According to the legend, there were three mythical temples. The first was made with laurel leaves, the second with bee wax, and the third with copper. The temple you see in front of you is the third stone temple that existed at the site. The first was built in 650 BC with limestone and dark grey marble from Mount Parnassus, but it was destroyed by a fire in 548 BC, and the priests of the oracle were not able to rebuild it. In 510 BC, some exiled Athenian aristocratic family called the Alcmaeonids had a bad relationship, or were on bad terms if you want, with the tyrant of Athens, Pisistratus. So they founded the building of the temple using a combination of porolith (poros limestone) and expensive marble from the Cycladic island of Paros. In exchange, Pythia and the oracle collaborated to press Sparta to expel Pisistratus from Athens. After the intervention of the Spartans in Athens, Cleisthenes took advantage and created the Republic. This temple was built in Doric order with 6 columns on the narrow sides and 15 on the long sides. Inside the museum, you will be able to see parts of the decorative sculpture of the pediments depicting on the eastern side the arrival of Apollo at Delphi and, on the western, the Gigantomachy. It was destroyed in 373 BC by a huge natural disaster. Earthquakes caused the fall of rocks from the Phaedriades, which demolished the temple. Pythia's identity was one of the biggest mysteries in antiquity. Pythia was not a name of a specific person, but a title for the female mediums of Apollo, who had devoted their lives to him. At first, they were young virgins, but Echecrates of Thessaly fell in love with Pythia and kidnapped her. That's why it was decided later that Pythia should be a woman around 50 years old, chosen to leave her family and be at the sanctuary of Apollo till the end of her life. The Pythia used to sit on a Delphic tripod, chewing laurel leaves and uttering inarticulate cries. An unspecified number of priests, only men, interpreted the cries and gave out the prophecies only once a year. That's the seventh day of the month of Bysios, which was either March or April. Later on, when the oracle became famous, the number increased to nine days per year, especially the seventh day of each of the nine months when Apollo was at Delphi, because in the winter time, she entrusted Delphi to God Dionysus. The third and last temple of Apollo was rebuilt in the same area in 330 BC, and its remains are those we can still see today. It was the most important building of the sanctuary, the center of the religion and the shelter of the oracle. In the interior, there was the statue of Apollo, and in a separate room called Adyton, Pythia was conducting the divination process. It was built in the Doric order with Corinthian porolith for the columns and the rooftop, and with local gray stone from the mountain for the walls the floor and the foundation. The pediment depicted God Apollo sitting on a tall tripod between Leto, Artemis, and the Muses on the eastern side. While on the western side, Dionysus was portrayed among his Delphian followers, the Thyiades. Spoils and Persian shields from the Battle of Marathon were nailed on the unadorned metopes.