0:00:15 > 0:00:18By the mid 4th century, this was one of the most awe-inspiring
0:00:18 > 0:00:21and spectacular places in the entire ancient world.
0:00:21 > 0:00:25Its combination of art, religion, money made it, in modern day terms,
0:00:25 > 0:00:29the equivalent of the wealth of the Swiss banks, the religious power of the Vatican,
0:00:29 > 0:00:32the advertising potential of the World Cup
0:00:32 > 0:00:36and the historical importance of all the world's museums combined.
0:00:36 > 0:00:42This is Delphi, on the slope of Mount Parnassus in central Greece.
0:00:42 > 0:00:48Home of the great Oracle of Apollo, Delphi was the Omphalos,
0:00:48 > 0:00:51the belly button, the centre of the ancient world.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54According to ancient myth,
0:00:54 > 0:00:58Zeus sent two eagles from opposite ends of the Earth.
0:00:58 > 0:01:02And this is where they met.
0:01:02 > 0:01:07It was several days' journey from the main cities of the ancient Greek world.
0:01:07 > 0:01:08Yet for centuries,
0:01:08 > 0:01:11not just ordinary people, but kings and ambassadors
0:01:11 > 0:01:15from great cities and empires struggled up here
0:01:15 > 0:01:19in search of answers to their most puzzling questions.
0:01:21 > 0:01:26Fundamentally, they came here to ask the Oracle of the god Apollo about the future.
0:01:26 > 0:01:33But however unwelcome, unhelpful, indeed awful, those responses were, they kept coming.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37Why? And why do we still come here as tourists today?
0:01:37 > 0:01:42For me, it was because Delphi told the ancient Greeks something about themselves.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44Indeed, above the entrance to the temple of Apollo,
0:01:44 > 0:01:47where they went to see the Oracle, was a simple inscription.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51It said, "Gnothi seauton". Know thyself.
0:01:51 > 0:01:56And that message, I think, isn't just important to the ancient Greeks.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00I believe that know thyself, the message of Delphi,
0:02:00 > 0:02:03and everything that was incarnate in this place,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06still has meaning and importance for us today.
0:02:21 > 0:02:26What the tourists see here at Delphi has only been like this for just over a century.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29Before that, it was a lost world.
0:02:32 > 0:02:38Scholars knew that Delphi had been one of the most important sanctuaries in ancient Greece.
0:02:38 > 0:02:43But it was buried beneath earth, rocks and centuries of legend.
0:02:49 > 0:02:50The answer was to dig,
0:02:50 > 0:02:54and just about everybody had their shovels at the ready.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57Ever since the Renaissance, Europeans had looked
0:02:57 > 0:03:01to ancient Greece as the foundation of Western culture.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06By the 1890s, American, French and German teams were negotiating
0:03:06 > 0:03:09with the Greek government for the right to excavate.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13Eventually, in 1892, the French won the race.
0:03:13 > 0:03:19They sweetened the deal by lowering tariffs on imported Greek currants and olive oil.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23Ever since, they have led the search for ancient Delphi.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31When I first began studying the sanctuary as a young postgraduate,
0:03:31 > 0:03:35French scholars like Dominique Mulliez were an enormous inspiration.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14The first problem for the archaeologists was that there
0:04:14 > 0:04:18were people still living right on top of the ancient sanctuary.
0:05:06 > 0:05:11Despite the difficulties, the sanctuary and its lost treasures
0:05:11 > 0:05:14gradually began to emerge from the soil.
0:05:14 > 0:05:21The legend became a real place, with an iconic reputation.
0:05:23 > 0:05:25In ancient times it had been a communal sanctuary,
0:05:25 > 0:05:28visited freely by people from all over the ancient world.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37Now, once again, people flocked to Delphi.
0:05:37 > 0:05:41It became a beacon for internationalism just like the modern Olympic games,
0:05:41 > 0:05:44which were founded at the same time in the 1890s.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48And, in fact, Delphi still is a beacon for internationalism.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51Here's how ICOMOS, the UNESCO organisation,
0:05:51 > 0:05:54described Delphi when they made it a World Heritage Site in 1986.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57"This reaffirms that one of the enduring missions
0:05:57 > 0:06:03"of Delphi is to bring together men and women who otherwise remain divided by material interests."
0:06:03 > 0:06:05But is that true?
0:06:05 > 0:06:10And if so, how and why did Delphi get such a reputation?
0:06:10 > 0:06:17The only way to answer that is to find out what was really going on at this site thousands of years ago.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39At its height, the sanctuary at Delphi covered more than 100 acres.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50The temple itself was surrounded by hundreds of votive buildings,
0:06:50 > 0:06:53treasure houses, porticoes and statues,
0:06:53 > 0:06:56all of them built by grateful visitors.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00Some of them had come hundreds of miles.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03They included rulers from across the ancient world,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07from the legendary King Midas in the 8th century BC,
0:07:07 > 0:07:11to the Roman Emperor Hadrian, 1,000 years later.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16And the visitors came for the Oracle.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20To ask the god Apollo for answers to their questions about the future.
0:07:22 > 0:07:24But what actually happened when they got here?
0:07:29 > 0:07:32Well, luckily, one of the several accounts we have
0:07:32 > 0:07:34is the writings of a real insider.
0:07:34 > 0:07:37He was a priest at the temple called Plutarch.
0:07:39 > 0:07:43What Plutarch tells us is that the Oracle operated
0:07:43 > 0:07:46on only nine days each year.
0:07:46 > 0:07:51On those days, crowds of worshippers would queue to ask their question.
0:07:56 > 0:08:00Now faced with the front of the temple of Apollo and the inscription "Know thyself,"
0:08:00 > 0:08:03the consultant had to decide what their question would be.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06Some examples. King Croesus from Lydia in modern-day Turkey
0:08:06 > 0:08:10wanted to ask whether he should attack his next-door enemy empire.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13Or the Athenians, when they were faced with the Persian invasion,
0:08:13 > 0:08:15asked what should they do?
