PHILOSOPHY AT DELPHI: SOCRATES, SAGES, AND THE CIRCULATION OF WISDOM Kathryn A. Morgan University of California, Los Angeles In his treatise on the mysterious letter epsilon dedicated to Apollo at Delphi, Plutarch Mor. 385B remarks that “the god is no less a philosopher than a prophet.” Indeed, the letter epsilon was only one of several pieces of wisdom dedicated or inscribed at Delphi. The most famous were “Know thyself,” “Nothing to excess,” and “Give a pledge—ruin follows.” These are said to have been inscribed on the temple itself (although opinions vary about where), and may even have been present on the Archaic Temple. 1 Plutarch Mor. 385D reports that “Know thyself” and “Nothing to excess” have set many philosophical inquiries in motion, and that a host of discourses has arisen from each, as if from a seed. Moreover, says his character Theon (Mor. 386F, trans. Babbitt): “when the god gives out ambiguous oracles, he is promoting and organizing logical reasoning as indispensable for those who are to apprehend his meaning aright.” In the late first century AD, then, Apollo is clearly a philosophical god, his ambiguity and oracular nature are seen as spurs to philosophical investigation, and the Delphic maxims are an integral part of the philosophical tradition. The origins of the maxims and of the tradition of Delphic wisdom are obscure. Aristotle in his Peri Philosophias fr. 3 (Ross) seems to have asserted that “Know thyself” was written on the temple even before the time of Chilon and to have ascribed the maxim to the Pythia. 2 It is possible that even in the sixth century Delphi actively generated moralizing anecdotes concerning who was the most pious, the happiest, or the wisest of mortals. 3 Hipponax fr. 63 (West) is evidence that Apollo declared Myson (later one of Plato’s Seven Sages) as the most sôphrôn of men. The story of the encounter between Solon and Croesus in the first book of Herodotus (1.29–33) may also have emanated from Delphi; certainly, Solon’s award of the title of happiest of men first to Tellos and then to Cleobis and Biton, fits well into the context of anecdotal responses by the oracle declaring not the rich and famous but the humble to be happy (or pious, or 1 Wilkins 9. 2 Snell 9. 3 Herzog 149–50.