Before Apollo, the most sacred site in Greece belonged to a monster: Python, the colossal earth-serpent who guarded the oracle at Delphi. The slaying of Python by the young sun-god is the myth of how the bright Olympian order claimed the most ancient and powerful holy place on earth — and it left its mark on the oracle forever.
The Serpent of the Sacred Chasm
Python was a monstrous serpent or dragon, a child of Gaia the Earth, who dwelt at the foot of Mount Parnassus and guarded the chasm at Delphi — a place sacred to the most primal earth-powers, where prophetic vapours were said to rise from the ground. The oracle there was originally Gaia's own, and Python was its ancient, chthonic guardian.
The Slaying by Apollo
The young god Apollo, seeking a site for his own oracle, came to Delphi and slew Python with his arrows — some say to avenge the serpent's pursuit of his mother Leto. With the old guardian dead, Apollo claimed the oracle as his own, and Delphi became the centre of his worship and the most important prophetic site in the entire Greek world. The bright god of order had wrested the sacred chasm from the powers of the primal earth.
The Pythia and the Pythian Games
Python's memory was woven into everything that followed. Apollo's prophetic priestess was called the Pythia after the slain serpent; the athletic festival held at Delphi was named the Pythian Games; and Apollo himself bore the title Pythios. Some traditions even said the prophetic vapours rose from the rotting body of Python deep in the earth — so that every prophecy spoken at Delphi carried, in a sense, the breath of the monster Apollo had killed.
Order Over the Ancient Earth
The myth of Python is really the myth of a religious transition — the newer Olympian gods taking over the holy places of the older earth-deities. But the old power was never fully erased; it lingered in the names, the vapours, and the serpent coiled forever beneath the most famous oracle in history.
Apollo killed the serpent — but he ruled its chasm, and spoke through its breath, ever after.