0:08:15 > 0:08:19But the thing is, we don't know exactly how the consultation took place.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23But if we can get inside the temple, perhaps we can get a better idea.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35And here we are, inside the sacred temple of Apollo,
0:08:35 > 0:08:39following in the footsteps of the people who came to consult the Oracle.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43Moving from the public, front end of the temple, towards the back,
0:08:43 > 0:08:45the inner sanctum, the most sacred area.
0:08:45 > 0:08:47It's here that French archaeologists,
0:08:47 > 0:08:49in their most recent plan of the temple,
0:08:49 > 0:08:50have discovered something new.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54Here, this rectangular structure, what they're calling an oikos,
0:08:54 > 0:08:59which may well be what the literary sources talk about as the adyton,
0:08:59 > 0:09:02the home of the Pythian priestess herself.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06But the thing is, we still don't know for sure the mechanics
0:09:06 > 0:09:09of what actually happened in this space.
0:09:11 > 0:09:13What we do know is that the Oracle was a woman.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20The priestess was said to sit on top of a tripod
0:09:20 > 0:09:24set over a chasm in the rock, from which vapours rose.
0:09:28 > 0:09:32She was reputed to breathe in the vapours and answer in a trance,
0:09:32 > 0:09:34as if inspired by Apollo.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42The priestess gave her answers to the applicant's question
0:09:42 > 0:09:45from within the trance, and once she had spoken,
0:09:45 > 0:09:49the applicants then had to try to understand what she had said.
0:09:54 > 0:10:00So what was the prophetic vapour that induced trances in the priestess?
0:10:00 > 0:10:06Well, we now know that Delphi's geology produced hallucinogenic fumes.
0:10:08 > 0:10:13The sanctuary grew up at a place where two geological faults crossed.
0:10:13 > 0:10:20And here on the temple floor you can see the signs of subsidence caused by the two faults.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24And right beside the temple and its Oracle, is a tell-tale deposit.
0:10:24 > 0:10:29This is travertine, formed when water releases hydrocarbons,
0:10:29 > 0:10:32which it can only accumulate if it exists around a fault line.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36Another sign, another piece of evidence that the geological
0:10:36 > 0:10:38fault line runs right through the temple at Delphi.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41Recent tests showed that one of those hydrocarbons
0:10:41 > 0:10:43is the gas ethylene,
0:10:43 > 0:10:45which is known to affect the working of the brain.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48That could explain the trance.
0:10:48 > 0:10:54But geology can only explain why the priestess was here in this exact position.
0:10:54 > 0:10:59It can't help us explain why Delphi became such a spectacular sanctuary,
0:10:59 > 0:11:01and why it maintained its reputation
0:11:01 > 0:11:04in the ancient world for over 1,000 years.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13If we examine Greek religion itself however, things become clearer.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15After all, Oracles were a basic element
0:11:15 > 0:11:18of ancient Greek religious traditions,
0:11:18 > 0:11:22and they included some sometimes quite bizarre beliefs.
0:11:22 > 0:11:27And to understand the religion of ancient Greece you have to understand that there were
0:11:27 > 0:11:29gods in everything and everywhere.
0:11:29 > 0:11:34Poseidon in the sea, Hades in the underworld, nymphs in the grottos and caves, Pan around you.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37Every tree, every bush had a god.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40And in that world, the gods had to be worshipped.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42They had to be prayed to.
0:11:42 > 0:11:47Demeter to fertilise your fields, or Athena to watch over your city or your industry.
0:11:47 > 0:11:48You had to make sacrifices.
0:11:48 > 0:11:53You met the gods in your dreams, they cured your illnesses, they were everywhere
0:11:53 > 0:11:55and they could be for you or against you,
0:11:55 > 0:12:00so you had to do your utmost to ensure that they were on your side.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07These ideas go back to the very beginnings of ancient Greece.
0:12:07 > 0:12:13I'm on my way to one of the oldest sacred places in the area.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16It lies even higher up Parnassus,
0:12:16 > 0:12:20behind the Delphi peaks, right off the tourist map.
0:12:20 > 0:12:25It was one of the many places where the ancients came to make offerings to their many gods.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29This is the Corycian cave,
0:12:29 > 0:12:34sacred to Pan, the god of the countryside, and to the Muses.
0:12:47 > 0:12:52It was only in 1969, some eight decades after Delphi began
0:12:52 > 0:12:57to be excavated, that scholars began to investigate this place properly.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00What they found was amazing.
0:13:00 > 0:13:05Some of the objects had been put here nearly 7,000 years ago,
0:13:05 > 0:13:08long before the Oracle at Delphi began to develop.
0:13:15 > 0:13:20Most of them weren't as old as that, but all of them were very different
0:13:20 > 0:13:25from the statues and great buildings the French had found at Delphi.
0:13:27 > 0:13:31They found lots of things like this in the cave.
0:13:31 > 0:13:33Perfume jars,
0:13:33 > 0:13:38small oil flasks, things like...
0:13:38 > 0:13:40necklaces,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43and rings.
0:13:43 > 0:13:51They're all very low-key, very personal, and demonstrate the close and continuous relationship
0:13:51 > 0:13:54between the local Delphians and their visitors,
0:13:54 > 0:13:57coming here to worship their local gods in this cave.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01Offerings in places like this were designed to keep the gods on-side.
0:14:01 > 0:14:06But the excavators discovered the cave was more than just a place to make offerings.
0:14:06 > 0:14:13There was something else found here. In fact, 25,000 knucklebones, animal knucklebones.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16Now knucklebones in ancient Greece were used by kids as part of a game.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19And they may have been dedicated here at the cave
0:14:19 > 0:14:22as part of a ceremony that symbolised the transition
0:14:22 > 0:14:25between childhood and adulthood, on the eve of marriage, for example.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29But about 20% of these knucklebones were also inscribed with the names
0:14:29 > 0:14:31of gods, and some of them looked like dice.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35In fact, we also found dice, ancient dice, here in the cave.
0:14:35 > 0:14:39Now this is interesting, because dice are sometimes associated with
0:14:39 > 0:14:40a cheaper, easier Oracle.
0:14:44 > 0:14:49So the cave was also used for divination, a simple kind of Oracle.
0:14:49 > 0:14:55The aim was to lift the curtain between the natural world and the supernatural world of the gods.
