“It is a testament to Delphi’s unparalleled tenacity and ability to survive that Heliodorus wrote his novel about the love affair at Delphi and about Delphi’s crucial place at the center of a connected Mediterranean society not in the hey-day of the classical world, but in the third or fourth centuries AD, on the cusp of the Mediterranean world’s gradual conversion to Christianity and the end of pagan sanctuaries like the one at Delphi.⁵ And yet, even in this twilight, Delphi’s description glows bright. More tellingly, Heliodorus’s description echoes that of another ancient writer, the geographer Strabo, who labeled Delphi, above all, as a theatron: a theater.⁶ It was a space in which most of the moments that mattered in the history of the ancient world were played out, reflected on, or altered. As a result, an understanding of the ancient world and, I would argue, of humankind itself, is incomplete without an understanding of Delphi.”