Castalia - article ; n°1 ; vol.102, pg 199-219

Herbert W.Parke

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Bulletin de correspondance hellénique - Année 1978 - Volume 102 - Numéro 1 - Pages 199-219
21 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: BULLETIN_DE_CORRESPONDANCE_HELLENIQUE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1978
• Nombre de lectures: 153
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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Herbert W. Parke
Castalia
In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Volume 102, livraison 1, 1978. pp. 199-219.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Parke Herbert W. Castalia. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Volume 102, livraison 1, 1978. pp. 199-219.
doi : 10.3406/bch.1978.2002
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/bch_0007-4217_1978_num_102_1_2002CASTALIA
in allow. of which on a view the sixty the The The it interprétation to part Also was purpose références passages establishing which associated from of occur in the Gastalia this of its literature with the study article in history prose surviving may the of is are oracle. to to its hâve writers the largely examine history remains. played limited Thèse and found the may most in extent results literary in Delphic émerge the of that can thèse poets. références ritual some our then in surviving be degree very and Only to applied the Gastalia some late of documents extent évidence to authors. ten assist with out to
Therefore, much of the diffîculty of extracting évidence consists in the allusive and
imprécise nature of those mentions of the fountain in poetic contexts.
Taking first the geographers and guide-book writers, who could be expected
to give a description of this feature, Strabo mentions Castalia once in a lengthy
account of Delphi in which he goes into the traditions of the oracle in considérable
détail. His chief source for the legends and historical narrative was Ephorus, the
fourth century historian, but he does not mention Castalia in that connection.
It is simply used as a point of référence in locating the contemporary town. After
calling attention to Lycoreia higher up Parnassus as the original home of the Delphians,
Strabo adds: "now they live by the sanctuary round the spring, Gastalia".1
Pliny the elder in his Encyclopaedia also mentions Castalia only once, in the
geographical account of Greece. His description runs: "nine miles inland from it
(the port of Chalaeon) is the town of Delphi under Mount Parnassus, the seat of the
most famous oracle of Apollo in the world: the fountain of Castalia and the river
Gephisus flowing past Delphi". Again the famous spring is simply a geographical
location. The référence to the Cephisus as the local river instead of the Pleistus
is a howler, whose explanation will émerge later in our discussion. But the interesting
point is that Pliny in Book Two had devoted a section to fountains with remarkable
properties, yet Castalia did not appear there. Evidently he had failed to collect
any référence in his literary sources to Castalia as other than the fountain of the
town of Delphi.2
(1) Str. 9, 3, 3. At 8, 7, 5. he quoted Alcaeus as saying it had 'prophétie water' if Aly's supplément is
accepted.
(2) Pliny, HN. 4, 3, 4. h. w. parke [BCH 102 200
The third writer to mention Castalia in a geographical context is Pausanias.
His guide-book contains a particularly lengthy description of the sanctuary at Delphi
with considérable accounts of the traditions connected with its monuments. The
whole is arranged in the order in which the traveller encounters the différent sites.
So he names the fountain immediately after the gymnasium: "As one goes up to
the sanctuary from the gymnasium on the right of the road is the water of Gastalia,
and it is sweet to drink" (But apart from this compliment to its excellence Pausanias
is only concerned with the dérivation of the name.) "They say that a woman of
the locality gave her name to the spring, but others say it was a man, Castalius".
(Pausanias proceeds to quote Panyassis in support of a woman as the eponym.)