0:14:58 > 0:15:03This cave was an arena for spiritual communication going back thousands and thousands of years.
0:15:03 > 0:15:08But down below, in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, it was all on a very different scale.
0:15:08 > 0:15:13Here you had farmers, shepherds, local villagers coming to consult perhaps a dice Oracle.
0:15:13 > 0:15:18Down below you had tyrants, cities, emperors, kings, coming to ask their questions.
0:15:18 > 0:15:22Questions that would define the history of the ancient world.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33Although the Delphic Oracle emerged from traditions like this,
0:15:33 > 0:15:35Delphi itself began as a typical settlement
0:15:35 > 0:15:38of the high country of central Greece.
0:15:40 > 0:15:45And the earliest remains indicate not a religious centre, but a prosperous town.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53According to Catherine Morgan, one of the leading experts on early Delphi,
0:15:53 > 0:15:57it was the geography here which may have made the difference.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00It's a very well-connected area.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04We're pretty close to the major mountain passes coming down from the North.
0:16:04 > 0:16:09We're right on a major east-west waterway. The really major junction.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11Here we've got an amazingly fertile plain.
0:16:11 > 0:16:16We've got quite a nice harbour, and then we've got good pasture land up above.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18So all the resources are here.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21It's a seriously big place.
0:16:21 > 0:16:24It's not specifically a place of pilgrimage and sanctuary,
0:16:24 > 0:16:27but it is a community with a religious centre.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34Its location on long distance trade routes brought visitors to Delphi
0:16:34 > 0:16:35in increasing numbers.
0:16:35 > 0:16:41And the reputation of Delphi's local Oracle began to spread.
0:16:41 > 0:16:45From 800 BC onwards, it began to attract interest and offerings
0:16:45 > 0:16:48from further and further afield.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54At first, they were small bronze statues of warriors
0:16:54 > 0:16:56and praying worshippers.
0:16:56 > 0:17:03Later they ran to giant bronze cauldrons, and gold and silver, too.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06The Oracle was heading for stardom.
0:17:08 > 0:17:11And the economic effects were enormous.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18Almost from the minute you've separated the sanctuary from the local surroundings,
0:17:18 > 0:17:20you're creating a cuckoo.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23You've got something that requires very, very high maintenance.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27It's requiring an awful lot of sacrificial animals, lodgings, etcetera.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29Where are you going to get it from?
0:17:29 > 0:17:33You're warping the local economy to do that,
0:17:33 > 0:17:36and certainly a lot of what we know implies an increasingly rich,
0:17:36 > 0:17:39pastoral economy supplying Delphi.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46So Delphi's international career began for real
0:17:46 > 0:17:48in the seventh century BC,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51and it's a career which still continues today.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55In one way, modern Delphi is a reincarnation of the ancient sanctuary.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57How you doing?
0:17:57 > 0:18:00Coming live from Delphi!
0:18:00 > 0:18:03It still brings people from all over the world.
0:18:03 > 0:18:10They come now to learn about the past, not the future, but they bring with them stories about the present.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14Canada's gotten off pretty scot-free with regards to the economic crisis.
0:18:14 > 0:18:18They bring information, in huge quantities.
0:18:18 > 0:18:21Huge riots, every single store front window was smashed.
0:18:21 > 0:18:27To find out what's going on around the world, you hardly need to leave Delphi's cafes.
0:18:27 > 0:18:33The new line that they've been promising for at least five years now. The cuts are coming in slowly.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36Ancient Delphi was just the same.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40A huge mixture of visitors.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43And the more people who came, the more information came with them,
0:18:43 > 0:18:48information which the priests and the Oracle could use.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51So Delphi's answers were better informed,
0:18:51 > 0:18:54and much more likely to make sense.
0:18:58 > 0:19:03But the Oracle's answers were also famous for their ambiguity.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06They were only a basis for interpretation,
0:19:06 > 0:19:10and to deal with that, you had to know yourself.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13When the Athenians went to ask about what they should do about
0:19:13 > 0:19:16the Persian invasion they were told "Trust in your wooden walls."
0:19:16 > 0:19:18Now they had to figure out what that meant.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21They decided it meant the wooden walls of their ships,
0:19:21 > 0:19:24and that turned out to be right. But King Croesus, when he asked
0:19:24 > 0:19:27if he should attack his neighbouring empire, he was told,
0:19:27 > 0:19:30"If you attack, a great empire will fall."
0:19:30 > 0:19:33He interpreted that to mean his enemies.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35It turned out to be his own.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38He even complained to the Oracle about the response he had got,
0:19:38 > 0:19:40but the response came back to him saying,
0:19:40 > 0:19:43"It was your fault, your misinterpretation."
0:19:43 > 0:19:48The ambiguity of the response forces the question back on us,
0:19:48 > 0:19:50forces us to know ourselves.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58Once the Oracle took off, Delphi took off with it.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02It became the focus for a whole range of other activities,
0:20:02 > 0:20:06as people began to come here in huge numbers.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09And it was all good business for a thriving city,
0:20:09 > 0:20:11which surrounded the sanctuary.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18Imagine what this place must have been like at full capacity.
0:20:18 > 0:20:23When the games were on, maybe up to 40,000 people in the stadium,
0:20:23 > 0:20:26here in the theatre watching the athletic and musical competitions.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29At night, gathered around the landscape, with their campfires
0:20:29 > 0:20:32glittering all over the valley.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35The animals that had to be brought here, not just to sacrifice,
0:20:35 > 0:20:37but also to feed that many people.
0:20:37 > 0:20:41The noise, the smell, all the tourists coming in and out
0:20:41 > 0:20:43as Delphi became more and more famous.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46And in amongst that, the temple of Apollo.
0:20:46 > 0:20:51And perhaps the consultants, waiting desperately for the next available day to see the Oracle.
0:20:51 > 0:20:56All that crammed into one crag of the Parnassian mountains.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03Perhaps the most important international event at Delphi
0:21:03 > 0:21:06was the athletic festival called the Pythian Games.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13It took place every four years, and rivalled the Olympics.
0:21:15 > 0:21:18At the top of the sanctuary, there was a spectacular stadium.
0:21:18 > 0:21:20Here they ran running races.
