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Friday, March 10, 2023

Financial crisis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis

A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these panics. Other situations that are often called financial crises include stock market crashes and the bursting of other financial bubbles, currency crises, and sovereign defaults. Financial crises directly result in a loss of paper wealth but do not necessarily result in significant changes in the real economy (e.g. the crisis resulting from the famous tulip mania bubble in the 17th century).

Many economists have offered theories about how financial crises develop and how they could be prevented. There is no consensus, however, and financial crises continue to occur from time to time.

Types

Banking crisis

When a bank suffers a sudden rush of withdrawals by depositors, this is called a bank run. Since banks lend out most of the cash they receive in deposits (see fractional-reserve banking), it is difficult for them to quickly pay back all deposits if these are suddenly demanded, so a run renders the bank insolvent, causing customers to lose their deposits, to the extent that they are not covered by deposit insurance. An event in which bank runs are widespread is called a systemic banking crisis or banking panic.

Examples of bank runs include the run on the Bank of the United States in 1931 and the run on Northern Rock in 2007. Banking crises generally occur after periods of risky lending and resulting loan defaults.

Currency crisis

A currency crisis, also called a devaluation crisis, is normally considered as part of a financial crisis. Kaminsky et al. (1998), for instance, define currency crises as occurring when a weighted average of monthly percentage depreciations in the exchange rate and monthly percentage declines in exchange reserves exceeds its mean by more than three standard deviations. Frankel and Rose (1996) define a currency crisis as a nominal depreciation of a currency of at least 25% but it is also defined as at least a 10% increase in the rate of depreciation. In general, a currency crisis can be defined as a situation when the participants in an exchange market come to recognize that a pegged exchange rate is about to fail, causing speculation against the peg that hastens the failure and forces a devaluation.

Speculative bubbles and crashes

A speculative bubble exists in the event of large, sustained overpricing of some class of assets. One factor that frequently contributes to a bubble is the presence of buyers who purchase an asset based solely on the expectation that they can later resell it at a higher price, rather than calculating the income it will generate in the future. If there is a bubble, there is also a risk of a crash in asset prices: market participants will go on buying only as long as they expect others to buy, and when many decide to sell the price will fall. However, it is difficult to predict whether an asset's price actually equals its fundamental value, so it is hard to detect bubbles reliably. Some economists insist that bubbles never or almost never occur.

Black Friday, 9 May 1873, Vienna Stock Exchange. The Panic of 1873 and Long Depression followed.

Well-known examples of bubbles (or purported bubbles) and crashes in stock prices and other asset prices include the 17th century Dutch tulip mania, the 18th century South Sea Bubble, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Japanese property bubble of the 1980s, the crash of the United States housing bubble during 2006-2008. The 2000s sparked a real estate bubble where housing prices were increasing significantly as an asset good.

International financial crisis

When a country that maintains a fixed exchange rate is suddenly forced to devalue its currency due to accruing an unsustainable current account deficit, this is called a currency crisis or balance of payments crisis. When a country fails to pay back its sovereign debt, this is called a sovereign default. While devaluation and default could both be voluntary decisions of the government, they are often perceived to be the involuntary results of a change in investor sentiment that leads to a sudden stop in capital inflows or a sudden increase in capital flight.

Several currencies that formed part of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism suffered crises in 1992–93 and were forced to devalue or withdraw from the mechanism. Another round of currency crises took place in Asia in 1997–98. Many Latin American countries defaulted on their debt in the early 1980s. The 1998 Russian financial crisis resulted in a devaluation of the ruble and default on Russian government bonds.

Wider economic crisis

Negative GDP growth lasting two or more quarters is called a recession. An especially prolonged or severe recession may be called a depression, while a long period of slow but not necessarily negative growth is sometimes called economic stagnation.

Declining consumer spending.

Some economists argue that many recessions have been caused in large part by financial crises. One important example is the Great Depression, which was preceded in many countries by bank runs and stock market crashes. The subprime mortgage crisis and the bursting of other real estate bubbles around the world also led to recession in the U.S. and a number of other countries in late 2008 and 2009. Some economists argue that financial crises are caused by recessions instead of the other way around, and that even where a financial crisis is the initial shock that sets off a recession, other factors may be more important in prolonging the recession. In particular, Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz argued that the initial economic decline associated with the crash of 1929 and the bank panics of the 1930s would not have turned into a prolonged depression if it had not been reinforced by monetary policy mistakes on the part of the Federal Reserve, a position supported by Ben Bernanke.

Causes and consequences

Strategic complementarities in financial markets

It is often observed that successful investment requires each investor in a financial market to guess what other investors will do. George Soros has called this need to guess the intentions of others 'reflexivity'. Similarly, John Maynard Keynes compared financial markets to a beauty contest game in which each participant tries to predict which model other participants will consider most beautiful.

Furthermore, in many cases, investors have incentives to coordinate their choices. For example, someone who thinks other investors want to heavily buy Japanese yen may expect the yen to rise in value, and therefore has an incentive to buy yen, too. Likewise, a depositor in IndyMac Bank who expects other depositors to withdraw their funds may expect the bank to fail, and therefore has an incentive to withdraw, too. Economists call an incentive to mimic the strategies of others strategic complementarity.

It has been argued that if people or firms have a sufficiently strong incentive to do the same thing they expect others to do, then self-fulfilling prophecies may occur. For example, if investors expect the value of the yen to rise, this may cause its value to rise; if depositors expect a bank to fail this may cause it to fail. Therefore, financial crises are sometimes viewed as a vicious circle in which investors shun some institution or asset because they expect others to do so.

Leverage

Leverage, which means borrowing to finance investments, is frequently cited as a contributor to financial crises. When a financial institution (or an individual) only invests its own money, it can, in the very worst case, lose its own money. But when it borrows in order to invest more, it can potentially earn more from its investment, but it can also lose more than all it has. Therefore, leverage magnifies the potential returns from investment, but also creates a risk of bankruptcy. Since bankruptcy means that a firm fails to honor all its promised payments to other firms, it may spread financial troubles from one firm to another (see 'Contagion' below).