The other aspect which interests him is a tradition that the water of Gastalia was
derived form the river Cephisus on the northern side of Parnassus. Once more
Pausanias cites an early author, this time Alcaeus, in support of the legend and
adds: "the people of Lilaia confîrm it particularly, for they say that when they drop
local cakes and other customary objects on some stated days into the spring of
the Cephisus, they reappear again in Castalia."3
The Greeks, especially in the archaic period, felt a need to explain the origin
of remarkable springs. The legend of the Sicilian Arethusa flowing under the sea
from the river Alpheus in the Péloponnèse to Syracuse is familiar, and was endorsed
by the Pythia herself. So the supposed origin of Castalia in the Cephisus was no
doubt a primitive local belief. The method of proving it by the alleged recovery
of objects from its waters was also applied to Arethusa. The purpose of the Delphic
legend was presumably to account for the copious and constant flow of Castalia by
deriving it from a river. But if the belief was pressed to its logical conclusion it
should follow that those who accepted it should not hâve attributed any peculiar
sacredness or spécial properties to Castalia which it could not be supposed to share
with the Cephisus. To the extent to which the waters of Castalia were derived
from elsewhere they had no claim to spécial qualities appropriate to Delphi and its
sanctuary.
Tantalisingly, Pausanias tells us no more about Alcaeus' référence to Castalia
than that it occurred in a 'prélude' (Prooimion) to Apollo. So we hâve no évidence
how Alcaeus regarded the fountain. This is the more unfortunate as he is the
earliest author known to hâve mentioned it. The hymn in which it occurred seems
from other quotations and paraphrases to hâve celebrated the coming of Apollo
from the Hyperboreans to found his sanctuary at Delphi ; and the allusion to the
fountain and its legendary source may simply hâve been inserted to defîne the
locality. Certainly nothing more can be extracted from this earliest appearance
in poetry.4
If we follow through chronologically the références in ancient literature, the
fountain occurs next, more than a century later in Pindar. He names it no less
than eight times, but the passages do not add much to our information, since Castalia
is simply being used a convenient poetic periphrasis for Delphi. When Pindar
(3) Paus. 10, 8, 9.
(4) Alcaeus, fr. A.I.C. and d (Lobel-Page). castalia 201 1978]
wants to mention a victory which the athlète whom he is celebrating has won at
the Pythian games, some phrase with the name of the fountain conveys the meaning
suffîciently. Five of the instances are of this type. In one further passage (Pyth.
1. 39) Pindar invokes Apollo in the names of his favourite haunts: "Phoebus, Lycian
and the ruler of Delos and lover of the fountain of Parnassus, Gastalia ..." It is
hard to décide whether this is more than a periphrasis for Delphi, and whether Apollo
was thought of by Pindar as having any spécial concern with the fountain itself,
but we shall see later évidence that such an idea might hâve existed by this time.
One passage in the Fourth Pythian (1. 163), if taken very literally might seem to
connect Castalia and the oracle. Pelias is describing how he was driven to prépare
the expédition of the Argonauts. After ominous dreams he says, "I hâve consulted
the oracle at Gastalia whether I should seek for something". But récent scholars
agrée that again this vague phrase is a poetic periphrasis and need mean no more
than "I enquired of the Delphic oracle".
One last passage in Pindar is worth quotation, because it contains however
slightly, one of the few descriptive touches to occur in our authors. In the Sixth
Paean written for the Delphians as a hymn to be performed to their own Apollo,
he begins by describing himself as coming to the place. "In the name of Olympian
Zeus I beg you, golden Pytho famous for prophecy, together with the Grâces and
Aphrodite. Receive me in a holy time as a tuneful prophet of the Muses. For
hearing the noise of Castalia at the waters with bronze gâtes, I hâve corne ..."
Though the context contains allusions to prophecy and poetry, there is nothing
in it to connect the fountain particularly with thèse activities. Like "the grove
of Apollo prolifîc in garlands and rejoicings, "which he mentions immediately after-
wards Pindar seems simply to be building up local colour at the start of his hymn.
The "bronze gâtes" of the fountain are usually interpreted as lions-heads of bronze
from which the water issued. It was customary for fountains of this period to
be equipped in this way, and the remains of the Castalia near the modem road,
which was presumably that in use in Pindar's day, could be restored in this fashion.
We shall, however, suggest later that the fountain may hâve been fitted in addition
with something more like bronze doors.5
The other mentions of Castalia in poets in Pindar's time are of an even more
gênerai character. Bacchylides refers to the place "where the Delphians maintain
the mighty grove of Phoebus beside the streams of Castalia;" Panyassis, as quoted
by Pausanias, used it in description of H&#