0:21:20 > 0:21:25Elsewhere there was boxing, all-in wrestling and chariot racing.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33The athletes competed naked and their struggles for victory
0:21:33 > 0:21:36attracted spectators from all over the Greek world.
0:21:39 > 0:21:43And the winners dedicated monuments to celebrate their victory.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49One of Delphi's most famous treasures is the Charioteer.
0:21:49 > 0:21:55It was discovered in three separate pieces right at the beginning of the excavation.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01Six feet high, it's one of the few Greek sculptures to survive
0:22:01 > 0:22:05in bronze, and the statue still preserves its original inlayed eyes,
0:22:05 > 0:22:11bits of the silver and copper headband, and even some silver teeth.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15The Charioteer was a magnificent cry of triumph
0:22:15 > 0:22:19in honour of a tyrant from far away Sicily.
0:22:19 > 0:22:24His horses had won the chariot race, and he wanted the world to know it.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28But the triumphant horses are missing, and all that is left
0:22:28 > 0:22:32to us is the clothed figure of the slave who drove them to victory.
0:22:35 > 0:22:39Athletics and religion may seem for us like uncomfortable bedfellows,
0:22:39 > 0:22:41but it couldn't have been more natural.
0:22:41 > 0:22:44People came to sanctuaries to honour and worship the gods,
0:22:44 > 0:22:48and athletic and musical competitions were a great way of doing that.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51In fact, over here is one of the best examples of just how tight
0:22:51 > 0:22:54that relationship between religion and athletics was.
0:22:54 > 0:22:59It's an instruction, in the wall of the stadium, saying that wine,
0:22:59 > 0:23:05"to oinon maerfaren," may not be taken out - OUT - of the stadium!
0:23:05 > 0:23:07Not into, as we might expect.
0:23:07 > 0:23:12Out of the stadium, because they were actually making sacrificial wine inside the stadium
0:23:12 > 0:23:16to use in sacrifices that would have preceded the athletic competitions.
0:23:16 > 0:23:20And if you did take that wine out of the stadium, you got fined at least
0:23:20 > 0:23:24five drachmas and had to make additional sacrifices to the god.
0:23:28 > 0:23:34Competition in the stadium wasn't the only kind going on at Delphi.
0:23:34 > 0:23:39Down below, in the sanctuary, peoples and cities vied with one another
0:23:39 > 0:23:43to shower the gods with ever-grander dedications.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47They turned the whole place into an echo chamber of competing voices
0:23:47 > 0:23:53coming live from Delphi, a giant information exchange.
0:23:53 > 0:23:57It wasn't just that information was coming in to Delphi,
0:23:57 > 0:23:59it was also being broadcast in a very public way.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02In a world without mass communication technology,
0:24:02 > 0:24:04- Delphi was- the - giant notice board -
0:24:04 > 0:24:07the ancient equivalent of Piccadilly Circus, Times Square,
0:24:07 > 0:24:10New York, or even the advert breaks in Britain's Got Talent.
0:24:10 > 0:24:15If you had a message to get across, Delphi was the place to do it.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26That message could be carried in many ways.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30Through elegant sculpture, or expensive buildings or precious vases.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36But more simply, it could also be done through a text.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40Everywhere there are inscriptions on the buildings.
0:24:42 > 0:24:46So far, scholars have counted more than 3,000 individual texts.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49Some of them running to hundreds of words.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53Literally, Delphi was the Greek world's notice board.
0:24:56 > 0:25:01And these dedications, in all their forms, came from individuals
0:25:01 > 0:25:03and cities near and far.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07Dedications arrived from cities more than 1,000 miles away,
0:25:07 > 0:25:10like the Greek colony at Marseilles in France.
0:25:10 > 0:25:16They came from all kinds of places and all kinds of people.
0:25:16 > 0:25:20Plutarch, in this description of his travels and his visits to the sanctuary, talks about
0:25:20 > 0:25:26one evening when he was walking with friends, and they came across the dedication of a certain Rhodopis.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28Rhodopis, from the city of Naucratis in Egypt.
0:25:28 > 0:25:34Now Rhodopis was a prostitute, a courtesan, and she'd made so much money that she had dedicated piles
0:25:34 > 0:25:39of iron spits in the sanctuary, along with an inscription saying just how she'd earned it.
0:25:39 > 0:25:41Plutarch's friends were indignant.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52So, if the Greeks came here to "know themselves," what did they learn from
0:25:52 > 0:25:55the myriad of messages which were being broadcast from this place?
0:25:55 > 0:26:00Lesson number one seems actually to have been "show thyself."
0:26:02 > 0:26:04And the bigger and bolder, the better.
0:26:10 > 0:26:15In around 550 BC, the people of the tiny island of Siphnos
0:26:15 > 0:26:19discovered gold and silver mines on their island.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22In thanksgiving, they built themselves a treasure house
0:26:22 > 0:26:25to hold their offerings to Apollo at Delphi.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29It was packed with gold, silver and other rich gifts.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34Even in the context of this opulent sanctuary,
0:26:34 > 0:26:37it was a spectacular building.
0:26:37 > 0:26:40But today, there's almost nothing left to see.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44So even though I'm no artist, I find it helps to try to draw
0:26:44 > 0:26:48what was once there to get some idea of its magnificence.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54What you can see here today is just the foundations.
0:26:54 > 0:26:59It was on top of those that they placed the Siphnian marble, brought all the way from their home island.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03This was the first building at Delphi to be made entirely of marble.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06And on top of the Siphnian marble walls, sculpture in marble,
0:27:06 > 0:27:10and they didn't stint there either with the decoration.
0:27:12 > 0:27:16They commissioned some of Greece's finest sculptors to adorn the treasury.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20And they put their most spectacular scene on the wall facing the path
0:27:20 > 0:27:22up to the temple where everyone could see it.
0:27:25 > 0:27:29It depicted the great Greek myth about the war between the gods and the giants.
0:27:29 > 0:27:34Carved with incredible depth and skill to make the figures leap out at the viewer.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37The ancient equivalent of the 3D movies.
0:27:38 > 0:27:44In front, the portico was supported by two enormous caryatid columns.
