The “wooden wall”: the Delphic oracle and the victory at Salamis
In 480 BC Delphi promised Athens a “wooden wall”. Herodotus tells of the two replies, the debate in the assembly and the interpretation offered by Themistocles.
In the summer of 480 BC the army of Xerxes was advancing towards Attica after forcing the pass of Thermopylae. The Athenians, who had sent envoys to Delphi, received one of the most famous prophecies in Greek history. Its meaning was debated openly in the assembly, and on the interpretation that prevailed depended the decision to face the Persians at sea. The story, preserved by Herodotus in the seventh book of the Histories, shows the oracle at the centre of a political and military decision.
The first reply
As soon as the Athenian envoys entered the temple and sat down, the Pythia, whom Herodotus calls Aristonice, uttered a terrible oracle. She urged them to flee to the ends of the earth, abandoning homes and city, because fire and the war god, driving a Syrian chariot, would destroy many strongholds. She described temples streaming with sweat and trembling with fear, and blood dripping from their roofs.
The envoys were devastated. A highly respected citizen of Delphi, Timon, advised them to return to the sanctuary with olive branches, as suppliants, and to ask for a better reply. The Athenians declared to the god that they would not leave, but would stay there until death, unless they received a more favourable prophecy for their homeland.
The wooden wall and divine Salamis
The second answer was less grim, but enigmatic. The Pythia said that Athena could not appease Zeus, but that the god granted his daughter a wooden wall, the only one to remain unsacked, for the salvation of the Athenians and their children. She advised them not to await the enemy cavalry and infantry, but to turn their backs. Finally she addressed Salamis: “divine Salamis” would bring death to the sons of women.
The envoys wrote down the reply and took it back to Athens, where it was read before the people. Opinions divided at once. Some elders believed the god was promising salvation to the Acropolis, which in ancient times had been surrounded by a thorn hedge. Others argued that the wooden wall meant the ships, and that they must prepare to fight at sea.
Themistocles' interpretation
What complicated matters were the last lines about Salamis. The official interpreters of oracles read them as the prophecy of a naval defeat near the island. Themistocles objected that, had the god wished to announce the ruin of the Athenians, he would not have called the island “divine”, but rather “wretched”. The dead foretold would therefore be the enemy.
Herodotus adds that a few years earlier Themistocles himself had persuaded the Athenians to use the revenue from the silver mines of Laurium to build two hundred ships, intended at the time for the war against Aegina. That fleet became the basis of the defence against Xerxes. The city was evacuated, women and children were taken to Troezen, Aegina and Salamis, and the men boarded the triremes.
In September 480 BC the Greek fleet defeated the Persian fleet in the strait of Salamis. We do not know whether the reply had really been framed with the ships in mind, nor how far Themistocles influenced its wording. Yet the episode shows how an oracle could become the subject of public debate, and how interpretation was as much a political act as a religious one.