Famous Prophecies: From Delphi to Nostradamus

For as long as humans have worried about tomorrow, they have searched for someone who could see beyond it. Kings consulted prophets before going to war, emperors asked astrologers about their reigns, and ordinary people visited seers hoping to glimpse what lay ahead.

Practices like fortune-telling and divination tend to do two things, says David Zeitlyn, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oxford. First, they encourage people to look beyond their immediate assumptions, “promoting consideration of a wider range of possibilities and making people think outside their own particular boxes.” Second, they can instill confidence when the future feels uncertain, “giving people the courage to act when it might feel safer to do nothing.”

Across centuries and cultures, certain fortune-tellers became famous not only for their predictions, but also for the influence those predictions had on political decisions, religious beliefs and cultural imagination.

In ancient Greece, no fortune-teller held greater authority than the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo’s temple at Delphi. For centuries, people traveled across the Mediterranean seeking her guidance. The Pythia was not a single person but a title held by different women over nearly a thousand years, from at least the eighth century B.C. to the late fourth century A.D. During rituals, she entered a trance-like state and delivered cryptic prophecies believed to be messages from Apollo, himself, often about wars, political alliances and the fate of cities.

Yet the extraordinary influence of Delphi might have owed as much to wealth and reputation as to divine inspiration. “Probably the reasons were mainly unrelated to the actual oracle at first,” explains Hugh Bowden, a professor of ancient history at King’s College London. The sanctuary gained prestige through royal patronage, receiving “rich dedications from the kings of Lydia from the seventh century onwards,” making it one of the wealthiest religious centers in the Greek world. This prosperity reinforced its authority. “If a sanctuary is flourishing, it means the god is powerful and helpful,” Bowden says.

One of the oracle’s most famous prophecies involved Croesus, the wealthy king of Lydia, an Iron Age kingdom in western Anatolia. As the legend goes, Croesus asked the Pythia whether he should go to war with Persia. The oracle replied that if he crossed the river Halys, a great empire would fall. Croesus assumed the prophecy promised victory. Instead, it was his own kingdom that collapsed when Persia defeated him.

While Delphi dominated Greek prophecy, the Roman world looked to a group of mystic prophetesses known as Sibyls. These seers were believed to speak divine truths in ecstatic visions, and collections of their prophetic verses were made into the Sibylline Books.

According to Roman tradition, government officials consulted these texts whenever strange omens appeared or the state faced disaster. During plagues, military defeats or unusual natural events, priests would search the verses for guidance on how to restore harmony with the gods. In this way, prophecy functioned less as a prediction of the future and more as a tool or guidance for managing uncertainty.

Perhaps no fortune-teller is more famous than the French physician and astrologer Michel de Nostredame, better known as Nostradamus. In 1555, he published Les Prophéties, a collection of nearly 1,000 short verses that he claimed described events far into the future. Written in symbolic and often cryptic language, the quatrains left plenty of room for interpretation. Over the centuries, many have been interpreted as warnings for major historical events.

One passage is often associated with the death of King Henry II of France. Nostradamus wrote of a “young lion” who would defeat an older one in combat, striking him through the eye during a duel. In 1559, Henry II was fatally wounded during a jousting tournament when a lance splinter pierced his eye.

Other verses have been connected to major political upheavals. One passage has been interpreted as the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, describing a leader born near Italy who would wage wars across Europe. Another refers to a figure called “Hister,” which some have interpreted as an allusion to Adolf Hitler.

Nostradamus’ writings have also been associated with disasters and global conflict. One verse is commonly tied to the Great Fire of London in 1666, while others have been interpreted as references to the world wars, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and even the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Nostradamus, the world itself is destined to end in the year 3797.

In early modern Europe, prophecy often took the form of astrology. Court astrologers studied the movements of planets and stars to advise monarchs on political decisions, marriages and military campaigns. Luca Gaurico, a 16th-century astrologer, became known for predicting the rise of powerful church leaders and political figures. Like Nostradamus, he reportedly warned King Henry II of France that he would suffer a fatal head wound during a tournament—a prophecy reportedly dismissed before it appeared to come true years later.

Another influential astrologer, Cosimo Ruggeri, served at the court of Catherine de’ Medici, the powerful queen mother of 16th-century France. Ruggeri allegedly predicted that three of Catherine’s sons would become kings. In the years that followed, Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III each ruled France in succession.

Predictions like these could elevate a diviner’s reputation and influence at court. They also served another purpose: Divination and fortune-telling often provided rulers with a convenient way to justify difficult decisions.

“It can give rulers or powerful people an ‘out,’” says Zeitlyn, that allows them to claim they were simply following the advice of a diviner. If the outcome proved unpopular, responsibility could shift away from the ruler. “If you aren’t happy, then blame the diviner, not the ruler,” he explains. “And if it goes wrong, then again blame the diviner!”

Across thousands of years, fortune-tellers have occupied a curious place between belief and skepticism. Though often ambiguous, their influence on human history, and on humanity’s enduring curiosity about the future, remains undeniable.