0:27:44 > 0:27:45And unlike what we see today,
0:27:45 > 0:27:48all the sculpture was brightly painted and inlaid with
0:27:48 > 0:27:52precious metals to make the details of the sculpture stand out.
0:27:52 > 0:27:53And if that seems flashy,
0:27:53 > 0:27:56well, that's exactly what it was meant to be.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00Over time this kind of thing gave Delphi a collection of sculpture
0:28:00 > 0:28:03almost unparalleled in the ancient world.
0:28:03 > 0:28:04But we also have to remember this.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08For the Greeks, statues were not just stone.
0:28:08 > 0:28:10They were potentially animate.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13They lived, they breathed, they responded.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16So when we look around here, we shouldn't see statues made
0:28:16 > 0:28:21of dead stone or bronze, but statues shimmering with life.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29The Siphnian treasury marks the cusp of the classical age of ancient Greece.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32An age of which Delphi was going to be the beating heart.
0:28:32 > 0:28:33But it was more than that.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36Delphi was the historical logbook of the age.
0:28:36 > 0:28:41As every key moment in history was represented here in bronze, gold,
0:28:41 > 0:28:46marble, so that history began to accumulate a power of its own.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49And when the Greeks came here, to ask the Oracle who they were,
0:28:49 > 0:28:54as the Oracle demanded, Delphi itself provided a kind of answer,
0:28:54 > 0:28:56an answer that was growing all the time.
0:29:01 > 0:29:05At this time, the answer seemed to be that they were winners.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09The sanctuary became a kind of trophy chest of Greek victories in war.
0:29:09 > 0:29:14And, in particular, their victories in their epic struggle against the Persians.
0:29:16 > 0:29:20The initial Athenian victory at Marathon in 490 BC,
0:29:20 > 0:29:24and the clinching victories at Salamis in 480 BC
0:29:24 > 0:29:27and Plataea the following year.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35In celebrating these victories, they created an ideal.
0:29:35 > 0:29:37That of Greek Unity.
0:29:37 > 0:29:43And it was first celebrated, where else, but right here at the Ompholos at Delphi.
0:29:46 > 0:29:51I worked beside Anne Jacquemin when I first began to study the sanctuary.
0:29:51 > 0:29:54Now she and her colleagues have made an extraordinary discovery,
0:29:54 > 0:29:58which has finally confirmed the importance of Delphi
0:29:58 > 0:29:59as a unifying space.
0:29:59 > 0:30:04It concerns the inscription on the base of the giant statue of Apollo,
0:30:04 > 0:30:08which the cities who fought at Salamis put up outside the temple.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34Unfortunately, the statue's dedicating inscription is damaged.
0:30:34 > 0:30:39The first word identifying the dedicator is missing.
0:31:00 > 0:31:04Until this time, almost all dedications had been by individual people or cities.
0:31:04 > 0:31:10But here we know that the last word, anethen, is in the plural.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14And the physical alignment of the letters cuts down the possibilities.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10So the Salamis monument was saying something completely new.
0:32:10 > 0:32:15That there was a community who thought of themselves as Greeks,
0:32:15 > 0:32:18and it was not only united, but victorious.
0:32:22 > 0:32:24This is exactly the kind of unifying message that
0:32:24 > 0:32:30so excited the original excavators, and indeed still excites UNESCO and other international bodies today.
0:32:30 > 0:32:36The idea that Greece and the ancient world was one nation, one country, one idea. And it is an amazing idea.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39Greece in the ancient world, most of the Greek cities
0:32:39 > 0:32:42spent all their time at each other's throats, not in unity.
0:32:42 > 0:32:46And this statue became a crucial marker in the sanctuary as a result.
0:32:46 > 0:32:50It was known as Megale Andras, the Big Man.
0:32:56 > 0:33:02This idea of Greek unity continued to inspire dedications at Delphi.
0:33:04 > 0:33:08On the same terrace, a year or two later, another dedication went up.
0:33:08 > 0:33:12It became the most famous of all Delphi's monuments.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20It celebrated the victory against the Persians at Plataea.
0:33:20 > 0:33:25And on it were carved the names of the cities who had contributed soldiers.
0:33:28 > 0:33:33It was a huge bronze column made of three coiled serpents
0:33:33 > 0:33:36supporting at the top a golden tripod bowl.
0:33:36 > 0:33:41The serpent column was a staggering nine metres high
0:33:41 > 0:33:45and it was to become the defining icon of Delphi.
0:33:45 > 0:33:51But today in Delphi, there's only a replica, five feet tall.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02The victory at Plataea was an amazing moment.
0:34:02 > 0:34:08Individual little cities of Greece had managed to defeat the greatest empire in the Mediterranean.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11And from that point, Greek unity would be sung as an ideal
0:34:11 > 0:34:14by the poets, praised by the philosophers,
0:34:14 > 0:34:15aimed at by the politicians.
0:34:15 > 0:34:23But it was always an ideal at risk from the traditional rivalries that made Greece what it was.
0:34:23 > 0:34:26Rivalries on display here in the sanctuary.
0:34:29 > 0:34:31Even on the terrace surrounding the serpent column,
0:34:31 > 0:34:37individual cities put up still bigger monuments to their own glory.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41Despite the idealism, the competition continued.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50In that competition, one city took the lead,
0:34:50 > 0:34:58Athens, which ruled the roost for four decades from 480BC to 440BC.
0:34:58 > 0:35:00It was Delphi's advice to the Athenians to rely on
0:35:00 > 0:35:06the wooden walls of their fleet which had helped preserve the city in the Persian wars.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10And that fed an Athenian cultural explosion which can still be heard
0:35:10 > 0:35:15today, as classical art, philosophy and literature were transformed.
0:35:20 > 0:35:25Modern Greece has always looked back at that time as a golden age.
0:35:25 > 0:35:30Even today, there is a nod to the Delphian way of doing things.
0:35:30 > 0:35:36Just as in Delphi, ancient Greeks put up statues and inscriptions about their victories,
0:35:36 > 0:35:39Here on the podium of the Parliament building in Athens
0:35:39 > 0:35:42are the battle honours of the modern Greeks,
0:35:42 > 0:35:45right up to Alamein and Korea.
