The Delphic maxims: “Know thyself” and the other sayings

Anyone entering the temple of Apollo at Delphi encountered, even before the Pythia, a few short phrases carved in the pronaos. Pausanias, who visited the sanctuary in the second century AD, attributes them to the Seven Sages and records the two most famous: “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess”. These sayings, in Greek gnothi seauton and meden agan, have become some of the most quoted words in Western culture, but their ancient history is more complex than is often thought.

The Seven Sages and the gift to Apollo

In Plato's Protagoras, Socrates tells how the Seven Sages gathered at Delphi and offered the god, as the first fruits of their wisdom, precisely these brief and memorable phrases. Plato lists Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, Solon of Athens, Cleobulus of Lindos, Myson of Chen and Chilon of Sparta. The ancient lists of the Sages do not agree, however, and the attribution of each maxim to a specific author varies from source to source.

Beside the two most celebrated, tradition records a third saying, “Give a pledge, and ruin is near”, understood as a call to caution in standing surety for others. The style is always the same: a few words, no explanation, a command that the visitor had to ponder alone, without the god troubling to explain its meaning.

A wider collection

Besides the temple inscriptions, a larger collection of Delphic precepts circulated. Johannes Stobaeus, a compiler of the fifth century AD, transcribed a list attributed to a certain Sosiades, made up of very short rules of conduct: obey the law, honour your parents, master your anger, recognise the right moment. Modern editions speak of about a hundred and forty sayings, but their number varies according to the sources.

A remarkable confirmation of their spread comes from Ai Khanoum, in present-day northern Afghanistan, site of a Greek city founded after Alexander's conquests. A third-century BC inscription records that a certain Clearchus copied the maxims at Delphi and had them carved in the shrine of Kineas, the city's founder. On the base the final sayings can still be read, urging people to be well-behaved as children, self-controlled as youths, just as adults, good counsellors in old age and untroubled at the end.

Socrates and self-knowledge

The precept “Know thyself” enjoyed a second life in philosophy. In the Phaedrus, Plato's Socrates says he has no time to investigate myths, because he has not yet managed, as the Delphic inscription commands, to know himself. In the Charmides the maxim is linked to temperance, and in the First Alcibiades, a dialogue of disputed authorship, it becomes the starting point for a reflection on the soul.

Originally the meaning was probably simpler: remember that you are a mortal and not a god. This reading fits with “Nothing in excess”, which condemns excess and arrogance, the hybris punished by the gods in so much Greek literature. Only later, with the philosophers, did the phrase become a programme of introspection.

The riddle of the letter E

Among the offerings in the temple there was also a mysterious letter E. According to Plutarch there were three versions: an ancient wooden one, a bronze one dedicated by the Athenians and a golden one offered by Livia, wife of Augustus. In the dialogue On the E at Delphi the speakers propose various interpretations: the number five, the conjunction “if” with which questions to the oracle began, or the words “You are”, a greeting addressed by man to the god. Plutarch does not claim to give a definitive answer.

The Delphic maxims were neither laws nor dogmas, but advice addressed to anyone who crossed the god's threshold. Their strength lay in brevity: two or three words were enough to remind human beings of their limits. That is why they outlived the oracle itself and are still quoted, often without knowing from which wall they come.