The average degree of leverage in the economy often rises prior to a financial crisis. For example, borrowing to finance investment in the stock market ("margin buying") became increasingly common prior to the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Asset-liability mismatch

Another factor believed to contribute to financial crises is asset-liability mismatch, a situation in which the risks associated with an institution's debts and assets are not appropriately aligned. For example, commercial banks offer deposit accounts that can be withdrawn at any time and they use the proceeds to make long-term loans to businesses and homeowners. The mismatch between the banks' short-term liabilities (its deposits) and its long-term assets (its loans) is seen as one of the reasons bank runs occur (when depositors panic and decide to withdraw their funds more quickly than the bank can get back the proceeds of its loans). Likewise, Bear Stearns failed in 2007–08 because it was unable to renew the short-term debt it used to finance long-term investments in mortgage securities.

In an international context, many emerging market governments are unable to sell bonds denominated in their own currencies, and therefore sell bonds denominated in US dollars instead. This generates a mismatch between the currency denomination of their liabilities (their bonds) and their assets (their local tax revenues), so that they run a risk of sovereign default due to fluctuations in exchange rates.

Uncertainty and herd behavior

Many analyses of financial crises emphasize the role of investment mistakes caused by lack of knowledge or the imperfections of human reasoning. Behavioural finance studies errors in economic and quantitative reasoning. Psychologist Torbjorn K A Eliazon has also analyzed failures of economic reasoning in his concept of 'œcopathy'.

Historians, notably Charles P. Kindleberger, have pointed out that crises often follow soon after major financial or technical innovations that present investors with new types of financial opportunities, which he called "displacements" of investors' expectations. Early examples include the South Sea Bubble and Mississippi Bubble of 1720, which occurred when the notion of investment in shares of company stock was itself new and unfamiliar, and the Crash of 1929, which followed the introduction of new electrical and transportation technologies. More recently, many financial crises followed changes in the investment environment brought about by financial deregulation, and the crash of the dot com bubble in 2001 arguably began with "irrational exuberance" about Internet technology.

Unfamiliarity with recent technical and financial innovations may help explain how investors sometimes grossly overestimate asset values. Also, if the first investors in a new class of assets (for example, stock in "dot com" companies) profit from rising asset values as other investors learn about the innovation (in our example, as others learn about the potential of the Internet), then still more others may follow their example, driving the price even higher as they rush to buy in hopes of similar profits. If such "herd behaviour" causes prices to spiral up far above the true value of the assets, a crash may become inevitable. If for any reason the price briefly falls, so that investors realize that further gains are not assured, then the spiral may go into reverse, with price decreases causing a rush of sales, reinforcing the decrease in prices.

Regulatory failures

Governments have attempted to eliminate or mitigate financial crises by regulating the financial sector. One major goal of regulation is transparency: making institutions' financial situations publicly known by requiring regular reporting under standardized accounting procedures. Another goal of regulation is making sure institutions have sufficient assets to meet their contractual obligations, through reserve requirements, capital requirements, and other limits on leverage.

Some financial crises have been blamed on insufficient regulation, and have led to changes in regulation in order to avoid a repeat. For example, the former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has blamed the financial crisis of 2007–2008 on 'regulatory failure to guard against excessive risk-taking in the financial system, especially in the US'. Likewise, the New York Times singled out the deregulation of credit default swaps as a cause of the crisis.

However, excessive regulation has also been cited as a possible cause of financial crises. In particular, the Basel II Accord has been criticized for requiring banks to increase their capital when risks rise, which might cause them to decrease lending precisely when capital is scarce, potentially aggravating a financial crisis.

International regulatory convergence has been interpreted in terms of regulatory herding, deepening market herding (discussed above) and so increasing systemic risk. From this perspective, maintaining diverse regulatory regimes would be a safeguard.

Fraud has played a role in the collapse of some financial institutions, when companies have attracted depositors with misleading claims about their investment strategies, or have embezzled the resulting income. Examples include Charles Ponzi's scam in early 20th century Boston, the collapse of the MMM investment fund in Russia in 1994, the scams that led to the Albanian Lottery Uprising of 1997, and the collapse of Madoff Investment Securities in 2008.

Many rogue traders that have caused large losses at financial institutions have been accused of acting fraudulently in order to hide their trades. Fraud in mortgage financing has also been cited as one possible cause of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis; government officials stated on 23 September 2008 that the FBI was looking into possible fraud by mortgage financing companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and insurer American International Group. Likewise it has been argued that many financial companies failed in the recent crisis because their managers failed to carry out their fiduciary duties.

Contagion

Contagion refers to the idea that financial crises may spread from one institution to another, as when a bank run spreads from a few banks to many others, or from one country to another, as when currency crises, sovereign defaults, or stock market crashes spread across countries. When the failure of one particular financial institution threatens the stability of many other institutions, this is called systemic risk.

One widely cited example of contagion was the spread of the Thai crisis in 1997 to other countries like South Korea. However, economists often debate whether observing crises in many countries around the same time is truly caused by contagion from one market to another, or whether it is instead caused by similar underlying problems that would have affected each country individually even in the absence of international linkages.

Interest rate disparity and capital flows

The nineteenth century Banking School theory of crises suggested that crises were caused by flows of investment capital between areas with different rates of interest. Capital could be borrowed in areas with low interest rates and invested in areas of high interest. Using this method a small profit could be made with little or no capital. However, when interest rates changed and the incentive for the flow was removed or reversed sudden changes in capital flows could occur. The subjects of investment might be starved of cash possibly becoming insolvent and creating a credit crunch and the loaning banks would be left with defaulting investors leading to a banking crisis. As Charles Read has pointed out, the modern equivalent of this process involves the Carry Trade, see Carry (investment).

Recessionary effects

Some financial crises have little effect outside of the financial sector, like the Wall Street crash of 1987, but other crises are believed to have played a role in decreasing growth in the rest of the economy. There are many theories why a financial crisis could have a recessionary effect on the rest of the economy. These theoretical ideas include the 'financial accelerator', 'flight to quality' and 'flight to liquidity', and the Kiyotaki-Moore model. Some 'third generation' models of currency crises explore how currency crises and banking crises together can cause recessions.

