Priests, Priestesses & Oracles
The Role of Priests and Priestesses in Greece
In ancient Greece, priests and priestesses were not a professional clergy in the modern sense. A hiereus (male priest) or hiereia (female priestess) served a specific deity at a specific sanctuary. The role was often hereditary within a family, or held for a fixed term, or even purchased in some cities. Priests were not moral or spiritual advisers — their function was primarily practical: maintaining the temple, supervising the cult statue, ensuring sacrifices were performed correctly, and managing the sacred property of the sanctuary.
Priestesses played an especially important role in the cults of female deities. The priestess of Athena Polias at Athens — one of the most prestigious religious offices in the Greek world — was responsible for the care of the ancient olive-wood image of Athena on the Acropolis, a statue believed to have fallen from the sky. Priestesses of Hera and Demeter also held significant civic status, and in several cults women wielded a degree of public religious authority that was otherwise largely unavailable to them in Greek civic life.
Greek priests and priestesses were ritual specialists, not spiritual counsellors or moral leaders. Their essential duties were temple maintenance, correct performance of sacrifices and oversight of the sanctuary’s sacred treasures. The term hiereus (priest) and hiereia (priestess) literally relates to what is hieros — sacred or holy.
The Mantis: Prophets and Seers
Alongside priests, Greek religious life included the mantis (seer or prophet). The mantis was a specialist in reading divine signs: the flight of birds, the movement of flames in a sacrifice, the appearance of livers and lungs. Seers accompanied Greek armies in the field — no general would begin a battle without a favourable sacrifice reading. The historian Thucydides records that the Athenian general Nicias was so dependent on his seer’s readings that his paralysis during the catastrophic Sicilian Expedition of 415–413 BC contributed to the disaster.
The Oracle at Delphi
The most famous oracle in the ancient world was the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. The sanctuary at Delphi, set high on the slopes of Mount Parnassus in central Greece, was considered the omphalos — the navel of the world — where Apollo had slain the serpent Python. Cities, kings and private individuals travelled to consult Apollo’s voice at Delphi before important decisions: going to war, founding colonies, making new laws.
The oracle’s voice was the Pythia — a woman chosen from among the local people, who served as Apollo’s mouthpiece. To consult the oracle, a consultee first paid a fee and performed a preliminary sacrifice. They were then admitted to the inner sanctuary. The Pythia sat on a tripod seat above a fissure in the rock from which vapours were said to rise, inducing her trance-like state of divine inspiration. Her often ambiguous or cryptic utterances were then, according to some ancient accounts, put into verse by the priests. The most famous example of ambiguity was the response given to the Lydian king Croesus, who asked whether he should attack the Persians: Apollo’s answer was that if he crossed the river Halys, a great empire would be destroyed — which was true, though the empire destroyed was his own.
The ancient literary accounts describe the Pythia as entering an ecstatic or trance-like state, sometimes thrashing and foaming, before delivering her prophecy. Modern geological surveys of Delphi have identified intersecting fault lines beneath the sanctuary and chemical analysis has found traces of ethylene gas in the spring water — a substance that can induce hallucination in low concentrations. This has led some scholars to argue there was a genuine physical basis for the Pythia’s altered state. Others are more sceptical, noting that the accounts of violent ecstasy may be literary exaggeration and that the consultations were heavily controlled by the priests. The question of whether the Pythia was genuinely inspired or performing a religious role is a good example of the problem of using literary sources alongside archaeological evidence.
Roman Priesthoods
Roman religious authority was embedded in the structures of the state in a way that had no equivalent in Greece. The two most important priestly colleges in Republican and Imperial Rome were the pontifices and the augures. The pontifices were guardians of the religious calendar, the correct formulae for prayer and sacrifice, and the legal boundaries between sacred and secular space. Their head, the Pontifex Maximus, was one of the most powerful religious and political figures in Rome — a title later assumed by the emperors themselves. Augustus became Pontifex Maximus in 12 BC, combining supreme religious authority with supreme political power.
The augures were specialists in reading the auspices — the signs by which the gods communicated their approval or disapproval of proposed actions. No significant Roman undertaking — a battle, an election, the founding of a temple — could proceed without favourable auspices. The augur would observe a defined area of sky and report what birds appeared, in what direction, and in what numbers. The meaning of a bird sign depended on its species, behaviour, direction and the circumstances. This system meant that the college of augurs had the theoretical power to veto any public action by declaring the auspices unfavourable.
Three key groups of Roman religious officials: (1) Pontifices — guardians of religious law and the calendar, headed by the Pontifex Maximus; (2) Augures — readers of the auspices (bird signs); (3) Haruspices — specialists in reading omens from entrails (Etruscan in origin). All three operated alongside the Vestal Virgins, who maintained Rome’s sacred flame.
The Vestal Virgins were Rome’s most celebrated priestesses, six in number, chosen between the ages of six and ten to serve Vesta — goddess of the hearth — for thirty years. Their primary duty was to maintain the sacred fire in the Aedes Vestae (Temple of Vesta) in the Roman Forum. If the fire went out, it was a terrible omen for Rome. Vestals received extraordinary privileges: they could own property, make wills and travel in public without a male guardian. Their person was legally inviolable — harming a Vestal was a capital offence. However, the penalty for breaking their vow of chastity was to be buried alive in a chamber underground. Their status illustrates the paradox of Roman women in religion: they could hold great public religious authority while being legally barred from political life.