Didyma (; ) was an
ancient Greek sanctuary on the coast of
Ionia. It contained a
temple and
oracle of
Apollo, the
Didymaion. In Greek
didyma means "twin", but the Greeks who sought a "twin" at Didyma ignored the
Carian origin of the name. Next to
Delphi, Didyma was the most renowned oracle of the Hellenic world, first mentioned among the Greeks in the
Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Its establishment preceded literacy and even the Hellenic colonization of Ionia. Mythic genealogies of the origins of the Branchidae line of priests, designed to capture the origins of Didyma as a Hellenic tradition, date to the
Hellenistic period.
