The age of the oracles dates from around 700 BC to about 300 AD. The word oracles describes three things. It describes
the person through which the god speaks. It also describes the
actual temple or shrine of the god. Lastly it describes the answer
given by the god through the prophet.
Oracles played a very important role throughout Greek history. Many important choices made by prominent Greeks came from the advice of oracles. Herodotus, a
Greek historian, gives many accounts of events
that took place in ancient Greece in which oracles played a major
role. Playwrights like Sophocles, and
other authors like Homer, in two of his works the Iliad
and the Odyssey,
have given many examples of how oracles could and sometimes did
affect the Greeks.
For example in Sophocles'
play Oedipus Rex,
the protagonist (leading character) named Oedipus was abandoned
at birth (exposed) by his parents. This was not an unusual practice of the Greeks at this time. He was found and adopted by a couple and
when he had grown up he visited an oracle which told him that he
would kill his father and marry his mother. He of course said
that this would never happen, but to be sure he left his adopted
parents. He didn't know that he was adopted, so he thought that the oracle was referring to his adopted parents, not his real parents. As the play progresses he ends up killing his father and marrying his mother just as the oracle
had said. He of course did not know that he had fulfilled the
oracle until later in the play when he learned who his real parents
were. Oracles were considered to be words from the gods and indisputable,
or unquestionable. Oracles played a very important rule in Greek
history through the many decisions that were made as well as some
of the philosophical ideas that surfaced.