions within that space. The Pythia and the Apollonian element of the 4th century temple had Pan-Hellenic appeal, and operated on a far larger scale, but for very limited time. The Oracle was only available for consultation on one day a month for the nine months Apollo was resident in Delphi (Plut. Mor. 405c.) with occasional chances for special consultations outside these times for very important clients.[13] The Pythia therefore is not practical as a figure within the daily religious practices of local people, so it is necessary for another cult to operate in the area to cater to their more mundane daily religious needs. It is important to bear this distinction in mind, as it may explain why we have far less physical evidence of the Dionysian cult compared to the Apollonian: artefacts dedicated by poleis would be made of far higher quality materials, therefore more likely to be preserved until the modern day. Similarly, artefacts related to Apollo and the Pythia have far more appeal to excavators and collectors due to their literary fame, which may have created a level of preservation bias in the archaeological record. This can be seen even in fairly recent scholarship, with academics using the Pan-Hellenic success of the site at Delphi to project backwards to the pre-history of the site.[14] Additionally, dual worship would potentially also allow for religious artefacts to be used for both gods. Items like tripods may not depict a specific god, but have relevance to both Apollo and Dionysus — the former for the presentation of the oracles, the latter from the Orphic myth of Zagreus, versions of which see Dionysus torn apart by the titans and Apollo placing pieces into a tripod to be reformed by Rhea or Athena[15].

Overall, the role of the Thyiades in the temple at Delphi seems to indicate not only that dual worship of the two gods is very much possible, but also that Nietzsche’s categorising of Apollo and Dionysus as order and chaos does not match the Classical conception of the two. The Thyiades operate both as a maenadic mountain tribe in the wilderness of the Parnassus, and as celebrants of fecundity and the crop cycle through Dionysus[16] and potentially also Semele[17] — a cycle that likely defined ‘order’ for a local agricultural community. The Thyiades are also responsible for the restoration of spiritual order every eight years during the festival of Charila — this celebration was held in advance of the ‘great year’ in which all of the calendars are realigned: a restoration of social and astronomical order[18]. The festival is based around a myth in which the starving Charila commits suicide after the king refuses to provide grain. The Pythia instructs the king to atone for the girl’s death to Dionysus, who then agrees to fix the harvest at Delphi. (Plut. Mor. 293b-418b.) This again illustrates Dionysus acting as a god of the mundane at Delphi, whilst Apollo — who promises to provide the Cretan sailors he employs as his first priests costly food items such as sheep (HH3b 534–537) — deals with the fantastic.

IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC, HYMNS AND LYRIC STRUCTURE IN CLASSICAL RELIGION

Moving to a better preserved aspect of ancient religious practice, music and lyric form a key component in. classical religion. To briefly consider music first, in his reading of Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, Lenson observes that Dionysus is typically depicted playing woodwind instruments, and Apollo is typically depicted playing strings[19], but he then goes on to assert that the rhythm and metre associated with Apollo is more architectonic compared to the more harmonic metre associated with Dionysus.[20] These things are not by nature opposites or dialectical: the analogy of music demands a level of syncretism and harmony between the two. In terms of actual religious practice, it is important to note this pattern does not entirely follow through — the aulos and kithara (stringed instruments) are used for worshipping both Apollo and Dionysus, and Fearn therefore asserts that instruments alone cannot be used to differentiate between music written for Apollo or for Dionysus.[21]

We see hymns and lyrical worship as focal points for religious practice long before the 5th and 4th centuries in the hymns Homer writes to many of the gods in the Classical pantheon, particularly hymns 3b and 7. More relevant to our time period, however, are the lyric structures of paeans and dithyrambs. Plutarch refers to a time of purity when lyric structures were devoted each to their particular god — the paean in honour of Apollo, and the dithyramb in honour of Dionysus (Plut. De E Apud Delphos 9.388е–389е) and in general, the works we have still extant, such as those by Pindar, broadly fit with this.[22] Plato refers to the works of New Music as corrupting this purity and losing this religious focus because they blend styles. Modern scholars have a harder time setting out a clear differentiation between the two, something that is demonstrated very well by the works of Bacchylides. Kappel discusses how this confusion may be due to the Alexandrians taking Plato’s definition out of context[23], as a great many of our classifications of lyric work come from the Alexandrian categories, as they potentially had access to the music that would have accompanied the works, and a better understanding of the metre and structures that we have no equivalent for in the modern day — though this is by no means guaranteed.[24]

BACCHYLIDES AS CASE STUDY

If dithyrambs are defined by their Dionysian content, only Bacchylides 16, 19, and perhaps 23 would count — but if you define Dionysian religious songs as all of the ones featuring a kuklio khoroi (circular chorus), you end up with a great many songs that have nothing to do with Dionysus. Lyric structures that began as methods of honouring one god have become methods applicable more widely to worship of other deities. It is equally as difficult to differentiate by metre as it is by subject, as we do not have enough evidence for how Classical metre worked.