Theories

Austrian theories

Austrian School economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek discussed the business cycle starting with Mises' Theory of Money and Credit, published in 1912.

Marxist theories

Recurrent major depressions in the world economy at the pace of 20 and 50 years have been the subject of studies since Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi (1773–1842) provided the first theory of crisis in a critique of classical political economy's assumption of equilibrium between supply and demand. Developing an economic crisis theory became the central recurring concept throughout Karl Marx's mature work. Marx's law of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall borrowed many features of the presentation of John Stuart Mill's discussion Of the Tendency of Profits to a Minimum (Principles of Political Economy Book IV Chapter IV). The theory is a corollary of the Tendency towards the Centralization of Profits.

In a capitalist system, successfully-operating businesses return less money to their workers (in the form of wages) than the value of the goods produced by those workers (i.e. the amount of money the products are sold for). This profit first goes towards covering the initial investment in the business. In the long-run, however, when one considers the combined economic activity of all successfully-operating business, it is clear that less money (in the form of wages) is being returned to the mass of the population (the workers) than is available to them to buy all of these goods being produced. Furthermore, the expansion of businesses in the process of competing for markets leads to an abundance of goods and a general fall in their prices, further exacerbating the tendency for the rate of profit to fall.

The viability of this theory depends upon two main factors: firstly, the degree to which profit is taxed by government and returned to the mass of people in the form of welfare, family benefits and health and education spending; and secondly, the proportion of the population who are workers rather than investors/business owners. Given the extraordinary capital expenditure required to enter modern economic sectors like airline transport, the military industry, or chemical production, these sectors are extremely difficult for new businesses to enter and are being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

Empirical and econometric research continues especially in the world systems theory and in the debate about Nikolai Kondratiev and the so-called 50-years Kondratiev waves. Major figures of world systems theory, like Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, consistently warned about the crash that the world economy is now facing. World systems scholars and Kondratiev cycle researchers always implied that Washington Consensus oriented economists never understood the dangers and perils, which leading industrial nations will be facing and are now facing at the end of the long economic cycle which began after the oil crisis of 1973.

Minsky's theory

Hyman Minsky has proposed a post-Keynesian explanation that is most applicable to a closed economy. He theorized that financial fragility is a typical feature of any capitalist economy. High fragility leads to a higher risk of a financial crisis. To facilitate his analysis, Minsky defines three approaches to financing firms may choose, according to their tolerance of risk. They are hedge finance, speculative finance, and Ponzi finance. Ponzi finance leads to the most fragility.

  • for hedge finance, income flows are expected to meet financial obligations in every period, including both the principal and the interest on loans.
  • for speculative finance, a firm must roll over debt because income flows are expected to only cover interest costs. None of the principal is paid off.
  • for Ponzi finance, expected income flows will not even cover interest cost, so the firm must borrow more or sell off assets simply to service its debt. The hope is that either the market value of assets or income will rise enough to pay off interest and principal.

Financial fragility levels move together with the business cycle. After a recession, firms have lost much financing and choose only hedge, the safest. As the economy grows and expected profits rise, firms tend to believe that they can allow themselves to take on speculative financing. In this case, they know that profits will not cover all the interest all the time. Firms, however, believe that profits will rise and the loans will eventually be repaid without much trouble. More loans lead to more investment, and the economy grows further. Then lenders also start believing that they will get back all the money they lend. Therefore, they are ready to lend to firms without full guarantees of success.

Lenders know that such firms will have problems repaying. Still, they believe these firms will refinance from elsewhere as their expected profits rise. This is Ponzi financing. In this way, the economy has taken on much risky credit. Now it is only a question of time before some big firm actually defaults. Lenders understand the actual risks in the economy and stop giving credit so easily. Refinancing becomes impossible for many, and more firms default. If no new money comes into the economy to allow the refinancing process, a real economic crisis begins. During the recession, firms start to hedge again, and the cycle is closed.

Banking School theory of crises

The Banking School theory of crises describes a continuous cycle driven by varying interest rates. It is based on the work of Thomas Tooke, Thomas Attwood, Henry Thornton, William Jevons and a number of bankers opposed to the Bank Charter Act 1844.

Starting at a time when short-term interest rates are low, frustration builds up among investors who search for a better yield in countries and locations with higher rates, leading to increased capital flows to countries with higher rates. Internally, short-term rates rise above long-term rates causing failures where borrowing at short term rates has been used to invest long-term where the funds cannot be liquidated quickly. Internationally, arbitrage and the need to stop capital flows, which caused bullion drains in the gold standard of the nineteenth century and drains of foreign capital later, bring interest rates in the low-rate country up to equal those in the country which is the subject of investment.

The capital flows reverse or cease suddenly causing the subject of investment to be starved of funds and the remaining investors (often those who are least knowledgeable) to be left with devalued assets. Bankruptcies, defaults and bank failures follow as rates are pushed high. After the crisis governments push short-term interest rates low again to diminish the cost of servicing government borrowing which has been used to overcome the crisis. Funds build up again looking for investment opportunities and the cycle restarts from the beginning.

Coordination games

Mathematical approaches to modeling financial crises have emphasized that there is often positive feedback between market participants' decisions (see strategic complementarity). Positive feedback implies that there may be dramatic changes in asset values in response to small changes in economic fundamentals. For example, some models of currency crises (including that of Paul Krugman) imply that a fixed exchange rate may be stable for a long period of time, but will collapse suddenly in an avalanche of currency sales in response to a sufficient deterioration of government finances or underlying economic conditions.

According to some theories, positive feedback implies that the economy can have more than one equilibrium. There may be an equilibrium in which market participants invest heavily in asset markets because they expect assets to be valuable. This is the type of argument underlying Diamond and Dybvig's model of bank runs, in which savers withdraw their assets from the bank because they expect others to withdraw too. Likewise, in Obstfeld's model of currency crises, when economic conditions are neither too bad nor too good, there are two possible outcomes: speculators may or may not decide to attack the currency depending on what they expect other speculators to do.

