Temple of Apollo, Didyma
About
The largest temple the Greeks ever attempted, and after four centuries of work it is still not finished — many of its hundred and twenty-two columns stand unfluted and the pediment was never built. You do not so much enter it as pass through it: two vaulted tunnels lead down into a roofless court where laurel grows around a spring, and a small shrine there holds the bronze Apollo. A prophetess takes the water and answers the questions the priests put to her. The paved Sacred Way running the sixteen kilometres up from Miletus was rebuilt by Trajan in 101 CE. In 117 CE the oracle is busy.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
In ancient writing
- Strabo, Geography 14.1.5
The temple left without a roof because of the sheer size of it, with a sacred grove inside and out, and works of art the writer rated the finest in Asia.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →