In Greek mythology Python, serpent, was the earth-dragon of Delphi, always represented in sculpture and vase-paintings as a serpent. She resided at the Delphic oracle, which existed in the cult center for her mother, Gaia, Earth, Pytho being the place name. The site was considered the center of the earth, being thought of and represented as Mother Earth's navel, which Python guarded. The bust of Zeus found at Otricoli (Sala Rotonda, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican) Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. ... For other uses, see Delphi (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Serpent (disambiguation). ... This article is about prophetic oracles in various cultures. ... Look up Gaia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Pytho became the chthonic enemy of the later Olympian deity Apollo, destroyer or apple-man, who slew her and remade her former home and the oracle, the most famous in Classical Greece, as his own. (But also see, Dodona, for the earlier traditions.) Changes such as these in ancient myths may reflect a profound change in the religious concepts of the culture. Some were gradual over time and others occurred abruptly following invasion. For other uses, see Chthon (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Apollo (disambiguation). ... Parthenon This article is on the term Classical Greece itself. ... For other uses, see Dodona (disambiguation). ...

There are various versions of Python's birth and death at the hands of Apollo. In what is identified as the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, now thought rather to be composed in 522 BC during Classical times,^[1] little detail is given about Apollo's combat with the serpent or her parentage. The version related by Hyginus^[2] holds that when Zeus lay with the goddess Leto, and she was to deliver Artemis and Apollo, Hera sent Python to pursue her throughout the lands, so that she could not deliver wherever the sun shone. Thus when Apollo the infant was grown he pursued the python, making his way straight for Mount Parnassus where the serpent dwelled, and chased it to the oracle of Gaia at Delphi, and dared to penetrate the sacred precinct and kill her with his arrows beside the rock cleft where the priestess sat on her tripod. Robert Graves, who habitually read into primitive myths a retelling of archaic political and social turmoil, saw in this the capturing by Hellenes of a pre-Hellenic shrine. "To placate local opinion at Delphi," he wrote in The Greek Myths, "regular funeral games were instituted in honour of the dead hero Python, and her priestess was retained in office." The politics are conjectural, but the myth reports that Zeus ordered Apollo to purify himself for the sacrilege and instituted the Pythian Games, over which Apollo was to preside, as penance for his act. The anonymous Homeric Hymns are a collection of ancient Greek hymns. ... Gaius Julius Hyginus, (c. ... For other uses, see Zeus (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Leto (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Artemis (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Apollo (disambiguation). ... Mount Parnassus is a mountain of barren limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside. ... For other uses, see Gaia. ... Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, scholar, and novelist. ... For other uses, see Greek (disambiguation). ... Sacrilege is in general the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object. ... View of the stadium of the Delphi sanctuary, used for the Pythian Games. ...

Erwin Rohde wrote that the Python was an earth spirit, who was conquered by Apollo, and buried under the Omphalos, and that it is a case of one god setting up his temple on the grave of another.^[3] Erwin Rohde (1845 - 1898) was one of the great German classical scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries. ... The Omphalos in Delphi An omphalos is a religious stone artifact in the ancient world. ...

The priestess of the oracle at Delphi became known as the Pythia, after the place-name Pytho, which was named after the rotting (πύθειν) of the serpent's corpse after she was slain.^[4] This article is about prophetic oracles in various cultures. ... For other uses, see Delphi (disambiguation). ...

Kerenyi points out^[5] that the older tales mentioned two dragons, who were perhaps intentionally conflated; the other was a female dragon (drakaina) named Delphyne in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, with whom dwelt a male serpent named Typhon: "The narrators seem to have confused the dragon of Delphi with Typhon or Typhoeus, the adversary of Zeus". The enemy dragoness "... became an Apollonian serpent, and Pythia, the priestess who gave oracles at Delphi, was named after him. Many pictures show the serpent Python living in amity with Apollon and guarding the Omphalos, the sacred navel-stone and mid-point of the earth, which stood in Apollon's temple." (Kerenyi) In Greek mythology, Delphyne is the name of the female dragon appointed by Gaea. ... Zeus darting his lightning at Typhon, Chalcidian black-figured hydria, ca. ... Chalcidian black-figure hydria of Typhon fighting Zeus, c. ... For other uses, see Pythia (disambiguation). ... The Omphalos in Delphi An omphalos is a religious stone artifact in the ancient world. ...

See also

• Apollo Belvedere
• Delphi
• Dragons in Greek mythology
• Pythia
• Serpent
• Serpent (symbolism)
• Greek Mythology

The Apollo Belvedere, also called the Pythian Apollo, is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity. ... For other uses, see Delphi (disambiguation). ... Dragons play a role in Greek mythology. ... For other uses, see Pythia (disambiguation). ... Serpent can be any of the following: The reptile commonly called snake. ... For other uses, see Serpent (disambiguation). ... The bust of Zeus found at Otricoli (Sala Rotonda, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican) Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. ...

Notes

1. ^ Walter Burkert, 'Kynaithos, Polycrates and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo' in Arktouros: Hellenic studies presented to B. M. W. Knox ed. G. W. Bowersock, W. Burkert, M. C. J. Putnam (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1979) pp. 53-62.
2. ^ Fabulae 130.
3. ^ cf. Rohde, Psyche, p.97.
4. ^ Homeric Hymn to Apollo, 363-369.
5. ^ The Gods of the Greeks p. 136.

Walter Burkert (born Neuendettelsau (Bavaria), February 2, 1931), the most eminent living scholar of Greek myth and cult, is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland who has also taught in the United Kingdom and the United States. ...

References

• Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion 1985.
• Deane, John Bathurst, The Worship of the Serpent, 1833. Cf. Chapter V., p.329. [1] [2]
• Farnell, Lewis Richard, The Cults of the Greek States, 1896.
• Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy, Python; a study of Delphic myth and its origins, 1959.
• Goodrich, Norma Lorre, Priestesses, 1990.
• Guthrie, William Keith Chambers, The Greeks and their Gods, 1955.
• Hall, Manly Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, 1928. Ch. 14 cf. Greek Oracles,www, PRS
• Harrison, Jane Ellen, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912. cf. Chapter IX, p.329 especially, on the slaying of the Python.
• Kerenyi, Karl, (1951) 1980. The Gods of the Greeks especially pp 135-6. [3] [4]
• Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo
• Rohde, Erwin, Psyche, 1925.
• Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870, article on Python, [5]