Herding models and learning models

A variety of models have been developed in which asset values may spiral excessively up or down as investors learn from each other. In these models, asset purchases by a few agents encourage others to buy too, not because the true value of the asset increases when many buy (which is called "strategic complementarity"), but because investors come to believe the true asset value is high when they observe others buying.

In "herding" models, it is assumed that investors are fully rational, but only have partial information about the economy. In these models, when a few investors buy some type of asset, this reveals that they have some positive information about that asset, which increases the rational incentive of others to buy the asset too. Even though this is a fully rational decision, it may sometimes lead to mistakenly high asset values (implying, eventually, a crash) since the first investors may, by chance, have been mistaken. Herding models, based on Complexity Science, indicate that it is the internal structure of the market, not external influences, which is primarily responsible for crashes.

In "adaptive learning" or "adaptive expectations" models, investors are assumed to be imperfectly rational, basing their reasoning only on recent experience. In such models, if the price of a given asset rises for some period of time, investors may begin to believe that its price always rises, which increases their tendency to buy and thus drives the price up further. Likewise, observing a few price decreases may give rise to a downward price spiral, so in models of this type large fluctuations in asset prices may occur. Agent-based models of financial markets often assume investors act on the basis of adaptive learning or adaptive expectations.

Global financial crisis

As the most recent and most damaging financial crisis event, the Global financial crisis, deserves special attention, as its causes, effects, response, and lessons are most applicable to the current financial system.

History

The bursting of the South Sea Bubble and Mississippi Bubble in 1720 is regarded as the first modern financial crisis.

A noted survey of financial crises is This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Reinhart & Rogoff 2009), by economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, who are regarded as among the foremost historians of financial crises. In this survey, they trace the history of financial crisis back to sovereign defaults – default on public debt, – which were the form of crisis prior to the 18th century and continue, then and now causing private bank failures; crises since the 18th century feature both public debt default and private debt default. Reinhart and Rogoff also class debasement of currency and hyperinflation as being forms of financial crisis, broadly speaking, because they lead to unilateral reduction (repudiation) of debt.

Prior to 19th century

The Roman denarius was debased over time.
 
Philip II of Spain defaulted four times on Spain's debt.

Reinhart and Rogoff trace inflation (to reduce debt) to Dionysius I rule in Syracuse and begin their "eight centuries" in 1258; debasement of currency also occurred under the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. A financial crisis in 33 A.D. caused by a contraction of money supply had been recorded by several Roman historians.

Among the earliest crises Reinhart and Rogoff study is the 1340 default of England, due to setbacks in its war with France (the Hundred Years' War; see details). Further early sovereign defaults include seven defaults by the Spanish Empire, four under Philip II, three under his successors.

Other global and national financial mania since the 17th century include:

  • 1637: Bursting of tulip mania in the Netherlands – while tulip mania is popularly reported as an example of a financial crisis, and was a speculative bubble, modern scholarship holds that its broader economic impact was limited to negligible, and that it did not precipitate a financial crisis.
  • 1720: Bursting of South Sea Bubble (Great Britain) and Mississippi Bubble (France) – earliest of modern financial crises; in both cases the company assumed the national debt of the country (80–85% in Great Britain, 100% in France), and thereupon the bubble burst. The resulting crisis of confidence probably had a deep impact on the financial and political development of France.
  • Crisis of 1763 - started in Amsterdam, begun by the collapse of Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky and Leendert Pieter de Neufville's bank, spread to Germany and Scandinavia.
  • Crisis of 1772 – in London and Amsterdam. 20 important banks in London went bankrupt after one banking house defaulted (bankers Neal, James, Fordyce and Down)
  • France's Financial and Debt Crisis (1783–1788)- France severe financial crisis due to the immense debt accrued through the French involvement in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and the American Revolution (1775-1783).
  • Panic of 1792 – run on banks in US precipitated by the expansion of credit by the newly formed Bank of the United States
  • Panic of 1796–1797 – British and US credit crisis caused by land speculation bubble

19th century

20th century

  • Panic of 1901: limited to crashing of the New York Stock Exchange
  • Panic of 1907: pervasive USA economic recession w/ bank failures
  • Panic of 1910–1911
  • 1910: Shanghai rubber stock market crisis
  • 1914: The Great Financial Crisis (see Aldrich-Vreeland Act)
  • Wall Street Crash of 1929, followed by the Great Depression: the largest and most important economic depression in the 20th century
  • 1937-1938: an economic downturn that occurred during the Great Depression.
  • 1973: 1973 oil crisis – oil prices soared, causing the 1973–1974 stock market crash
  • Secondary banking crisis of 1973–1975: United Kingdom
  • 21st century

    Pythia

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    Pythia was the name of the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. She specifically served as its oracle and was known as the Oracle of Delphi. Her title was also historically glossed in English as the Pythoness.

    The name Pythia is derived from Pytho, which in myth was the original name of Delphi. Etymologically, the Greeks derived this place name from the verb πύθειν (púthein) "to rot", which refers to the sickly sweet smell from the decomposing body of the monstrous Python after it was slain by Apollo.

    The Pythia was established at the latest in the 8th century BC, (though some estimates date the shrine to as early as 1400 BC), and was widely credited for her prophecies uttered under divine possession (enthusiasmos) by Apollo. The Pythian priestess emerged pre-eminent by the end of the 7th century BC and continued to be consulted until the late 4th century AD. During this period, the Delphic Oracle was the most prestigious and authoritative oracle among the Greeks, and she was among the most powerful women of the classical world. The oracle is one of the best-documented religious institutions of the classical Greeks. Authors who mention the oracle include Aeschylus, Aristotle, Clement of Alexandria, Diodorus, Diogenes, Euripides, Herodotus, Julian, Justin, Livy, Lucan, Nepos, Ovid, Pausanias, Pindar, Plato, Plutarch, Sophocles, Strabo, Thucydides, and Xenophon.

