In this excerpt from episode 9 of Series 4 of the Antiquities Travel Guide, Dr. M explains how the great oracle at Didyma was first destroyed by the Persians and then restored by Alexander.
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Subscribe the most famous Oracle of
Apollo was of course at Deli in Greece
but the one here at Dima was probably
the second most famous Oracle and what
was an oracle basically you would come
here to get your fortune remember Apollo
is associated with prophecy now at Deli
you bring a question to the Oracle
usually and express it verbally here at
Dima they wanted you to write it down so
you'd bring a written question that you
would give to Apollo and then you would
get your fortune so after you brought
your question uh to the Oracle uh a
priestess would do fasting and ritual
prayers over the sacred spring which was
originally right here in the
didon uh and she would then utter a
prophecy of Apollo for you it'd be kind
of a fortune it'd be something that
could be interpreted a few different
ways so that there's more of a chance of
it becoming true kind of like a fortune
cookie type Fortune um but you would get
a message here from her now in later
times the spring dried up I think even
by the time of the CIS Temple the spring
had dried up and they uh made a well
here instead and uh the same sorts of
rituals were performed at the
well interesting story king crus of
Lydia we are told was being threatened
by by the Persians and he wanted to know
what was going to happen uh and he was
planning to go to war with them but he
wanted to get uh his you know oracle
from Apollo so he he actually had a
message brought here and he also had one
sent to
Deli and uh he didn't like the message
that he got here I guess it had
something to do he was going to lose or
something and uh so he he much preferred
the Oracle that he got from delphy which
was uh that if he went to war with
Persia a mighty Empire will be destroyed
and he interpreted that to mean Persia
so he's like I like that one well when
he went to war with Persia he lost and
his mighty Empire was destroyed oh cesis
when the Persians entered this area the
uh Priestly family that operated the
temple they're called the broni family
uh they traced their lineage back to
this legendary figure named Broncos uh
they surrendered the temple and all of
its Treasures to King Xerxes of Persia
and he destroyed the temple
stole the the statue of Apollo and took
it back to Persia uh well the people of
the city never forgave the priests for
that and the Brony uh ended up fleeing
the area and it went into decline it it
uh practically uh shut down and uh it
wasn't until Alexander the Great came in
the 4th Century BCE and reconquered this
area uh that the temple was reopened He
restored the temple and he ordered that
it be built even bigger so in the
helenistic period that followed
Alexander more work was being done on it
these walls that you see around here
just to give you an idea of the size
here these are about onethird of the
original height okay onethird of the
original height these uh blacks here
with all the decorative elements they
were up on the top yeah they went much
higher cuz you know the columns over
there basically as high as that this
would been huge tall magnificent
building anyway uh Alexander liked the
temple because they gave him a a
wonderful uh Fortune for himself but he
had not the the traditional Priestly
family operate this Temple from that
point forward but the administration of
the city of milus which is right nearby
they were in charge of the Oracle from
that time forward
