| Contents > Just What Are Perceptions? by Marian Rhydderch |
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This paper began by asking: Just what are perceptions? Needing to understand perceptions as a historian, rather than a financier or a psychologist, it was decided to focus on the singular form of the word and to define it as reality, not a theory of reality, as understood elsewhere. Herodotos, unable and unwilling to refute oracular truth, wrote his Histories knowing Apollo was willing to help mankind, knowing, because he simply could not know otherwise, that Apollo was magnanimous. Is this simply an example of a perception allowing Herodotos to construct his own personal theory of reality? There is something passive about being allowed to do something. There is nothing passive about Herodotos’ style of writing! The eternal debate over whether he should be regarded as ‘the father of history’ or ‘… of lies’, attests to this assessment. Herodotos excites, frustrates, charms and informs his audience because he exudes a sense of being empowered to record his thoughts, and it is in these thoughts we find an ancient reality.
Euripides’ perceptions are of course more difficult to determine. However, Euripides like his character Ion, was an Athenian born and bred and the idea that a god knew the future, managed all things well, that he planned man’s future, Athens’ future, was a perception which stimulated Euripides to write this play, empowered him to broadcast these thoughts, to very publicly question a social reality which had its critics, in more private circles.
Challenges to the social fabric of Athens could no longer be sustained by the beginning of the fourth century BCE. Socrates’ and his peculiar perceptions about Apollo, his irritating, seemingly subversive behaviour in the streets, by-ways and homes of Athenians was a reality that could no longer be condoned. His perception of Apollo as the god who simply could not lie, as the god whose prophetic wisdom was uttered in Delphi’s sacred temple, was a perception, which ironically, cost him his life.
As priest of Apollo, the god’s magnanimous presence was a reality for Plutarch. Delphi’s renaissance came about as a shift in perceptions. Sibylline oracles had their place in the Roman world, but oracular wisdom uttered at Delphi, once again became a viable reality, oracular wisdom became a perception to be discussed, considered, defended and promoted (Orlin, 1997).
“As he sings to his divine brother Hermes, Apollo’s words will conclude this paper.
“He who comes to my shrine, guided there by the cries
And flights of birds of sure omen, will reap a rich harvest
From my oracular voice,
and I will not deceive him.”
(Homeric Hymn to Hermes, trans Sargent, 1973).
A rich harvest of truth was available to some who came to Delphi. Those who recognized the Delphic imperative ‘to know oneself’ were empowered to listen, to seek, to interpret, to act according to the god’s prophetic wisdom. They, alone, were empowered to know that perception is reality. But as Herodotos, Euripides, Socrates and Plutarch well knew, one person’s reality may not be another’s. Then, as now, it depends who you ask!
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| Contents > Just What Are Perceptions? by Marian Rhydderch |