0:35:50 > 0:35:53It's no surprise that the modern-day capital of Greece is Athens,
0:35:53 > 0:35:56for in the balmy days after the Persian wars,
0:35:56 > 0:35:59it was the city of Athens that benefited most.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02They had their fleet, they took the fight to the enemy and then
0:36:02 > 0:36:07they created an empire that spanned much of the ancient Greek world.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19Success allowed the Athenians to decorate their city
0:36:19 > 0:36:23with some of the most beautiful buildings the world has ever seen.
0:36:24 > 0:36:29And to fund a political system whose ideals we still live by today,
0:36:29 > 0:36:34and even fight wars over more than 2,500 years later.
0:36:34 > 0:36:39It was in Athens that democracy was born and the idea that votes,
0:36:39 > 0:36:44not wealth or breeding, should determine politics.
0:36:44 > 0:36:50Not far from the city centre, you can climb a hill where it all happened.
0:36:50 > 0:36:54Where the state assembly met, composed of the whole voting population.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58And astonishingly enough, the speakers' podium still survives,
0:36:58 > 0:37:02here in the middle of the flat space where the citizens stood.
0:37:02 > 0:37:07Most people think of the Parthenon as the centre of ancient Athens,
0:37:07 > 0:37:10but I believe that this place is much more important.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13This was the assembly of the ancient Athenians where they came to make
0:37:13 > 0:37:16every decision including going to war.
0:37:16 > 0:37:23This was the place that allowed Pericles later to claim that Athens was an education to all of Greece.
0:37:23 > 0:37:30And, in fact, just centuries later, it was the governing council at Delphi who put it perhaps best.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32"It was the Athenian people
0:37:32 > 0:37:34being the font and origins of all things
0:37:34 > 0:37:41beneficial to humanity, who raised mankind from a bestial existence to a state of civilization".
0:37:43 > 0:37:46For those who built the modern state of Greece and for those
0:37:46 > 0:37:50who excavated at Delphi, that idea was an irresistible call
0:37:50 > 0:37:56to unpack the ancient world and to make it part of their and our identity.
0:37:56 > 0:38:01From then on, "know thyself" meant knowing ancient Greece.
0:38:10 > 0:38:14Amazingly, we do know an enormous amount about that democracy.
0:38:14 > 0:38:16We can actually see it in action.
0:38:19 > 0:38:22In a remote corner of the university district
0:38:22 > 0:38:24is the state epigraphic museum.
0:38:26 > 0:38:32I like it because it contains direct evidence of how the Athenian democracy worked.
0:38:35 > 0:38:37Here is the machine which decided
0:38:37 > 0:38:41by lot who was to sit on the 500-strong grand juries.
0:38:41 > 0:38:44Rather like a lottery machine today.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52Here is a list of those,
0:38:52 > 0:38:55rich and poor, who died in battle for the democracy.
0:38:55 > 0:39:00It even names individuals like Nikostratos and Philokomos,
0:39:00 > 0:39:02who were killed near the Black Sea.
0:39:02 > 0:39:06Here are pottery shards, which bare the names of Athens'
0:39:06 > 0:39:11most famous politicians Themistokles and Pericles.
0:39:11 > 0:39:17But here, too, is an eight-foot high list of the cities who had to pay up
0:39:17 > 0:39:19as members of the Athenian empire.
0:39:19 > 0:39:24It's evidence of how the unity of Greece proclaimed at Delphi
0:39:24 > 0:39:28was beginning to turn into domination by one city.
0:39:34 > 0:39:38For democrats, this is an inspiring place, coming face to face with
0:39:38 > 0:39:41the realities and mechanics of Athenian democracy.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44But we shouldn't get too carried away about Athenian democracy.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47For one, it excluded women, foreigners and slaves.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51And secondly, it was the Athenian democracy that ran the oppressive
0:39:51 > 0:39:56Athenian empire, which some cities saw not as the bringer of freedom, but of tyranny.
0:39:59 > 0:40:01From the Persian wars onwards,
0:40:01 > 0:40:04Athens festooned the sanctuary at Delphi
0:40:04 > 0:40:08with monuments in order to hammer home their dominance over Greece.
0:40:12 > 0:40:17It began with a new treasury to celebrate their victory at Marathon.
0:40:17 > 0:40:23On it, an Athenian hero, Theseus, slayer of the minotaur,
0:40:23 > 0:40:27got equal billing with Heracles, hero to all of Greece.
0:40:28 > 0:40:33The message of the treasury was, for Greece, read Athens.
0:40:35 > 0:40:39But this unsubtle display of ego didn't stop there.
0:40:39 > 0:40:43We're at the entrance to the sanctuary, and it was here in
0:40:43 > 0:40:47the mid-fifth century at the height of their empire that the Athenians
0:40:47 > 0:40:50built a monument that would take pole position,
0:40:50 > 0:40:54that would be the first thing that people saw as they came into the sanctuary.
0:40:54 > 0:40:58And it was an interesting monument. It wasn't just statues of gods,
0:40:58 > 0:41:01but also statues of the founding heroes of Athens itself.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11All these monuments were saying,
0:41:11 > 0:41:15we dominate the sanctuary, just as we dominate Greece.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18The ancient Greeks had a word for this kind of arrogance -
0:41:18 > 0:41:22we still use it today - hubris.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25Athens was riding for a fall.
0:41:31 > 0:41:35The Athenian expansion was underpinned by the Athenian fleet.
0:41:38 > 0:41:44But eventually some of the other cities of Greece could stand Athenian arrogance no longer.
0:41:49 > 0:41:50One of them was Sparta,
0:41:50 > 0:41:55which had been supreme on land for most of the century.
0:41:55 > 0:41:57War broke out.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00It was a titanic struggle.
0:42:00 > 0:42:05Battles were fought right across the Mediterranean, from Sicily
0:42:05 > 0:42:10to the Black Sea and it changed the Greek world and Delphi, too, forever.
0:42:12 > 0:42:15In the end, after 50 years of on-off conflict,
0:42:15 > 0:42:18the Spartans with the help of Persian money built a fleet
0:42:18 > 0:42:21that was able to cut off the Athenian grain supply
0:42:21 > 0:42:23and then defeat the Athenian fleet in battle.