Clearly in the 4th century, some kind of awareness of a differential between the two exists — aside from Plato’s commentary, it is mentioned by Pindar (Pindar Threnos 3.1–4), and Aeschylus remarks on the suitability of the dithyramb for honouring Dionysus. (Aesch. fr. 355, quoted in Plut. De E apud Delphos 389b.) Nevertheless, we do also see evidence for this being debated during the Classical period — the Hibeh Papers associate certain lyric structures with Apollo (bay) or Dionysus (ivy) in late 5th century to early 4th century BCE[25]. The debate specifically centres on whether you can separate these two out into ‘independent entities’ or if they are by this point, too bound up together. Similarly, despite the Alexandrians potentially having more understanding and access to how these works are intended to be performed, there is evidence to suggest they too had difficulty differentiating between paeans and dithyrambs. The P.OXY 2386 Papyrus[26] illustrates Aristarkhos and Kallimakhos disagreeing over the classification of Bacchylides 23 as a paean or a dithyramb both due to the plot and the structure of the text: Kassandra is present, which would make it a dithyramb by Plato’s definition based on plot (Pl. Resp. 3.394b-c), however Kallimakhos believes it is a paean due to the presence of a refrain.[27] Similarly, when it comes to defining the difference between dithyrambs and paeans thematically, some scholars have argued that the presentation of the myth should fit the nature of the god[28] — but some of the songs to Apollo talk of very disruptive and chaotic instances, and have done so throughout the historical literature — kidnapping the Cretan sailors is not the action of a god of order. You cannot separate the two gods out into opposing natures, because the idea of them as opposites seems primarily founded in understanding of the two post-Birth of Tragedy and does not fit the evidence for the Classical conception of the two. Fearn refers to Bacchylides 19 as a notable example of this, as it is the only Bacchylidian dithyramb that directly deals with a Dionysian myth and ends with the figure of Dionysus playing with the audiences’ expectations of the myth[29]. Fearn suggests this indicates that the connections between Dionysian content and dithyrambs are easily manipulated, and therefore not a reliable means by which to identify the lyric genre.[30] Bacchylides 16 illustrates similar difficulties in differentiating between the two structures by the god addressed. It begins by addressing Apollo, and then becomes a dithyramb to Dionysus. Kenyon’s translation[31] asserts it is a paean due to its address of Apollo, however the text is generally classified as a dithyramb along with most of the works of Bacchylides.

With that being said, we are inclined to wonder if it is even necessary for us to establish a clear distinction between these two structures, therefore differentiating between the Dionysian and Apollonian here. Fearn argues the negative: there is no strict metrical divide between the poems classified as paeans or dithyrambs[32]. Moreover, he suggests the works of Pindar and Bacchylides reflect general tendencies and preferences of the time: they are not in fact genre-defining.[33] This, especially considering the debate in the Hibeh Papers previously mentioned, indicates the high level of syncretism in conceptions of Apollo and Dionysus in the 5th and 4th century BCE. Again, this is quite different from the Nietzschean idea of the two as opposite gods, whose methods of worship we would not necessarily expect to have been blended together — Dietrich similarly attests to the use of both structures for the two gods, and the lack of opposition between them in the ancient conception.[34] Some scholars argue that this is as a result of New Music moving away from

religious themes and functions[35], however Fearn disagrees — perhaps rightly so, as it is somewhat difficult to imagine how that would have worked in terms of the ancient conception of religion. We do not see religion being separated out as a discrete concept from day-to-day life at this time, and you cannot ‘move away’ from themes and functions that are intrinsic parts of your life — furthermore, we do not see a decline in Dionysian content elsewhere, such as drama festivals in honour of Dionysus.[36] Zimmerman in particular argues this, suggesting that Dionysian content becomes less and less prominent after the rise of the polis in the 8th century BCE, but the evidence we have of the Dionysia and Lenaea drama festivals directly contradicts this[37].

