The Ε at Delphi (intro-4)

Plutarch, in this essay on the E at Delphi, tells us that beside the well-known inscriptions at Delphi there was also a representation of the letter E, the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet. The Greek name for this letter was EI, and this diphthong, in addition to being used in Plutarch’s time as the name of E (which denotes the number five), is the Greek word for if, and also the word for the second person singular of the verb to be (thou art).

In searching for an explanation of the unexplainable it is only natural that the three meanings of EI (five, if, thou art) should be examined to see if any hypothesis based on any one of them might possibly yield a rational explanation; and these hypotheses constitute the skeleton about which is built the body of Plutarch’s essay. From it we gain some interesting delineations of character and an engaging portrayal of the way in which a philosopher acts, or reacts, when forced unwillingly to face the unknowable.

Plutarch puts forward seven possible explanations of the letter:

(1) It was dedicated by the Wise Men, as a protest against interlopers, to show that their number was actually five and not seven (EI E, five).

(2) EI is the second vowel, the Sun is the second planet, and Apollo is identified with the sun (EI E, the vowel).

(3) EI means if: people ask the oracle IF they shall succeed, or IF they shall do this or that (EIif).

(4) EI is used in wishes or prayers to the god, often in the combination εἴθε or εἰ γάρ (EI if or if only).

(5) EI, if, is an indispensable word in logic for the construction of a syllogism (EI if).

(6) Five is a most important number in mathematics, physiology, philosophy, and music (EI E, five).

(7) EI means thou art and is the address of the consultant to Apollo, to indicate that the god has eternal being (EI thou art).[*]

Attempts to explain the letter have been also made in modern times by Göttling, Berickte der Sacks. Gesell. der Wiss. I. (1846-47) pp. 311 if., and by Schultz in Philologus (1866), pp. 214 if. Roscher, in Philologus (1900), pp. 21 if.; (1901), pp. 81 if.; (1902), pp. 513 if.; Hermes (1901), pp. 470 ff. (comment also by C. Robert in the same volume, p. 490), and the Philologische Wochenschrift (1922), col. 1211, maintains that EI is an imperative from εἶμι, go, addressed to the person who carne to consult the oracle, and that it means go on, continue into the temple. The value of this explanation is somewhat doubtful, since EI in this word (εἶμι) is a true diphthong, and so is not generally spelled with simple E except in the Corinthian alphabet. Although

Roscher cites a few examples from inscriptions in other dialects where the true diphthongal EI seems to be represented by simple E, his evidence is not convincing.

O. Lagercrantz, in Hermes, xxxvi. (1901) pp. 411 if., interprets the E as meaning ἦ he said. To this, of course, Roscher objects and suggests that Lagercrantz might have thought also of ἦ verily. Thus all the various possibilities of interpretation have in turn been suggested, and rejected by others.

W. N. Bates, in the American Journal of Archaeology, xxix. (1925) pp. 239-246, tries to show that the E had its origin in a Minoan character E associated with (\e (as is shown by the evidence of a Cretan gem in the Metropolitan Museum of New York) and later transferred to Delphi. Since the character was not understood, it, like other things at Delphi, came to be associated with Apollo. This character has been found on the old omphalos discovered in 1913 at Delphi in the temple of Apollo.[*]

Interesting are the two coins reproduced in Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner, A Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias, plate x. nos. xxii. and xxiii. (text, p. 119), which show the E suspended between the middle columns of the temple. Learned scholars should note that the letter represented is E, not EI: therefore

such explanations as are based on the true diphthong are presumably wrong.

The title of the essay is included in the catalogue of Lamprias, where it appears as No. 117. It is not infrequently quoted or referred to by later writers. It has been separately edited by Bernardakis in the volume of essays in honour of Ernst Curtius, Leipzig, 1894. Of interest is also The Delphic Maxims in Literature, by Eliza Gregory Wilkins, Chicago, 1929.

(The persons who take part in the conversation are: Ammonius, Lamprias, Plutarch, Theon, Eustrophus, Nicander, and others whose names are not given.)

Not long ago, my dear Sarapion,[*] I carne upon some lines, not badly done, which Dicaearchus thinks Euripides[*] addressed to Archelaüs:

I will not give poor gifts to one so rich,

Lest you should take me for a fool, or I

Should seem by giving to invite a gift.

For he does no favour who gives small gifts from scanty means to wealthy men; and since it is not credible that his giving is for nothing, he acquires in addition a reputation for disingenuousness and servility. Observe also how, as far as independence and honour are concerned, material gifts fall far below those bestowed by literary discourse and wisdom; and these gifts it is both honourable to give and, at the same time, to ask a return of like gifts from the recipients. I, at any rate, as I send to you, and by means of you for our friends there, some of our Pythian discourses, an offering of our first-fruits, as it were, confess that I am expecting other discourses, both more numerous and of better quality, from you and your friends, inasmuch as you have not only all the advantages of a great city,[*] but you have also more abundant leisure amid many books and all manner of discussions.