    Nevertheless, details of how the Pythia operated are scarce, missing, or non-existent entirely, as authors from the classical period (6th to 4th centuries BC) treat the process as common knowledge with no need to explain. Those who discussed the oracle in any detail are from 1st century BC to 4th century AD and give conflicting stories. One of the main stories claimed that the Pythia delivered oracles in a frenzied state induced by vapours rising from a chasm in the rock, and that she spoke gibberish which priests interpreted as the enigmatic prophecies and turned them into poetic dactylic hexameters preserved in Greek literature. This idea, however, has been challenged by scholars such as Joseph Fontenrose and Lisa Maurizio, who argue that the ancient sources uniformly represent the Pythia speaking intelligibly, and giving prophecies in her own voice. Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC, describes the Pythia speaking in dactylic hexameters.

    Origins

    The Delphic oracle may have been present in some form from 1400 BC, in the middle period of Mycenaean Greece (1600–1100 BC). There is evidence that Apollo took over the shrine with the arrival of priests from Delos in the 8th century, from an earlier dedication to Gaia.

    The 8th-century reformulation of the Oracle at Delphi as a shrine to Apollo seems associated with the rise in importance of the city of Corinth and the importance of sites in the Corinthian Gulf.

    The earliest account of the origin of the Delphic oracle is provided in the Homeric Hymn to Delphic Apollo, which recent scholarship dates within a narrow range, c. 580–570 BC. It describes in detail how Apollo chose his first priests, whom he selected in their "swift ship"; they were "Cretans from Minos' city of Knossos" who were voyaging to sandy Pylos. But Apollo, who had Delphinios as one of his cult epithets, leapt into the ship in the form of a dolphin (delphys, gen. delphinos). Dolphin-Apollo revealed himself to the terrified Cretans and bade them follow him up to the "place where you will have rich offerings". The Cretans "danced in time and followed, singing Iē Paiēon, like the paeans of the Cretans in whose breasts the divine Muse has placed "honey-voiced singing". "Paean" seems to have been the name by which Apollo was known in Mycenaean times.

    The omphalos in the museum of Delphi

    G. L. Huxley observes: "If the hymn to (Delphic) Apollo conveys a historical message, it is above all that there were once Cretan priests at Delphi." Robin Lane Fox notes that Cretan bronzes are found at Delphi from the eighth century onwards, and Cretan sculptures are dedicated as late as c. 620–600 BC: "Dedications at the site cannot establish the identity of its priesthood, but for once we have an explicit text to set beside the archaeological evidence." An early visitor to these "dells of Parnassus", at the end of the eighth century, was Hesiod, who was shown the omphalos.

    There are many later stories of the origins of the Delphic Oracle. One late explanation, which is first related by the 1st century BC writer Diodorus Siculus, tells of a goat herder named Coretas, who noticed one day that one of his goats, who fell into a crack in the earth, was behaving strangely. On entering the chasm, he found himself filled with a divine presence and the ability to see outside of the present, into the past and the future. Excited by his discovery, he shared it with nearby villagers. Many started visiting the site to experience the convulsions and inspirational trances, though some were said to disappear into the cleft due to their frenzied state. A shrine was erected at the site, where people began worshipping in the late Bronze Age, by 1600 BC. After the deaths of a number of men, the villagers chose a single young woman as the liaison for the divine inspirations. Eventually, she came to speak on behalf of the gods.

    According to earlier myths, the office of the oracle was initially possessed by the goddesses Themis and Phoebe, and the site was initially sacred to Gaia. Subsequently, it was believed to be sacred to Poseidon, the god of earthquakes. During the Greek Dark Age, from the 11th to the 9th century BC, a new god of prophecy, Apollo, was said to have seized the temple and expelled the twin guardian serpents of Gaia, whose bodies he wrapped around the caduceus. Later myths stated that Phoebe or Themis had "given" the site to Apollo, rendering its seizure by priests of the new god justified, but presumably having to retain the priestesses of the original oracle because of the long tradition. It is possible that the myths portray Poseidon as mollified by the gift of a new site in Troizen.

    Diodorus explained how, initially, the Pythia was an appropriately clad young virgin, for great emphasis was placed on the Oracle's chastity and purity to be reserved for union with the god Apollo. But he reports one story as follows:

    Echecrates the Thessalian, having arrived at the shrine and beheld the virgin who uttered the oracle, became enamoured of her because of her beauty, carried her away and violated her; and that the Delphians because of this deplorable occurrence passed a law that in the future a virgin should no longer prophesy but that an elderly woman of fifty would declare the Oracles and that she would be dressed in the costume of a virgin, as a sort of reminder of the prophetess of olden times.

    The scholar Martin Litchfield West writes that the Pythia shows many traits of shamanistic practices, likely inherited or influenced from Central Asian practices, although there is no evidence of any such association at this time. He cites the Pythia sitting in a cauldron on a tripod, while making her prophecies in an ecstatic trance state, like shamans, and her utterings unintelligible.

    The tripod was perforated with holes, and as she inhaled the vapors, her figure would seem to enlarge, her hair stood on end, her complexion changed, her heart panted, her bosom swelled, and her voice became seemingly more than human.

    Organization of the Oracle

    Priestess

    Since the first operation of the oracle of the Temple of Delphi, it was believed that the god lived within a laurel (his holy plant) and gave oracles for the future with the rustling of the leaves. It was also said that the art of divination had been taught to the god by the three winged sisters of Parnassus, the Thriae, at the time when Apollo was grazing his cattle there. The Thriae used to have a Kliromanteion (oracle by lot) in that area in the past and it is possible that such was the first oracle of Delphi, i.e. using the lot (throwing lots in a container and pulling a lot, the color and shape of which were of particular importance). Three oracles had successively operated in Delphi – the chthonion using egkoimisi ( a procedure that involved sleeping in the Holy place, so as to see a revealing dream), the Kliromanteion and finally the Apollonian, with the laurel. But ever since the introduction of the cult of Dionysus at Delphi, the god that brought his followers into ecstasy and madness, the Delphic god gave oracles through Pythia, who also fell into a trance under the influence of vapors and fumes coming from the opening, the inner sanctum of the Oracle. Pythia sat on top of a tall gilded tripod that stood above the opening. In the old days, Pythia was a virgin, young girl, but after Echecrates of Thessaly kidnapped and violated a young and beautiful Pythia in the late 3rd century BC, a woman older than fifty years old was chosen, who dressed and wore jewelry to resemble a young maiden girl. According to tradition, Phemonoe was the first Pythia.

