← Ancient Oracles

The Homer Oracle

Apollo, crowned with laurel and holding his lyre, welcomes you at the top of the steps of his marble temple above the clouds

The Homer oracle, also called the Oracle of Apollo, is an ancient way of asking the gods a question. You throw a die three times, and the three numbers point to one of 216 lines from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. That line is Apollo's answer to you.

The list of lines comes from a magical papyrus written in Roman Egypt about 1,700 years ago, and this app follows it line by line. For each line we have added a modern reading, to help you see what it might mean for your life.

How to consult

  1. Find a quiet moment. Think of one clear question, and keep it in mind.
  2. Call on Apollo, god of prophecy: say the short prayer, aloud or in your head.
  3. Throw the die three times. Tap the button, shake your phone, or throw your own real die and tap in the numbers.
  4. The three numbers, in order, name one of 216 lines of Homer (6 × 6 × 6).
  5. Read the line as Apollo's answer to your question. Its meaning is for you to work out, as it was for the ancients; the reading underneath will help you.

Your question and answers stay on this device.

Your past answers
    How do we know?
    • ✔ A real oracle. The list survives on a papyrus roll from Roman Egypt, now in the British Library (Papyrus 121, about the 4th century AD). It begins with 216 single lines from the Iliad and Odyssey, each numbered by three throws of a die. Two more copies survive in part, from Oxyrhynchus and Bologna, and they agree with it.
    • ✔ How to use it. The Oxyrhynchus copy gives the instructions: know the days when the oracle may be used, call on Apollo with the prayer and ask for what you want, then throw the die three times and find the line. The papyrus calls itself Homeromanteion, "Homer oracle".
    • ✔ Why "Oracle of Apollo"? The papyrus calls itself the Homeromanteion, the "Homer oracle". But its instructions begin by calling on Apollo, god of prophecy, and its prayer is to him, so the answers were understood as his, spoken through Homer's lines.
    • ✔ Homer as scripture. Greeks treated Homer's poems as a source of wisdom, and lines picked at random could be read as messages from the gods.
    • ✔ Pieced together. The start of the London roll is torn into fragments. In 1995 Franco Maltomini fitted them back together, checked them on the original, and used the two other copies to fill gaps. Today 204 lines are known; 8 are lost completely and 4 survive only as scraps. If you throw one of those, the oracle is silent.
    • ✔ A hidden word. The first letters of the first five lines (throws 1-1-1 to 1-1-5) spell ΑΘΗΝΑ, Athena: Ἄνδρ’, Θαρσῶν, Ἦ ῥα, Νίκην, Ἀλλ’. This acrostic shows that the order Maltomini worked out for the torn first column is right.
    • ✔ Another name. The Oxyrhynchus copy says the oracle could also be called "the Scimitar" (a curved sword). No one is sure why; it may echo a spell called "the Sword of Dardanos".
    • ? The readings are ours. The papyrus gives only the line. The theme, the reading, the scene in Homer and the five areas of life are a modern guide written for this app, to help you think about what the line might mean for you.
    • ? The ritual around it beyond the prayer to Apollo (purification, offerings) is not known. Here you say a short prayer of our own (the papyrus prayer is there too), think of your question and throw.

    Papyrus: F. G. Kenyon, Greek Papyri in the British Museum I (1893), papyrus CXXI; the list of lines follows F. Maltomini, "P. Lond. 121 (= PGM VII), 1–221: Homeromanteion", ZPE 106 (1995) 107–122. Greek of Homer: Monro and Allen (Iliad), Murray 1919 (Odyssey), via the Perseus Digital Library. English: our own translation. Die: the "Zeus die", drawn for this app. Sounds: Kenney (CC0).