It seems that our beloved Apollo finds a remedy and a solution for the problems connected with our life by the oracular responses which he gives to those who consult him; but the problems connected with our power to reason it seems that he himself launches and propounds to him who is by nature inclined to the love of knowledge, thus creating in the soul a craving[*] that leads onward to the truth, as is clear in many other ways, but particularly in the dedication of the E.[*] For the likelihood is that it was not by chance nor, as it were, by lot that this was the only letter that carne to occupy first place with the god and attained the rank of a sacred offering and something worth seeing; but it is likely that those who, in the beginning, sought after knowledge of the god either discovered some peculiar and unusual potency in it or else used it as a token with reference to some other of the matters of the highest concern, and thus adopted it.

On many other occasions when the subject had been brought up in the school I had quietly turned aside from it and passed it over, but recently I was unexpectedly discovered by my sons in an animated discussion with some strangers, whom, since they purposed to leave Delphi immediately, it was not seemly to try to divert from the subject, nor was it seemly for me to ask to be excused from the discussion, for they were altogether eager to hear something about it. I found them seats, therefore, near the temple, and I began to seek some answer myself and to put questions to them; influenced as I was by the place and the conversation itself, I remembered

what, when Nero was here some years ago, I had heard Ammonius and others discussing, when the same question obtruded itself in a similar way.

That the god is no less a philosopher than a prophet Ammonius seemed to all to postulate and prove correctly, with reference to this or to that one of his several titles[*]; that he is the Pythian (Inquirer) for those that are beginning to learn and inquire; the Delian (Clear) and the Phanaean (Disclosing) for those to whom some part of the truth is becoming clear and is being disclosed; the Ismenian[*] (Knowing) for those who have knowledge; and the Leschenorian (Conversationalist) when people have active enjoyment of conversation and philosophic intercourse with one another. Since, he wrent on to say, inquiry is the beginning of philosophy, and wonder and uncertainty the beginning of inquiry,[*] it seems only natural that the greater part of what concerns the god should be concealed in riddles, and should call for some account of the wherefore and an explanation of its cause. For example, in the case of the undying fire, that pine is the only wood burned here, while laurel is used for offering incense; that two Fates have statues here,[*] whereas three is everywhere the customary number; that no woman[*] is allowed to approach the prophetic shrine; the matter of the tripod; and the other questions of this nature, when they are suggested to persons who are not altogether without mind and reason, act as a Iure and an invitation to investigate, to read, and to

talk about them. Note also these inscriptions[*] here, Know thyself and Avoid extremes, how many philosophic inquiries have they set on foot, and what a horde of discourses has sprung up from each, as from a seed! And no less productive of discourse than any one of them, as I think, is the present subject of inquiry.

When Ammonius had said this, Lamprias, my brother, said, As a matter of fact, the account that we have heard is simple and quite brief. For they say that those wise men who by some are called the Sophists were actually five in number: Chilon, Thales, Solon, Bias, and Pittacus. But when Cleobulus, the despot of the Lindians, and later Periander of Corinth, who had no part or portion in virtue or wisdom, but forcibly acquired their repute through power and friends and favours, invaded this name of the Wise Men, and sent out and circulated throughout Greece certain sentiments and sayings very similar to those famous utterances of the Wise Men, these, naturally, did not like this at all, but were loath to expose the imposture or to arouse open hatred over a question of repute, or to carry through a contest against such powerful men; they met here by themselves and, after conferring together, dedicated that one of the letters which is fifth in alphabetical order and which stands for the number five, thus testifying for themselves before the god that they were five, and renouncing and rejecting the seventh and the sixth as having no connexion with themselves. That this account is not beside the mark anyone may realize who has heard those connected with the shrine

naming the golden E the E of Livia, Caesar’s wife, and the bronze E the E of the Athenians, while the first and oldest one, made of wood, they still call to this day the E of the Wise Men, as though it were an offering, not of one man, but of all the Wise Men in common.

Ammonius smiled quietly, suspecting privately that Lamprias had been indulging in a mere opinion of his own and was fabricating history and tradition regarding a matter in which he could not be held to account. Someone else among those present said that all this was similar to the nonsense which the Chaldean visitor had uttered a short time before: that there are seven vowels in the alphabet and seven stars that have an independent and unconstrained motion; that E is the second in order of the vowels from the beginning, and the sun the second planet after the moon, and that practically all the Greeks identify Apollo with the Sun.[*] But all this, said he, has its source in slate and prate[*] and in nothing else.

Apparently Lamprias had unwittingly stirred up the persons connected with the temple against his remarks. For what he had said no one of the Delphians knew anything about; but they were used to bring forward the commonly accepted opinion which the guides give, holding it to be right that neither the appearance nor the sound of the letter has any cryptic meaning, but only its name.