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Bakis (alsoBacis;Ancient Greek:Βάκις) is a general name for the inspiredprophets and dispensers oforacles who flourished inGreece from the 8th to the 6th centuryB.C.[1] Philetas of Ephesus,[2]Aelian[3] andJohn Tzetzes[4] distinguish between three: aBoeotian, anArcadian and anAthenian.
The first Bakis, a native of Eleon in Boeotia, who was the most famous, was said to have been inspired by the nymphs of theCorycian Cave. His oracles, of which specimens are extant inHerodotus andPausanias, were written inhexameter verse, and were considered to have been strikingly fulfilled. Apocryphal oracular pronouncements indactylic hexameters circulated under his name during times of stress, such as thePersian andPeloponnesian Wars.[5][6][7][8]
The Arcadian Bakis was believed to have originated fromCaphyae and to have also been known as Aletes or Cydas. He was said to have cured the women ofSparta of a fit of madness.[2][9] Many of the oracles which were current under his name have been attributed toOnomacritus.
Extant sources provide no information on this Bakis. However, according to Suda, Bakis was also an epithet ofPeisistratus.[2] From this one may conclude that oracular poetry was popular at the times of Peisistratus, and that he himself wrote poetry of this kind.[1]
According toErwin 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").[1]
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