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| A supplicant seeks an answer from the Oracle at Delphi |
Greek Priestesses and the Keys to Banks
The superpower of the ancient world was Persia, a successor
to Babylonia. Persia’s greatness stood unchecked until the Battle of Marathon
in 490 BC. For several hundred years Greece ascended to the pinnacle of “soft”
power and influence in the Ancient World (aka, the Golden Age of Greece). The
Battle of Marathon also gave us one of our most enduring symbols of the
financial sector: what today we call the “treasury”.[i]
Immediately following the victory, the Athenians built a
“Treasury” for the city below Apollo’s Temple.[ii]
Crafted of cut marble from the remnants of Marathon, it was intended to be
sturdy, inviolable and burglar-proof. This treasury became the repository of
valuables, wealth and functioned in many ways in the same way that a bank does
today. In fact, recreations of this first treasury – pictured below – look
remarkably like our classic bank building.[iii]
The similarities are not accidental.
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| The Treasury at Delphi |
The most prominent of all the Greek temples was the temple
to Apollo at Delphi. The prominence of this temple was in part due to the
future-telling prowess of the priestesses who, because they were deemed married
to the Greek god Apollo, “were subject to the extraordinary requirement of
perpetual celibacy.”[iv]
But these women were more than vestal virgins. Delphi’s
pre-eminence derived from the perception that women prophesied the future
there. Modern scientists (including Professor Richard Neer of the University of
Chicago) have determined that in fact Apollo’s temple was built over a fissure
in the earth, from which gaseous hydrocarbons rose. The “Pythia” (as the
priestesses were called) propped themselves up on a three-legged stool over the
fissure, inhaling the pneuma. Within a short time, the Pythia “would go into ecstatic
union with Apollo, the god of phrophecy….In short, the high priestess got
high.”[v]
At Delphi, “temples functioned as virtual [and actual]
treasuries, filled as they were with precious offerings.”[vi] As professors Homer & Sylla conclude.
“The shrine at Delphi, the greatest of them all, is sometimes described as the
great banker of the Greek world.”[vii]
Like their earlier, Babylonian predecessors, priestesses at
Delphi guarded the wealth of their fellow citizens. While Athen’s Delphic
Treasury may have been the first and most prominent, it was not the only
temple. A modern archaeological website suggests that there are twelve
excavated treasuries at Delphi.[viii]
More than 2,000 years ago these treasuries were under the
protection and integral to temples. These temples were devoted to a specific
god or goddess and controlled by Greek priestesses. It was only the Greek
priestesses who – literally – possessed a key to the treasury in the temple.[ix]
These keys were metal and locked and unlocked the temple treasury doors.
In short, treasuries, the modern day bank building – and the
literal keys to the treasures within – owe a great deal to the Greek
priestesses of Delphi.
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| Collier's painting of the Oracle at Delphi |
Endnotes
[i] http://www.coastal.edu/ashes2art/delphi2/sanctuary/athenian_treasury.html Accessed May 2, 2013
[ii]
Ralph T. Neer, “Delphi, Olympia, and the Art of Politics,” pp.225-264 in H.A.
Schapiro, Ed., The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece, (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007), p.249
[iii]
“Prior to 1930, most American banks were designed in the classical style. To
attract depositors, owners and trustees favored traditional architectural imagery
– large, often free-standing, stone structures in the classical style that
signaled financial stability and integrity. These structures, whether located
in small towns or large cities, projected a strong civic presence and many
became centerpieces in their communities.” http://home2.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/jamaicasavings.pdf
[iv] Joan Breton Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and
Ritual in Ancient Greece, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007),
p.73
[v]
William J. Broad, The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science Behind Its Lost Secrets, (New York: Penguin, 2006), p.238
[vi] Joan Breton Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and
Ritual in Ancient Greece, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007),
p.93
[vii]
Sydney Homer and Richard Sylla, A History of Interest Rates, (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 2011), p.37
[viii]
http://www.stoa.org/metis/cgi-bin/qtvr?site=delphi Accessed May 4, 2013 This is a fantastic
website for trolling thru the archaeological site at Delphi and comparing the
ruins to artists’ renditions in their original state.
[ix]
Men sometimes held the temple key in extant carvings but “images of men
carrying temple keys are rare.”Joan Breton Connelly, Portrait of
a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2007), p.93
Copyright 2013 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction in any form without my prior, written consent. That means you!
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