Conclusion

Closer analysis of the roles the Thyiades play in the ritual calendar suggests that Delphi is built around both of these gods existing as twin deities — likely as a result of the rise of Delphi as a Pan-Hellenic sanctuary. Apollo serves the ‘international’ stage and is responsible for the performative religious practices of the oracle and the Pythian games, whereas Dionysus is responsible for more mundane religious concerns of the local populus. The Delphic Dionysus is not primarily a god of madness and ecstasy, but a god of fecundity and vegetation. This can lead to preservation bias as a result of the varying materials used in making dedications to each god, which can create a false sense of this Nietzschean duality, because it makes it seem like there was a hierarchy to the two gods, rather than the two performing different functions. This makes it essential to consider the structure of religious songs and poetry for Apollo and Dionysus. Pickard-Cambridge points to their relationship at Delphi as a case for why the dithyramb became associated with Apollo, not just Dionysus[38]. Additionally, the use of the same instruments and the parallels in the earlier Homeric Hymns seem to indicate this level of syncretism existed from a very early period. The use of the blended style of poem to each of them by contemporary authors such as Bacchylides in the Classical period only serves to reinforce this, as does the evidence of debate at the time regarding whether the two entities could be separated out from each other, especially in the case of music. This debate continuing through from the Classical period to Alexandrian scholars and beyond makes Nietzsche’s conception of them as opposites particularly mystifying — as much as his theory depends on their unity to create art, which arguably could be what is demonstrated by this music, the evidence suggests they were far more harmoniously twinned together, rather than the violent opposition of The Birth of Tragedy.

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Budelmann, F. (2001). Sound and Text: The Rhythm and Metre of Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry in Ancient Byzantine Scholarship. In F. Budelmann, & P. Michelakis, Homer, Tragedy and Beyond: Essays in Honour of P.E. Easterling (pp. 209–240). London.

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Dietrich, B. (1992). Divine Madness and Conflict at Delphi. Kernos (5), 412–58.

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Lenson, D. (1987). The Birth of Tragedy: A Commentary . Boston.

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Webster, T. (1970). The Greek Chorus. London.

West, M. (1992). Analecta Musica . Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 92, 1–54.

Whiteside, S. (2003). Friedrich Nietzsche ‘The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music’. London.

Zimmermann, B. (2000). Eroi nel Ditirambo. In E. Suárez de la Torre, & V. Pirenne-Delforge, Héros et heroines dans les myths et les cultes grecs (Kernos Supplement 10) (pp. 15–20). Liège.

All ancient works cited are abbreviated as per the abbreviations listed in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th ed.)

[1] Nietzsche 2003: 14.

[2] Schopenhauer 1819.

[3] Detienne 2001: 148.

[4] Suárez de la Torre 2013: 58.

[5] Petridou 2016: 276.

[6] Potentially the Omphalos Stone — see Scott 2014: 37.

[7] McInerny 1997: 272.

[8] McInerny 1997: 273.

[9] Daraki 1985:20; Dietrich 1992: 47.

[10] Amouretti 1991: 119–126.

[11] Kerényi 1976: 205.

[12] A cave structure in the foothills of Parnassus, with evidence of cult activity to Pan or Dionysus throughout the classical era.

[13] Price 1985: 134.

[14] Snodgrass 1980: 120; Snodgrass 1986: 53–54.

[15] Dietrich 1992: 50.

[16] McInerny 1997: 273.

[17] Roux 1971: 154.

[18] Roux 1971: 152–156

[19] Lenson 1987: 26.

[20] Lenson 1987: 42.

[21] Fearn 2007: 176.

[22] Fearn 2007: 173.

[23] Kappel 2000: 11–27.

[24] Budelmann 2001: 222.

[25] West 1992: 2–6.

[26] Ucciardello 1996: 61–88.

[27] Fearn 2007: 209.

[28] Fearn 2007 178.

[29] Webster 1970: 103.

[30] Fearn 2007: 181.

[31] Kenyon 1897: 110

[32] Fearn 2007: 171–5.

[33] Fearn 2007: 177.

[34] Dietrich 1992: 50.

[35] Fearn 2007: 184.

[36] Fearn 2007: 184.

[37] Zimmermann 2000: 20.

[38] Pickard-Cambridge 1962: 3–4.