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‘No longer does Phoebus have a cabin’. Emperor Julian and the fall of the temple of Apollo in Delphi. A new assessment.

par Busine, Aude
Editeur scientifique Simonetti, Elsa Giovanna;Hall, Claire
Référence Divination and Revelation in Later Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, page (208-221)
Publication Publié, 2023

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Abstract: This paper focuses on three famous hexameters allegedly uttered by Apollo in Delphi for Emperor Julian by means of his physician Oribasius. Since the 19th century, this text, in which Apollo announces the destruction of his temple and the silence of the oracle, has been the subject of numerous interpretations. Some scholars consider it as a genuine oracle really produced in Delphi and intended to the pagan Emperor while he was in Antioch (362-363). Others argue that it is a Christian forgery written up shortly after Julian's death as an anti-pagan propaganda tool. In this paper, I first discuss the literary context for the quotation of the oracle, that is the Artemii Passio, a seventh-century anonymous fictitious hagiographical work. In my opinion, nothing allows to date the text from the fourth century as its attribution to the lost Church History of Philostorgius is not grounded. Second, I explain how the hagiographer build the episode and I give a new interpretation of this prophecy, comparing it to similar late Byzantine pseudo-oracles about the fate of pagan temples.