# Bakis

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{{Short description|Multiple ancient Greek seers}}
{{other|Bakis (surname)}}
[[File:Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson, The Bacidae 1883 (two priestesses of Bacis in a prophetic ecstasy reading chicken entrails).jpg|thumb|''The Bacidae'' 1883 by [Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson](/source/Sarah_Paxton_Ball_Dodson) (two soothsayers, called Bacidae, in a prophetic ecstasy reading chicken entrails).]]
'''Bakis''' (also '''Bacis'''; {{langx|grc|Βάκις}}) is a general name for the inspired [prophet](/source/prophet)s and dispensers of [oracle](/source/oracle)s who flourished in [Greece](/source/Ancient_Greece) from the 8th to the 6th century [B.C.](/source/Before_Christ)<ref name="Realencyclopädie" /> Philetas of Ephesus,<ref name="Suda">[Suda](/source/Suda) s. v. Βάκις</ref> [Aelian](/source/Claudius_Aelianus)<ref>Aelian, ''Various Histories'', 12. 35</ref> and [John Tzetzes](/source/John_Tzetzes)<ref>[Tzetzes](/source/Tzetzes) on [Lycophron](/source/Lycophron), 1278</ref> distinguish between three: a [Boeotia](/source/Boeotia)n, an [Arcadia](/source/Arcadia_(ancient_region))n and an [Athenian](/source/Ancient_Athens).

==The Boeotian==
The first Bakis, a native of Eleon in Boeotia, who was the most famous, was said to have been inspired by the nymphs of the [Corycian Cave](/source/Corycian_Cave). His oracles, of which specimens are extant in [Herodotus](/source/Herodotus) and [Pausanias](/source/Pausanias_(geographer)), were written in [hexameter](/source/hexameter) verse, and were considered to have been strikingly fulfilled.  Apocryphal oracular pronouncements in [dactylic hexameter](/source/dactylic_hexameter)s circulated under his name during times of stress, such as the [Persian](/source/Achaemenid_Empire) and [Peloponnesian War](/source/Peloponnesian_War)s.<ref>[Pausanias](/source/Pausanias_(geographer)), ''Description of Greece'', 4. 27. 4; 9. 17. 5; 10. 12. 11; 10. 14. 6; 10. 32. 8 – 9</ref><ref>[Herodotus](/source/Herodotus), ''Histories'', 8. 20 & 77; 9. 43</ref><ref>[Scholia](/source/Scholia) on [Aristophanes](/source/Aristophanes), ''Peace'', 1070; on ''Horsemen'', 123</ref><ref>[Cicero](/source/Cicero), ''On Divination'', 1. 18. 34</ref>

==The Arcadian==
The Arcadian Bakis was believed to have originated from [Caphyae](/source/Caphyae) and to have also been known as Aletes or Cydas. He was said to have cured the women of [Sparta](/source/Sparta) of a fit of madness.<ref name="Suda" /><ref>[Scholia](/source/Scholia) on [Aristophanes](/source/Aristophanes), ''Peace'', 1070; on ''Birds'', 962</ref> Many of the oracles which were current under his name have been attributed to [Onomacritus](/source/Onomacritus).

==The Athenian==
Extant sources provide no information on this Bakis. However, according to Suda, Bakis was also an epithet of [Peisistratus](/source/Peisistratos_of_Athens).<ref name="Suda" /> From this one may conclude that oracular poetry was popular at the times of Peisistratus, and that he himself wrote poetry of this kind.<ref name="Realencyclopädie" />

==Evolution of the term "Bakis"==
According to [Erwin Rohde](/source/Erwin_Rohde), "Bakis" was a title originally applied to any one of a class of ecstatic seers, but later came to be thought of as the proper name of an individual. There was also a verb βακίζω "to prophesy", secondarily derived from the name Bakis (similar to the case of σιβυλλίζω : Σίβυλλα "[Sibyl](/source/Sibyl)").<ref name="Realencyclopädie">''[Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft](/source/Realencyclop%C3%A4die_der_Classischen_Altertumswissenschaft)'', Band II, Halbband 4, Artemisia-Barbaroi (1896), ss. 2801 – 2802</ref>

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Bakis}} which in turn cites:
**[Herodotus](/source/Herodotus), ''Histories'', 8. 20, 77, 9. 43
**[Pausanias](/source/Pausanias_(geographer)), ''Description of Greece'', 4. 27, 9. 17, 10. 12
**[Scholia](/source/Scholia) on [Aristophanes](/source/Aristophanes), ''Peace'', 1070
**[Göttling](/source/Karl_Wilhelm_G%C3%B6ttling), ''Opuscula Academica'' (1869)

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bakis}}
Category:7th-century BC clergy
Category:6th-century BC clergy
Category:Classical oracles
Category:Archaic Greek seers
Category:Ancient Boeotians

{{AncientGreece-stub}}

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