    Though little is known of how the priestess was chosen, the Pythia was probably selected, at the death of her predecessor, from amongst a guild of priestesses of the temple. These women were all natives of Delphi and were required to have had a sober life and be of good character. Although some were married, upon assuming their role as the Pythia, the priestesses ceased all family responsibilities, marital relations, and individual identity. In the heyday of the oracle, the Pythia may have been a woman chosen from an influential family, well educated in geography, politics, history, philosophy, and the arts. During later periods, however, uneducated peasant women were chosen for the role, which may explain why the poetic pentameter or hexameter prophecies of the early period were later made only in prose. Often, the priestess's answers to questions would be put into hexameter by a priest. The archaeologist John Hale reports that:

    the Pythia was (on occasion) a noble of aristocratic family, sometimes a peasant, sometimes rich, sometimes poor, sometimes old, sometimes young, sometimes a very lettered and educated woman to whom somebody like the high priest and the philosopher Plutarch would dedicate essays, other times who could not write her own name. So it seems to have been aptitude rather than any ascribed status that made these women eligible to be Pythias and speak for the god.

    The job of a priestess, especially the Pythia, was a respectable career for Greek women. Priestesses enjoyed many liberties and rewards for their social position, such as freedom from taxation, the right to own property and attend public events, a salary and housing provided by the state, a wide range of duties depending on their affiliation, and often gold crowns.

    During the main period of the oracle's popularity, as many as three women served as Pythia, another vestige of the triad, with two taking turns in giving prophecy and another kept in reserve. Only one day of the month could the priestess be consulted.

    Plutarch said that the Pythia's life was shortened through the service of Apollo. The sessions were said to be exhausting. At the end of each period the Pythia would be like a runner after a race or a dancer after an ecstatic dance, which may have had a physical effect on the health of the Pythia.

    Other officiants

    Several other officiants served the oracle in addition to the Pythia. After 200 BC, at any given time, there were two priests of Apollo, who were in charge of the entire sanctuary; Plutarch, who served as a priest during the late first century and early second century CE, gives us the most information about the organization of the oracle at that time. Before 200 BC, while the temple was dedicated to Apollo, there was probably only one priest of Apollo. Priests were chosen from among the main citizens of Delphi, and were appointed for life. In addition to overseeing the oracle, priests would also conduct sacrifices at other festivals of Apollo, and had charge of the Pythian Games. Earlier arrangements, before the temple became dedicated to Apollo, are not documented.

    The other officiants associated with the oracle are less well known. These are the hosioi ("ὅσιοι", "holy ones") and the prophētai ("προφῆται", singular prophētēs). Prophētēs is the origin of the English word "prophet", with the meaning "one who forespeaks", "one who foretells". The prophetai are referred to in literary sources, but their function is unclear; it has been suggested that they interpreted the Pythia's prophecies, or even reformatted her utterances into verse, but it has also been argued that the term prophētēs is a generic reference to any cult officials of the sanctuary, including the Pythia. There were five hosioi, whose responsibilities are unknown, but may have been involved in some manner with the operation of the oracle.

    Oracular procedure

    In the traditions associated with Apollo, the oracle only gave prophecies during the nine warmest months of each year. During winter months, Apollo was said to have deserted his temple, his place being taken by his divine half-brother Dionysus, whose tomb was also within the temple. It is not known whether the Oracle participated with the Dionysian rites of the Maenads or Thyades in the Korykion cave on Mount Parnassos, although Plutarch informs us that his friend Clea was both a Priestess to Apollo and to the secret rites of Dionysus. The male priests seem to have had their own ceremonies to the dying and resurrecting god. Apollo was said to return at the beginning of spring, on the 7th day of the month of Bysios, his birthday. This would reiterate the absences of the great goddess Demeter in winter also, which would have been a part of the earliest traditions.

    Once a month, thereafter, the oracle would undergo purification rites, including fasting, to ceremonially prepare the Pythia for communications with the divine. On the seventh day of each month, she would be led by two attended oracular priests, with her face veiled in purple. A priest would then declaim:

    Servant of the Delphian Apollo
    Go to the Castallian Spring
    Wash in its silvery eddies,
    And return cleansed to the temple.
    Guard your lips from offence
    To those who ask for oracles.
    Let the God's answer come
    Pure from all private fault.

    The Pythia would then bathe naked in the Castalian Spring, then drink the holier waters of the Cassotis, which flowed closer to the temple, where a naiad possessing magical powers was said to live. Euripides described this ritual purification ceremony, starting first with the priest Ion dancing on the highest point of Mount Parnassus, going about his duties within the temple, and sprinkling the temple floor with holy water. The purification ceremonies always were performed on the seventh day of the month, which was sacred to and associated with the god Apollo. Then, escorted by the Hosioi, an aristocratic council of five, with a crowd of oracular servants, they would arrive at the temple. Consultants, carrying laurel branches sacred to Apollo, approached the temple along the winding upward course of the Sacred Way, bringing a young goat kid for sacrifice in the forecourt of the temple, and a monetary fee.

    Inscribed on a column in the pronaos (forecourt) of the temple were an enigmatic "E" and three maxims:

    1. Know thyself
    2. Nothing to excess
    3. Surety brings ruin, or "make a pledge and mischief is nigh" (ἐγγύα πάρα δ'ἄτα)

    These seem to have played an important part in the temple ritual. According to Plutarch's essay on the meaning of the "E at Delphi" (the only literary source for the E inscription), there have been various interpretations of this letter. In ancient times, the origin of these phrases was attributed to one or more of the Seven Sages of Greece.

