DODONA (Δωδώνη), ORACLE of. — In Epirus, in the present-day valley of Olytsika. Certainly the most ancient oracle of Greece.
Through the rustling of the leaves of a sacred oak (elsewhere, however, a φηγός is mentioned: Hesiod, frg. 134, 212, and others), Zeus made his will known (Od., XIV, 327 ff.; XIX, 296 ff.). It cannot be determined from these accounts, the most ancient ones, whether the oak of D. already belonged to the Mediterranean civilization or was an introduction of the Indo-Europeans.
The Zeus worshipped at D. bore the epithet Naios, as frequently appears in inscriptions and more rarely in literature. Νάτος (also νέος) is to be connected with νάσιν, to flow; and this suggested that D. was originally a hydromantic oracle (the fact is characteristic that the companion of Zeus Naios, Dione, is cited by Hesiod, Theogonia, 353, among the Oceanids). The first to interpret it in this sense were Latin writers: Pliny (Nat. hist., 4, 2), who, citing Theopompus, reported that there were very many springs in the valley; and Servius (ad Aen., III, 466), who even asserted that a spring issued from the roots of the sacred oak, and that oracles were drawn from its bubbling (cf. also Pomponius Mela, II, 43). As for Dione, who at D. also bore the attribute Nais, she was the feminine counterpart of Zeus.
The god’s ὑποφῆται, ἀντιτόποδες, χαματεύωνι (Il., XIV, 233 ff.), whose exact designation was already disputed among the ancients (Ἐλλόι: Hesiod, frg. 134; Pindar, frg. 59, and others. Elsewhere, however, Σελλόι), were a γένος devoted to the worship of Dodonaean Zeus. Their attributes are not easy to interpret: ἀντιτόποδα, in fact, is recorded, apart from the Homeric passage, only once more in the Hellenic world (in Asia Minor: an inscription pertaining to the cult of Zeus Λαράσιος), and there is no other information concerning sleeping on the bare ground. By reporting these customs, which perhaps represented a ritual prescription, Homer certainly did not intend to designate a barbarous cult, as was proposed,
nor is the hypothesis convincing that the ὑποφῆται in this manner obtained inspiration from the earth through “incubation.” Even if this were so, the connection between sleeping on the bare ground and not washing one’s feet would still remain inexplicable.
The method of consulting the oracle (originally the questions were written on lead tablets, and the answer recorded upon them was very often limited to a yes or no [cf. Cicero, De div., 1, 76]) and its organization underwent changes over time: on the one hand, priestesses were introduced (the Peleiads, of whom there were three according to Erodopo [II, 55 ff.], who relates an etiological myth to explain their innovation; Plato, Pedro, 275, and others), while, on the other, beginning in the fourth century B.C., prophecies were drawn from the resonating of a χαλκείον. In the historical period, D.’s fortunes were considerably eclipsed by those of Delphi.