0:42:23 > 0:42:25The result was a famous scene.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28The Spartans came into Athens and they forced the Athenians
0:42:28 > 0:42:32to knock down their own stout walls that had defended the city.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35But one of the best ways to see how the Spartans celebrated
0:42:35 > 0:42:38their great victory is back over there, at Delphi.
0:42:43 > 0:42:47Now, for the first time, the Spartans began to build at Delphi.
0:42:47 > 0:42:51And they deliberately targeted the monuments Athens had built.
0:43:00 > 0:43:04The Athenian monument at the entrance was a gift to Apollo.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07So the Spartans couldn't just knock it down.
0:43:11 > 0:43:14Instead, they upstaged it.
0:43:14 > 0:43:18They started by deliberately obscuring the Athenian monument
0:43:18 > 0:43:23with a collection of 38 statues of their own victorious generals.
0:43:23 > 0:43:28Then they built a dominating portico on the opposite side of the sacred way.
0:43:28 > 0:43:31But the struggles between the Greek cities didn't stop.
0:43:31 > 0:43:35And in time, even the Spartans were defeated.
0:43:35 > 0:43:39Right on cue, their enemies, the Arcadians, put up a monument
0:43:39 > 0:43:42of their own which ruined the view of Spartan portico.
0:43:51 > 0:43:55It's not just that these real-life wars were represented by these monuments here.
0:43:55 > 0:43:59These monuments lived those battles themselves.
0:43:59 > 0:44:04Remember I said that for the Greeks, statues weren't just pieces of stone, they shimmered with life.
0:44:04 > 0:44:07And in the later writers, we hear stories of these statues
0:44:07 > 0:44:10actually dying when their real life dedicators died in battle.
0:44:10 > 0:44:14So when the Spartan power finally faded and their general, Lysander,
0:44:14 > 0:44:18was finally killed, his statue was said to have crumbled.
0:44:22 > 0:44:28The battles rolled on. The cities of Greece were in near permanent conflict for 100 years.
0:44:28 > 0:44:33And at every stage, they put up monuments at Delphi to celebrate the struggle.
0:44:33 > 0:44:39Delphi was one of the few places where Greeks could come together in common worship.
0:44:39 > 0:44:45But, ironically, it became the place where they also expressed their differences most extremely.
0:44:45 > 0:44:46"Know thyself."
0:44:46 > 0:44:49Increasingly, the story Delphi told the Greeks
0:44:49 > 0:44:54was not once as it had been with the Salamis Apollo about Greek unity.
0:44:54 > 0:44:58Instead, it was about ungovernable ambition.
0:44:58 > 0:45:00A storyboard of mutual hostility.
0:45:00 > 0:45:04And, so, it's not without irony that amongst all these scenes
0:45:04 > 0:45:09of extravagant put-downs and one-upmanship, right next door to the maxim "know thyself"
0:45:09 > 0:45:16on the temple, was another and it read simply "Nothing in excess."
0:45:22 > 0:45:25Over time, this competition of excessive display
0:45:25 > 0:45:28and monument building created something very special.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34Nothing could be destroyed because it all belonged to Apollo.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37So these monuments had to remain here for all time.
0:45:41 > 0:45:46As the centuries unfolded, each one was represented in the sanctuary.
0:45:49 > 0:45:54So walking through Delphi is like walking through the story of ancient Greece.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58The story of one of the most important periods in human history,
0:45:58 > 0:46:02told in the form of some of its most spectacular artistic creations.
0:46:04 > 0:46:10But by mid fourth century, a new power began to take over Greece, that of Macedon.
0:46:10 > 0:46:14Phillip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great, who would come and take
0:46:14 > 0:46:18over not just much of Greece but much of the ancient world.
0:46:21 > 0:46:24In Greece itself, politics was transformed.
0:46:24 > 0:46:30These Macedonian Greek kings and their successors imposed order
0:46:30 > 0:46:35and peace on the squabbling Greek cities.
0:46:35 > 0:46:37The age of competition was over.
0:46:37 > 0:46:44So they came here to Delphi to go live and declare their power directly to the people.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48For Delphi, that was business as usual.
0:46:48 > 0:46:53What's more, in the sanctuary we find a new and revealing practice.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57Beneath the temple terrace stands a retaining wall of polygonal masonry.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01And there people came to write still more messages.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06But this time, the messages had legal force. They were contracts.
0:47:06 > 0:47:10Contracts confirming the freedom of individual slaves.
0:47:11 > 0:47:14Dominique Mulliez has been studying them for decades.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33The process was this. These slaves had managed to buy their freedom.
0:47:33 > 0:47:37But because they had no legal rights until they were free,
0:47:37 > 0:47:40the owners gave them to the god, in order to make them free,
0:47:40 > 0:47:43and that's what the contracts describe.
0:48:36 > 0:48:40These carvings are certainly not a declaration of human rights,
0:48:40 > 0:48:44but it's telling that even lowly slaves came to take their place here
0:48:44 > 0:48:51amongst the great and good who had been commemorated at Delphi over 700 years of Greek history.
0:48:51 > 0:48:56But then, in 168 BC, everything changed.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59A new power took over.
0:48:59 > 0:49:00Rome.
0:49:10 > 0:49:15For Greeks, the Roman conquest meant the end of their independence.
0:49:15 > 0:49:19But Greece's prestige meant that Roman leaders still found it useful
0:49:19 > 0:49:22to emphasise their power at Delphi
0:49:22 > 0:49:25with a series of magnificent monuments.
0:49:25 > 0:49:29More over, their religious outlook was very similar, so some of
0:49:29 > 0:49:32the sanctuary's most beautiful treasures date from that time.
0:49:32 > 0:49:36The stadium was rebuilt in stone and the temple of Apollo restored.
0:49:36 > 0:49:42They even expanded the gymnasium and added a characteristically Roman plunge pool.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48Yet something had changed.
