DODONA (Δωδώνη), ORACLE OF. — In Epirus, in the present-day valley of Olytsika. Certainly the most ancient oracle in Greece.
From the rustling of the leaves of a sacred oak (elsewhere, however, reference is made to a *phēgós*: Hesiod, frg. 134, 212, and others) Zeus made known his will (Od., XIV, 327 ff.; XIX, 296 ff.). From these earliest accounts it cannot be determined whether the oak of D. already belonged to Mediterranean culture or was an introduction by the Indo-Europeans.
The Zeus worshipped at D. bore the epithet *Naios*, as is frequently attested in inscriptions and rarely in literature. *Náios* (also *néos*) is connected with *néos*, "to flow"; and this suggested that at D. there was originally an oracular spring (characteristic is the fact that Zeus Naios’ companion, Dione, is listed by Hesiod, *Theogony*, 353, among the Oceanids). This view was first espoused by Latin writers: Pliny (*Nat. hist.*, 4, 2), who, citing Theopompus, reported that in the valley there were very many springs; Servius (*ad Aen.*, III, 466), who even claimed that a spring gushed from the roots of the sacred oak, and that oracles were drawn from its bubbling (cf. also Pomponius Mela, II, 43). As for Dione, she too bore at D. the attribute *Naios*, and was the feminine counterpart of Zeus.
The *hypophētai* of the god, *antiprosodos*, *chamaientai* (Il., XIV, 233 ff.), for whom even among the ancients the exact designation was controversial (*Ellopoi*: Hesiod, frg. 134; Pindar, frg. 59 and others. Elsewhere, however, *Sellopoi*), were young men devoted to the cult of Zeus of Dodona. Their attributes are not easily interpreted: the *antiprosodos* of Phthia is recorded, apart from the Homeric passage, only once in the Hellenic world (in Asia Minor: an inscription from a temple of Zeus *Aspásios*) and no other information exists regarding sleeping on bare ground. With the mention of these customs, which perhaps represented a ritual prescription, Homer certainly did not intend to designate a barbarian cult, as has been proposed, nor is the hypothesis convincing that the *hypophētai* thus drew inspiration for "incubation" from the earth. Even if this were so, the connection between sleeping on bare ground and not washing one’s feet would remain inexplicable.
The system of consulting the oracle (originally questions were written on lead tablets, and the response recorded thereon was often limited to a yes or no [cf. Cicero, *De div.*, I, 76]) and its organization underwent changes over time: on the one hand, priestesses were introduced (though epigraphy ignores them) (the *Peleiades*, and there were three according to Eratosthenes [II, 55 ff.], who recounts an aetiological myth to explain this innovation; Plato, *Phaedrus*, 275, and others), and on the other, from the 4th century B.C. onwards, prophecies were drawn from the sound of a *chalkísion*. In historical times, the fortune of D. was considerably overshadowed by that of Delphi.