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The responses were often obscure and enigmatical, and couched in ambiguous and metaphorical expressions, which themselves needed explanation. In later times the votaries were contented with answers in prose. No one was present but a priest, called the Prophetes, who explained the words she uttered in her ecstasy, and put them into metrical form, generally hexameters.
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Having prepared herself by washing and purification, the Pythia entered the sanctuary, with gold ornaments in her hair, and flowing robes upon her she drank of the water of the fountain Cassotis, which flowed into the shrine, tasted the fruit of the old bay tree standing in the chamber, and took her seat. These sacrifices were offered by the supplicants, adorned with laurel crowns and fillets of wool. But in later years she prophesied every day, if the day itself and the sacrifices were not unfavourable. In the earliest times the Pythia ascended the tripod only once a year, on the birthday of Apollo, the seventh of the Delphian spring month Bysios. In the prosperous times of the oracle two Pythias acted alternately, with a third to assist them. The prophetess, called Pythia, was a maiden of honourable birth in earlier times a young girl, but in a later age a woman of over fifty, still wearing a girl's dress, in memory of the earlier custom. On this was a circular, slab, upon which the seat of the prophetess was placed. Over the cleft stood a lofty gilded tripod of wood. The oracle proper was a cleft in the ground in the innermost sanctuary, from which arose cold vapours, which had the power of inducing ecstasy. Here he was purified and brought back by the same road, accompanied by a chorus of maidens singing songs of joy. Then the boy's followers hastily dispersed, and the boy was taken in procession to Tempe, along the road formerly followed by the god. The dragon was symbolically slain, and his house, decked out in costly fashion, was burnt. Apollo was represented by a boy, both of whose parents were living. A festival, the Septeria, was held every year, at which the whole story was represented: the slaying of the serpent, and the flight, atonement, and return of the god. To atone for his murder, Apollo was forced to fly and spend eight years in menial service before he could return forgiven. According to the Homeric hymn to the Pythian Apollo, the god took forcible possession of the oracle soon after his birth, slaying with his earliest bow-shot the serpent Pytho, the son of Gaia, who guarded the spot. Then it was shared by her with Poseidon, who gave up his part in it to Apollo in exchange for the island of Calauria, Themis, the daughter and successor of Gaia, having already given Apollo her share. In historical times the oracle appears in possession of Apollo but the original possessor, according to the story, was Gaia (the Earth). A very ancient seat of prophecy at Delphi, originally called Pytho, and situated on the south-western spur of Parnassus in a valley of Phocis.