0:49:48 > 0:49:51Delphi was no longer in the political mainstream.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55By the 1st century AD, we find even Plutarch and his friends lamenting
0:49:55 > 0:50:00that the Oracle was no longer the political arbiter it had been.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05But even though the Oracle was no longer being heeded
0:50:05 > 0:50:08on the international stage, Delphi still had its place.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11Even the most important people in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds
0:50:11 > 0:50:15tried to justify their importance by placing themselves here at Delphi.
0:50:15 > 0:50:19The irony of those mottos "know thyself" and "nothing in excess" continued.
0:50:19 > 0:50:26But then something happened which did finally bring a halt to Delphi's story,
0:50:26 > 0:50:31and to understand what that was, we need to go a very long way indeed.
0:50:41 > 0:50:47In the fourth century AD, the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51He founded a new capital for the Empire.
0:50:53 > 0:50:54It's now known as Istanbul,
0:50:54 > 0:50:59but the emperor renamed it Constantinople, after himself.
0:50:59 > 0:51:02And it was a Christian capital.
0:51:02 > 0:51:07Not longer afterwards, one of his successors banned divination in the political field.
0:51:07 > 0:51:08And a decade after that,
0:51:08 > 0:51:12another Roman emperor banned the ancient gods completely.
0:51:14 > 0:51:21In 360AD, the last pagan emperor, Julian, sent a question to the Oracle back at Delphi.
0:51:21 > 0:51:26But the sources say that this was the only response he received.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30"Tell the king the fair-wrought hall has fallen to the ground.
0:51:30 > 0:51:35"The water of speech, even, is quenched."
0:51:35 > 0:51:39The Oracle at Delphi had finally fallen silent.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52Now a museum, once a mosque,
0:51:52 > 0:51:57this building began life as a great church of Hagia Sophia.
0:51:59 > 0:52:05It was built by one of Constantine's successors as the state church of the new Christian empire.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12The emperors decreed that the centre of the world, the Ompholos,
0:52:12 > 0:52:14was no longer in Delphi. It was here.
0:52:18 > 0:52:21The emperors were crowned here in Hagia Sophia,
0:52:21 > 0:52:24in a place they called the Omphalion.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28The architecture and symbolism here show all too clearly
0:52:28 > 0:52:32how the world of classical Greece had been transformed forever.
0:52:34 > 0:52:37This place's name, Hagia Sophia, means holy wisdom.
0:52:37 > 0:52:42But not the kind of wisdom, that edgy self-awareness, that was on display at Delphi.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46Here, that wisdom is part of monotheistic religious orthodoxy,
0:52:46 > 0:52:52and the politics it represents isn't that of the showing off and elbow shoving of the classical Greeks.
0:52:52 > 0:52:56Here, it's all about an absolute, incontestable autocracy.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00And in that very new world, the Ompholos
0:53:00 > 0:53:04is now the place where the Byzantine emperors themselves were crowned.
0:53:06 > 0:53:08But, astonishingly, here in this city,
0:53:08 > 0:53:14there is still a direct link back to the days when Delphi had been the centre of the ancient world.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20In the emperor's new capital,
0:53:20 > 0:53:23there had to be a stadium for chariot races.
0:53:23 > 0:53:27Bigger and better than racetracks anywhere else, including Rome.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33With, in the middle where everyone could see it,
0:53:33 > 0:53:36cultural booty from all round the empire.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42And from Delphi they brought perhaps the most potent symbol of all,
0:53:42 > 0:53:48the serpent column, symbol of Greek unity and of Greece's heroic past.
0:53:51 > 0:53:53And here it is,
0:53:53 > 0:53:57battered and broken, imprisoned, overshadowed by the obelisks
0:53:57 > 0:54:01on either side, forgotten.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05The serpent column of Plataea, from the fifth century BC that stood
0:54:05 > 0:54:08opposite the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
0:54:08 > 0:54:13And the names still just barely legible on the coils of those cities and states who came together
0:54:13 > 0:54:16to fight against the Persian invasion of Greece.
0:54:16 > 0:54:19You know, I often wonder that if the bronze and stones of
0:54:19 > 0:54:22the ancient world could talk, what would they say to us?
0:54:22 > 0:54:25This creature would have a lot of stories to tell.
0:54:25 > 0:54:29Not just the 800 years it spent at Delphi, but its history after that.
0:54:29 > 0:54:34It came here to Constantinople, modern day Istanbul, and was placed in the Hippodrome,
0:54:34 > 0:54:40the charioteers it saw racing round it, the wars, the crusades, got turned into a fountain at one point.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46It's an incredibly sad sight to see it now, today,
0:54:46 > 0:54:49forgotten in something almost akin to a bit of rubbish dump.
0:54:49 > 0:54:55But we have to remember, this piece is almost 2,500 years old.
0:54:55 > 0:55:00And, for me, that makes it a miracle that it's here at all.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11For this small town on the side of a Greek mountain,
0:55:11 > 0:55:13it's been an astonishing career.
0:55:15 > 0:55:20Delphi has been a local shrine and an arbiter of international events.
0:55:20 > 0:55:26A focus of national unity and an arena for intense political rivalry.
0:55:26 > 0:55:30And its messages, "know thyself" and "nothing in excess,"
0:55:30 > 0:55:32still reverberate.
0:55:57 > 0:56:01For me, the message is actually think about yourselves in relation
0:56:01 > 0:56:04to others and understand yourselves.
0:56:09 > 0:56:12Delphi is referred to in the ancient world often as a theatron,
0:56:12 > 0:56:14their word for spectacle, out word for theatre.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18A place where people came to watch, but also to be seen,
0:56:18 > 0:56:23to discuss, to debate, to think about themselves and the world around them.
0:56:23 > 0:56:25And Delphi is still doing that for us today.
0:56:25 > 0:56:30It's broadcasting many different messages to many different people.
0:56:30 > 0:56:35But for me, it's about that double-edgedness that Delphi has,
0:56:35 > 0:56:39that ambiguity and yet clarity,
0:56:39 > 0:56:43that unity and yet rivalry, the constant reinvention
0:56:43 > 0:56:48of what Delphi is that forces the question and reflection back on us.
0:56:48 > 0:56:54It makes us think about ourselves, our limitations and, ultimately,
0:56:54 > 0:56:56about our own humanity.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:57:12 > 0:57:15Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk