At the outset of Xerxes's invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, the Spartans consulted the Delphic oracle and received an answer Herodotus gives twice: first in his own brief prose, that either Sparta must be overthrown by the Persians or one of her kings must perish, and then, introduced as having been delivered in hexameter verse, as a seven line poem making the same claim, that either the city would be sacked by the children of Perseus (the Persians, whose eponym in Greek myth was Perses, son of Perseus) or the whole land of Lacedaemon would mourn a dead king of the line of Heracles. Leonidas, an Agiad king and so himself a Heraclid by Sparta's own royal genealogy, led the Greek defense of Thermopylae later that year. Herodotus reports, as his own considered opinion, that the memory of this answer is what led Leonidas, once the pass was outflanked, to dismiss the allied contingents and stay to die with a chosen few rather than withdraw the whole force.
Facts
Disputed
Documented ResponseJoseph Fontenrose's catalogue of Delphic responses lists this oracle as Q152 (cross-referenced to Parke and Wormell's own catalogue number, PW100) and tags it flatly "Not genuine," filing it among responses of folkloric origin under the heading "King's death for his city." In his own words, "This is surely a post eventum composition." Fontenrose compares it directly to the older Athenian legend of King Kodros, who is said to have deliberately provoked his own death in battle on the strength of a similar oracle to save his city, and argues that the Thermopylae oracle "was composed as the oracle needed to fit Leonidas' heroism to the Kodros legend." Fontenrose's own citations there point to Parke's 1956 history of the oracle and to the Parke-Wormell catalogue itself as reaching the same conclusion; that pairing's own text was not independently checked here, so this rests on Fontenrose's own report of what they conclude. 2 Documented ResponseW.W. How and J. Wells's commentary on Herodotus 7.220-221 states plainly that "the oracle is plainly a vaticinium post eventum," arguing that it is inconsistent with Herodotus's own earlier account of Leonidas's expedition, assigns no convincing reason for the Thespian and Theban contingents' actions, and served as a convenient explanation for the allied troops who withdrew and left Leonidas to die. They note that Diodorus later "carries out consistently the view here indicated in the oracle," which they read as a later writer completing, not originating, a process of legend-building already under way in Herodotus's own account. Separately, and read directly from Herodotus's own text rather than from either commentary: the passage gives the oracle's meaning twice, first as Herodotus's own brief prose statement, then, introduced as having been "delivered in hexameter verse," as a separate seven-line poem making the same claim in more elaborate and event-specific language, a doubling in the primary text itself that sits behind both scholars' skepticism. 3 Fulfillment
Claimed FulfillmentThat either Sparta's city would be sacked by the men of Perseus, meaning the Persians, or the land of Lacedaemon would mourn a dead king of the Heraklid line, meaning one of Sparta's two kings, of whom Leonidas, an Agiad and so a Heraclid by descent, was one. 1 Documented ResponseLeonidas led the Greek defense of Thermopylae in August 480 BCE. When the Persians found the mountain path around the pass, he dismissed most of the allied contingents and stayed with his Spartans, the Thespian volunteers and the Theban contingent, and was killed with them on the third day. Sparta itself was never taken or sacked in the invasion that followed; the Persian advance was stopped at Salamis the next month and broken for good at Plataea the following year. Herodotus states directly, as his own opinion rather than as reported testimony, that the memory of the oracle is what he believes drove Leonidas to keep only a chosen few and send the rest away, so that the glory, and the fulfillment, would belong to Sparta and to Leonidas himself. 1 Sources
Primary SourceHerodotus, Histories, Book 7, chapter 220. 1 Dating
Predicted DateNo calendar date beyond the general period survives. Herodotus places the consultation at the start of the war, in 480 BCE, before the Persian army reached Thermopylae in early August that year. The oracle names no specific day, only the outcome, that the city or one of its kings would be lost. 1 Date Attributed480 BCE, at the start of the war. Herodotus gives no more precise date and does not name the Spartan envoys who received it, unlike his fuller account of the two Athenian consultations that produced the wooden wall oracle the same year. 1 Origins
Attributed Author / CompilerThe Pythia at Delphi, the priestess of Apollo who delivered the response to the Spartan enquirers. 1 Attributions
TraditionThe Delphic oracular tradition of Apollo, the same tradition, delivered by the same Pythia's office, that answered Croesus and, in the same year, gave Athens its wooden wall oracle before Salamis. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The sanctuary at Delphi where the oracle was delivered, home already to two other separately registered cases, the answers given to Croesus and to Athens before Salamis.
The Spartan king whose death at Thermopylae the tradition reads as the oracle's warning fulfilled.
The battle in which Leonidas died, read by the tradition as the oracle's warning come to pass.
The wider war whose opening stand this oracle is remembered alongside.
Attributed To
Belongs to Tradition
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