Hello Mrs Reames! Quick question as someone that is still new to Alexander the Great, I was on TikTok the other day and someone posted a TikTok of an incident in which Alexander the Great supposedly dragged the oracle of Delphi out by her hair because she couldn't give him a prophecy that day, is this true?
Alexander and the Delphic Oracle
First, before answering, let’s do a quick PSA. I’m sure the asker meant to address me in the most polite way they knew how, and I’ve run into this error frequently with undergrads, who (at least in American public schools) are told to address a female teacher as “Ms.” or “Mrs.”
Thus, I offer this correction as gently as possible. But it’s important in an era when titles are being withheld from women as a means of belittlement—then, if a woman dares to object, they’re made fun of or called uppity and “sensitive.”* Again, I’m sure the asker here did not mean anything unkind (or they wouldn’t be asking me something in the first place!). So this is NOT a slap at them. But I’m not a Mrs. (I'm not married, and Reames is my birth name). I’m Dr. Reames or Professor Reames. You can even call me Jeanne (as long as you’re not a student in my class, ha). If you’re a (US) college student and unsure if your instructor has a PhD, “professor” is always safe. 😊
Plutarch tells a rather peculiar little story of new King Alexander, on his way home from a meeting of the Corinthian League (in Corinth), stopping at Delphi to ask the oracle a question. I should add, this event occurs right after Plutarch’s description of ATG’s meeting with the Cynic philosopher Diogenes. (E.g., it’s part of a “theme.”)
Now, the Delphic oracle wasn’t open for consults all the time. She only heard them a day or so a month…and that for only some months of the year. He came at the wrong time of year (winter, when Dionysos held the oracle, not his half-brother Apollo). So she told him, “No.” Reportedly, he stormed to her little house in the village of Delphi to manhandle her, intending to drag her to the oracle for his query. She replied, “Son! You’re invincible!” Pleased with that, he let her go.
And Plutarch presents this as if it’s all a-okay.
This is weird. It’s weird that Plutarch, a priest of Delphi from Chaironeia, wasn’t up in arms about this clear affront to an honored oracle (and an old woman). It’s an act of asebia (impiety). But it would be even weirder if Alexander had actually done it. Alexander, the uber-pious.
Plutarch is the ONLY one to tell this story. Anywhere.
Yet there’s a story remarkably like it with different players set during the Third Sacred War when the Phokians had seized the Oracle. It’s this event that set off the war, and which brought ol’ Philip into southern politics and eventually landed him a seat on the Amphictyonic Council as a staunch “Defender of Apollo.” Philomelos was the leader of the Phokians early in the war. Below are both accounts, starting with Diodoros’s (original source likely Kallisthenes, who wrote a history of the war).
With the oracle in Philomelus’ hands, he instructed the Pythia to continue prophesying from the tripod in the traditional way. When she refused, he threatened her and compelled her to mount the tripod. To this display of excessive force, she responded by declaring that he could do whatever he wanted—and he was pleased by this and declared that he had the oracle that suited him. He immediately had the oracle inscribed and set up for all to see, in order to make it clear that he had the god’s permission to do whatever he wanted, and he convened an assembly at which he boosted morale in the ranks by telling them about the prophecy (Diod. 16.27.1-2, Waterfield trans).
And now, wishing to consult the god concerning the expedition against Asia, [Alexander] went to Delphi; and since he chanced to come on one of the inauspicious days, when it is not lawful to deliver oracles, in the first place he sent a summons to the prophetess. And when she refused to perform her office and cited the law in her excuse, he went up himself and tried to drag her to temple, whereupon, as if overcome by his ardour, she said: “Thou art invincible, my son!” On hearing this, Alexander said he desired no further prophecy, but had from her the oracle which he wanted (Plut. Alex. 14.4, Perrin trans.)
With Philomelos, there is no question later in Diodoros that his act was impiety. His eventual death is (partly) attributed to it. Plutarch picks up this event, dusts it off, recasts the “inquirer,” and—moreover—uses it as affirmation of Alexander’s “invincibility.” Remember “The Invincible” was his nickname in Greece in his own day. The Romans called him Magnus (the Great).
In short, Plutarch retooled the story to suit his own purposes.
So no, it never happened. At least, not with Alexander. (And he’d have been horrified, I think, to hear he’d been accused of any such thing.)
Plutarch makes these detail changes when it suits him. I have an article coming out in a year or so where I discuss this tendency and bring the receipts (of quite a few examples)—including one I think a lot of folks here will find VERY interesting. But I’m not the only one saying it about this event in particular. It’s been noted as an “odd” episode before, including by Hamilton, if I recall (who did the commentary on Plutarch). But Lara O’Sullivan really showed where it came from, source-wise, in her “Callisthenes and Alexander the Invincible God,” P. Wheatley and E. Baynham, eds., East and West in the World Empire of Alexander: Essays in Honour of Brian Bosworth. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press (2015), 35–52.
Some may still wonder why Alexander wouldn’t have gone to the oracle?
He didn’t need to. His father already had. And if later historians (such as Diodoros) reinterpreted her pronouncement to be about Philip’s murder, not the fall of Persia, it was a positive reply at the time. Going to Delphi again might risk something less flattering/hopeful. Not to mention, it was the wrong time of the year, and Alexander knew that. He had more important fish to fry. He wasn’t going to hang around, waiting (for months) for an auspicious day.
He was good with the oracle his father had got. After all, he’d been trumpeting for months that “only the name of the king had changed.” The original oracle would do just fine.
*A BIG stink was made here in the US by the conservative media over Dr. Jill Biden being “Dr.” The initial "rebuke" stemmed from the fact her degree is “just” a doctor of education. When that faced pushback, however, conservatives on social media began to fuss, well, she wasn’t a MEDICAL doctor, so didn’t “deserve” that title. Which is silly. Doctor is the correct title for a medical doctor, as well as for a host of professional degrees, including a doctor of education, a doctor of theology, a doctor of business, etc. The degree that takes the longest to complete is the PhD, or doctor of philosophy. We’re ALL “doctors.” The problem for them was a professional woman who dared to use her title. Wasn’t she an uppity bitch?