    Pythia would then remove her purple veil. She would wear a short plain white dress. At the temple fire to Hestia, a live goat kid would be set in front of the Altar and sprinkled with water. If the kid trembled from the hooves upward it was considered a good omen for the oracle, but if it did not, the enquirer was considered to have been rejected by the god and the consultation was terminated. The goat was then slaughtered and upon sacrifice, the animal's organs, particularly its liver, were examined to ensure the signs were favourable, and then burned outside on the altar of Chios. The rising smoke was a signal that the oracle was open. The Oracle then descended into the adyton (Greek for "inaccessible") and mounted her tripod seat, holding laurel leaves and a dish of Kassotis spring water into which she gazed. Nearby was the omphalos (Greek for "navel"), which was flanked by two solid gold eagles representing the authority of Zeus, and the cleft from which emerged the sacred pneuma.

    Petitioners drew lots to determine the order of admission, but representatives of a city-state or those who brought larger donations to Apollo were secured a higher place in line. Each person approaching the oracle was accompanied with a proxenos specific to the state of the petitioner, whose job was to identify the citizen of their polis. This service, too, was paid for.

    Plutarch describes the events of one session in which the omens were ill-favored, but the Oracle was consulted nonetheless. The priests proceeded to receive the prophecy, but the result was a hysterical uncontrollable reaction from the priestess that resulted in her death a few days later.

    At times when the Pythia was not available, consultants could obtain guidance by asking simple yes-or-no questions to the priests. A response was returned through the tossing of colored beans, one color designating "yes", another "no". Little else is known of this practice.

    Between 535 and 615 of the Oracles (statements) of Delphi are known to have survived since classical times, of which over half are said to be accurate historically (see List of oracular statements from Delphi for some examples).

    Cicero noted no expedition was undertaken, no colony sent out, and no affair of any distinguished individuals went on without the sanction of the oracle.

    The early fathers of the Christian church believed demons were allowed to assist them to spread idolatry, so that the need for a savior would be more evident.

    Experience of supplicants

    View of Delphi with Sacrificial Procession by Claude Lorrain

    In antiquity, the people who went to the Oracle to ask for advice were known as "consultants", literally, "those who seek counsel". It would appear that the supplicant to the oracle would undergo a four-stage process, typical of shamanic journeys.

    • Step 1: Journey to Delphi—Supplicants were motivated by some need to undertake the long and sometimes arduous journey to come to Delphi in order to consult the oracle. This journey was motivated by an awareness of the existence of the oracle, the growing motivation on the part of the individual or group to undertake the journey, and the gathering of information about the oracle as providing answers to important questions.
    • Step 2: Preparation of the supplicant—Supplicants were interviewed in preparation of their presentation to the Oracle, by the priests in attendance. The genuine cases were sorted and the supplicant had to go through rituals involving the framing of their questions, the presentation of gifts to the Oracle and a procession along the Sacred Way carrying laurel leaves to visit the temple, symbolic of the journey they had made.
    • Step 3: Visit to the Oracle—The supplicant would then be led into the temple to visit the adyton, put his question to the Pythia, receive his answer and depart. The degree of preparation already undergone would mean that the supplicant was already in a very aroused and meditative state, similar to the shamanic journey elaborated on in the article.
    • Step 4: Return home—Oracles were meant to give advice to shape future action, that was meant to be implemented by the supplicant, or by those that had sponsored the supplicant to visit the Oracle. The validity of the Oracular utterance was confirmed by the consequences of the application of the oracle to the lives of those people who sought Oracular guidance.

    Temple of Apollo

    Modern photograph of the ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi

    The ruins of the Temple of Delphi visible today date from the 4th century BC, and are of a peripteral Doric building. It was erected on the remains of an earlier temple, dated to the 6th century BC, which itself was erected on the site of a 7th-century-BC construction attributed to the architects Trophonios and Agamedes.

    The 6th-century BC temple was named the "Temple of Alcmaeonidae" in tribute to the Athenian family who funded its reconstruction following a fire, which had destroyed the original structure. The new building was a Doric hexastyle temple of 6 by 15 columns. This temple was destroyed in 373 BC by an earthquake. The pediment sculptures are a tribute to Praxias and Androsthenes of Athens. Of a similar proportion to the second temple it retained the 6 by 15 column pattern around the stylobate. Inside was the adyton, the centre of the Delphic oracle and seat of Pythia. The temple had the statement "Know thyself", one of the Delphic maxims, carved into it (and some modern Greek writers say the rest were carved into it), and the maxims were attributed to Apollo and given through the Oracle and/or the Seven Sages of Greece ("know thyself" perhaps also being attributed to other famous philosophers).

    The temple survived until AD 390, when the Roman emperor Theodosius I silenced the oracle by destroying the temple and most of the statues and works of art to remove all traces of paganism.

    Scientific explanations

    Fumes and vapors

    Priestess of Delphi (1891) by John Collier, showing the Pythia sitting on a tripod with vapor rising from a crack in the earth beneath her

    There have been many attempts to find a scientific explanation for the Pythia's inspiration. Most commonly, these refer to an observation made by Plutarch, who presided as high priest at Delphi for several years, who stated that her oracular powers appeared to be associated with vapors from the Kerna spring waters that flowed under the temple. It has often been suggested that these vapors may have been hallucinogenic gases.

    Recent geological investigations have shown that gas emissions from a geologic chasm in the earth could have inspired the Delphic Oracle to "connect with the divine." Some researchers suggest the possibility that ethylene gas caused the Pythia's state of inspiration, based on the matching symptoms, ethylene's use as an anesthetic, and the smell of the chamber, as described by Plutarch. Traces of ethylene have been found in the waters of the Castallian spring, which is now largely diverted for the town water supply of the town of modern Delphi. However, Lehoux argues that ethylene is "impossible" and benzene is "crucially underdetermined." Others argue instead that methane might have been the gas emitted from the chasm, or CO
    2
    and H
    2
    S
    , arguing that the chasm itself might have been a seismic ground rupture.

