Απολλων Ἑκατος

Serve honestly.

He is beauty, he is death, he is healing, he is plague.

Thank You, Lord Apollon

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It is related to Branchus when him and the god kissed, and then Apollo breathe the gift of prophecy onto him. An altar to Apollo in this epithet was then set up where they kissed -- which is in Miletus, Didyma.

How Smikros married the daughter of a distinguished Milesian and she, when giving birth, saw an image of the sun coming in through her mouth, passing through her stomach, and emerging from her genitals.

To the seers the vision was a fine one. She had a son, and called him Branchos because the sun had passed through her bronchia. And this boy was the handsomest of men. Apollo found him working as a shepherd, fell in love, and kissed him, and an altar of Apollo of the Kiss was established there.

And Branchos, having had the gift of prophecy breathed into him by Apollo, established himself in the hamlet of Didyma. And up to the present day the oracle of the Branchidai is recognized as the best, after Delphi, of all the Greek oracular sites we know.

- Conon, Narrations

The homeromanteion, or the homeric oracle, is a form of dice divination using fragments of homeric verses to get oracular answers by lot. According to the oxyrhynchus papyrus, it could be also called ‘the scimitar’.

To perform the homeromanteion, first, you need to check that the days and hours (see below) are favourable for divination.

Once the timing is favourable, you then recite a set prayer to Apollo (see below) while thinking of the question you want answered. The prayer is made of five lines from homeric verses. The first three are consecutive lines from the Iliad (Il. XVI 514-516), then two seperate lines from the Odyssey (Od. I 147; Od. XVIII 173).

Then, a dice has to be rolled thrice (or three die once); the three digit number obtained will correspond to a homeric verse, which will be the oracular answer. Below is a list of the possible results and their corresponding fragment. (Excuse the text size, for a list the clearer, see: this pdf – you have to scroll a lot though soz.)

For an online homeromanteion, see: here.

Sources:

PGM VII 1-148

P. Oxy. LVI 3831

Thanatos no longer comes to collect the archer god’s dead. Hermes has to crouch down to where his brother cowers over the corpse and give him words of comfort and dry his tears and pry his hands away from the limp body. He promises that he will bring his darlings to Elysium and that they will be fine and free of pain. And still every time his big brother cries and begs for him to let their soul remain in the body he can hold, begs Hermes to finally let him cross the border to the underworld himself. And every time Hermes listens and embraces him and let’s Apollo bury his face in the crook of his neck knowing exactly that he won’t bring his loves back and would never let his beloved brother leave this earth.

Cats at the Temple of Apollo Site // Delphi Archeological site, Greece