The Oracle Inscriptions discovered at Dodona

E. S. Roberts

doi:10.2307/623622

The Oracle Inscriptions discovered at Dodona

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 August 2012

E. S. Roberts

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Students of archaeology are now familiar with the splendid work in which Constantin Carapanos two years ago gave to the world the results of his discoveries at Dodona. The vexed question of the site of the ancient temple was finally set at rest, it will be remembered, by the discovery of a large number of inscriptions recording dedications to Zeus Naïos and Dione. The immense quantity of relics and works of art brought to light in the course of the excavations has been exhaustively catalogued in the work, Dodone et ses Ruines, and they have been illustrated and described by various scholars and reviewers. The inscriptions, too, have, at least on the Continent, come in for some share of notice and criticism. A detailed account of these inscriptions—their contributions to the lexicon, to dialectology, to local and general history, and to topography—is still a desideratum. For, as was only to be expected, the interpretations and criticisms of Carapanos himself are rather general than critical. His text, moreover, is frequently open to objection.

In a classification of these inscriptions our attention is at once drawn to an obviously new category; and it is with this alone that we propose to concern ourselves in the present article. The category comprises a quantity of more or less legible inscriptions engraved upon one or both sides of leaden plates often not exceeding a millimetre in thickness. These plates form a unique series of documents belonging to the archives of the famous oracle at Dodona, and contain the questions addressed, or prayers offered, to the deity by his votaries, who might be either communities or individuals.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 1 , November 1880 , pp. 228 - 241

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/623622 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1880

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^{page 230 note 1} Perhaps a reminiscence of this meaning of sortes lurks in the Vergilian use of the word. Compare

‘Italiam Lyciae iussere capessere sortes.’ Aen. iv. 346

‘Hic ego namque tuas sortes arcanaque fata,

Dicta meae genti, ponam.’ Aen. vi. 72, 73.

And in the next line—

‘Foliis tantum ne carmina manda.’

^{page 230 note 2} So Carapanos supplements Pl. xxxvi. No. 4, reverse; but it may just as well be θεὸν or θεῷ.

^{page 231 note 1} Carapanos cites the passage in support of his conjecture that a shrine to Aphrodite existed on the spot where he discovered a small wheel of bronze with the dedication: (Pl. xxvi. 1).

^{page 232 note 1} Mr. P. Gardner points out to me that this aspirate is not unusual on coins of Tarentum.

^{page 232 note 2} See however Meister, , Curt, . Studien, &c., iv. 360.Google Scholar

^{page 233 note 1} —Pl. xxxiv. 2. ἀσφαλῆ is best explained as neuter plural.

^{page 233 note 2} Pl. xxxiv. 3 bis.

^{page 233 note 3} —Pl. xxxiv. 4.

^{page 234 note 1} —Pl. xxxiv. 3.

^{page 234 note 2} To judge from the character of the letters, the second century B.C., according to Rangabé, , Arch. Zeitung, vol. xxxvi. p. 118.Google Scholar

^{page 235 note 1} Whatever sound is here assumed for the β (whether a B- sound or a V- or a W- sound) it is perfectly compatible with a genuine diphthongal pronunciation of a preceding αυ, ευ, ηυ.

^{page 235 note 2} —Pl. xxxvi. 5.

^{page 235 note 3} —Pl. xxxv. 2.

^{page 235 note 4} (a)

(b)

^{page 236 note 1} —Pl. xxxvi. 1. On the reverse, ΑΓ and Β.

^{page 236 note 2} For the interchange between the terminations -αω, -οω, -εω in the so-called contracted verbs, it may suffice to refer to Curtius, Das Verbum, &c. (Eng. ed. p. 244, sqq.)

^{page 236 note 3} —Pl. xxxvi. 2.

The omission of the iota in ἐρωτῆ finds its parallel in inscriptions of a somewhat late date, as this may well be; and even in so old a document as the Tabulae Heraclienses, e.g. ἀμμισθωθῆ, i. 112.

^{page 237 note 1} The name Ἄννα occurs in C. I. G. 4003 b (Phrygian), 4315 c (Lycian), 4379 g (Pisidian), and in several Christian inscriptions.

^{page 237 note 2} —Pl. xxxvii. 4.

The plate containing this inscription is literally ‘scribbled over.’ On the first side can be recognised the words Τὸν Δία τὸν Δωδωναῖον and some letters of two other inscriptions in large character. On the reverse there are no fewer than four inscriptions: the few decipherable words of one seem to be part of some enquiry touching conjugal fidelity.

^{page 237 note 3} Compare also the υἷ κα βώλωνται of a Cretan (Doric) inscription (a treaty between the Hierapytnians and Magnetes, Cauer, No. 461. It is on the same stone with two others, one of which is Rhodian).

^{page 237 note 4} Pl. xxviii. 2, This document is interesting as being without example in history. Perhaps what is meant is merely something like the honorary title of fratres accorded by the Romans to the Aedui (Caes. B. G. i. 43; Tac. Ann. xi. 25; Cic. Att. i. 19). The decree is engraved ‘au pointillé’ on a plate of bronze.

^{page 237 note 5} —Pl. xxxviii. 1.

^{page 238 note 1} It is doubtless a locative form used for the dative, as is plainly the case in the Elean Damocrates-inscription lines 21 and 28 (Cauer, No. 116).

^{page 238 note 2} —Pl. xxxviii. 3.

^{page 238 note 3} —Pl. xxxviii. 2.

πινάκια in C. I. G. 76, are according to Boeckh ‘syngraphae mutui, diptychis s. codicillis inscriptae,’ and on the word in C. I. G. 50, which is a list of donaria (§ 33, ), he remarks, ‘exiguam puto tabellam operis tessellati esse, quales nos quoque in anulis gestamus.’