    Oleander, in contemporary toxicological literature, has also been considered responsible for contributing symptoms similar to those of the Pythia. The Pythia used oleander as a complement during the oracular procedure, chewing its leaves and inhaling their smoke. The toxic substances of oleander results in symptoms similar to those of epilepsy, the "sacred disease", which could have amounted to the possession of the Pythia by the spirit of Apollo, rendering Pythia his spokesperson and prophetess. The oleander fumes (the "spirit of Apollo") could have originated in a brazier located in an underground chamber (the antron) and have escaped through an opening (the "chasm") in the temple's floor. This hypothesis perfectly fits the findings of the archaeological excavations that revealed an underground space under the temple. This explanation sheds light on the alleged spirit and chasm of Delphi, that have been the subject of intense debate and interdisciplinary research for the last hundred years.

    Regardless of which fumes existed in the chasm, winter months would bring cooler weather, decreasing release of gasses in the chamber. This offers a plausible explanation for the absence of summer deities in winter months. A toxic gas also explains the reason why the Pythia could only venture into her oracular chamber once a month, both to coincide with the correct concentration of gases, and to prolong the already-short lifespan of the Pythia by limiting her exposure to such fumes.

    Excavations

    Beginning during 1892, a team of French archaeologists directed by Théophile Homolle of the Collège de France excavated the site at Delphi. Contrary to ancient literature, they found no fissure and no possible means for the production of fumes.

    Adolphe Paul Oppé published an influential article in 1904, which made three crucial claims: No chasm or vapor ever existed; no natural gas could create prophetic visions; and the recorded incidents of a priestess undergoing violent and often deadly reactions was inconsistent with the more customary reports. Oppé explained away all the ancient testimony as being reports of gullible travelers fooled by wily local guides who, Oppé believed, invented the details of a chasm and a vapor in the first place.

    In accordance with this definitive statement, such scholars as Frederick Poulson, E.R. Dodds, Joseph Fontenrose, and Saul Levin all stated that there were no vapors and no chasm. For the decades to follow, scientists and scholars believed the ancient descriptions of a sacred, inspiring pneuma to be fallacious. During 1950, the French hellenist Pierre Amandry, who had worked at Delphi and later directed the French excavations there, concurred with Oppé's pronouncements, claiming that gaseous emissions were not even possible in a volcanic zone such as Delphi. Neither Oppé nor Amandry were geologists, though, and no geologists had been involved in the debate up to that point.

    Subsequent re-examination of the French excavations, however, has shown that this consensus may have been mistaken. Broad (2007) demonstrates that a French photograph of the excavated interior of the temple clearly depicts a springlike pool as well as a number of small vertical fissures, indicating numerous pathways by which vapors could enter the base of the temple.

    During the 1980s, the interdisciplinary team of geologist Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, archaeologist John R. Hale, forensic chemist Jeffrey P. Chanton, and toxicologist Henry R. Spiller investigated the site at Delphi using this photograph and other sources as evidence, as part of a United Nations survey of all active faults in Greece.

    Jelle Zeilinga de Boer saw evidence of a fault line in Delphi that lay under the ruined temple. During several expeditions, they discovered two major fault lines, one lying north–south, the Kerna fault, and the other lying east–west, the Delphic fault, which parallels the shore of the Corinthian Gulf. The rift of the Gulf of Corinth is one of the most geologically active sites on Earth; shifts there impose immense strains on nearby fault lines, such as those below Delphi. The two faults cross one another, and they intersect right below where the adyton was probably located. (The actual, original oracle chamber had been destroyed by the moving faults, but there is strong structural evidence that indicates where it was most likely located.)

    They also found evidence for underground passages and chambers, and drains for spring water. Additionally, they discovered at the site formations of travertine, a form of calcite created when water flows through limestone and dissolves calcium carbonate, which is later redeposited. Further investigation revealed that deep beneath the Delphi region lies bituminous deposit, rich in hydrocarbons and full of pitch, that has a petrochemical content as high as 20%. Friction created by earthquakes heat the bituminous layers resulting in vaporization of the hydrocarbons which rise to the surface through small fissures in the rock.

    Illusions in the adyton

    It has been disputed as to how the adyton was organized, but it appears clear that this temple was unlike any other in ancient Greece. The small chamber was located below the main floor of the temple and offset to one side, perhaps constructed specifically over the crossing faults. The intimate chamber allowed the escaping vapors to be contained in quarters close enough to provoke intoxicating effects. Plutarch reports that the temple was filled with a sweet smell when the "deity" was present:

    Not often nor regularly, but occasionally and fortuitously, the room in which they seat the god's consultants is filled with a fragrance and breeze, as if the adyton were sending forth the essences of the sweetest and most expensive perfumes from a spring (Plutarch Moralia 437c).

    De Boer's research caused him to propose ethylene as a gas known to possess this sweet odor. Toxicologist Henry R. Spiller stated that inhalation of even a small amount of ethylene can cause both benign trances and euphoric psychedelic experiences. Other effects include physical detachment, loss of inhibitions, the relieving of pain, and rapidly changing moods without dulling consciousness. He also noted that excessive doses can cause confusion, agitation, delirium, and loss of muscle coordination.

    Anesthesiologist Isabella Coler Herb found that a dose of ethylene gas up to 20% induced a trance in which subjects could sit up, hear questions and answer them logically, though with altered speech patterns, and they might lose some awareness and sensitivity in their hands and feet. After recovery, they had no recollection of what had happened. With a dose higher than 20%, the patients lost control over their limbs and might thrash wildly, groaning and staggering. All these hallucinogenic symptoms match Plutarch's description of the Pythia, whom he had witnessed many times.

    During 2001, water samples from the Kerna spring, uphill from the temple and now diverted to the nearby town of Delphi, yielded evidence of 0.3 parts per million of ethylene. It is likely that in ancient times, higher concentrations of ethylene or other gases emerged in the temple from these springs. While likely in the context of the ethylene gas theory, we have no evidence to support the diminishing ethylene concentration statement.

    Frequent earthquakes produced by Greece's location at the clashing intersection of three tectonic plates could have caused the observed cracking of the limestone, and the opening of new channels for hydrocarbons entering the flowing waters of the Kassotis. This would cause the admixture of ethylene to fluctuate, increasing and decreasing the potency of the drug. It has been suggested that the waning of the Oracle after the era of Roman Emperor Hadrian was due in part to a long period without earthquakes in the area.

    Inequality (mathematics)

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