The Corycian Cave

A sacred cave above Delphi

The Corycian Cave is a large cave high on Mount Parnassus, above Delphi. Delphi was the sanctuary of the god Apollo, a sacred place set apart for him, with an oracle where people put questions to the god.

The cave itself belonged to other powers. It was sacred to the god Pan and to the Corycian Nymphs. The Nymphs are a group of divine beings, with a father of their own and a voice in poetry, and they have a separate entry. This entry is about the cave: the hollow they shared with Pan, large enough to hold people, their possessions, running water and generations of offerings.

Delphi empties before the Persian advance

In 480 BC the Delphians hear that a Persian force is coming for Apollo’s sanctuary. The historian Herodotus says they ask the oracle whether to bury the sacred treasure or send it away. The answer tells them to leave the god’s property where it is and protect themselves.

Women and children cross the Corinthian Gulf to Achaia. Most of the men climb Mount Parnassus and carry their possessions into the Corycian Cave. Only sixty men and the prophet stay at Delphi. The cave’s depth and position allow a whole community to leave the sanctuary below.

Herodotus does not describe any worship inside the refuge. The cave’s holy character comes from other writers and from what excavation found there.

What Pausanias found inside

Pausanias, an ancient travel writer, describes the climb. It begins some distance above Delphi. He says the later part is easier for a person on foot than for a horse or mule.

Inside, he compares the cave with other famous caverns and finds it larger. Daylight reaches so far in that a person can walk a good distance without a torch. Water rises from springs in the rock. Pausanias names Pan and the Nymphs as the gods of the cave.

He then goes on upward, towards summits that he says stand above the clouds. There a group of worshippers called the Thyiades perform rites, acts of worship, for Dionysus and Apollo. So the cave sits on its own level, between the sanctuary of Delphi and those peaks.

What one plate carried into the cave

A small plate found in the cave tells another story about Delphi. It was made in Attica, the region of Athens. It is painted in black figure on a white ground. It shows the hero Heracles holding Apollo’s tripod, a three-legged stand, while he raises his club. Apollo follows and reaches out to take back the tripod, the object that stands for his power of prophecy.

The plate dates to 490 to 465 BC and is in the Archaeological Museum of Delphi. Where it was found matters as much as what it shows. An offering left in the sanctuary of Pan and the Nymphs carried a quarrel over Apollo’s authority from the temple below up into the mountain.

The plate does not prove that the cave belonged to Apollo. Pausanias gives the cave to Pan and the Nymphs. The plate shows that worshippers could bring pictures from Delphi across those divine boundaries.

How long the cave was used

Excavation of the Corycian Cave began in 1970. It found people in the cave from the Neolithic period onwards. It also showed that in historical times the cave was used to worship Pan and the Nymphs. That long span goes back further than any surviving written account.

Long use does not mean that one ritual carried on unchanged. A Neolithic presence cannot be called worship of named Greek gods without evidence. Each kind of evidence proves something different. The historical finds prove the sanctuary. Herodotus proves the refuge. Pausanias gives the ancient description of the cave and names its gods.

The cave can be entered, measured and excavated, while the beings who lived in it remain divine. In 480 BC it also became a storehouse for what the Delphians could carry uphill. The same size that Pausanias later admired had already protected a city’s possessions.