Greek Texts & Translations

THE oracle was formerly at Scotussa, a city of Pelasgiotis, but was transferred to Dodona by the command of Apollo, after some persons had burnt down the tree. The oracular answers were not conveyed by words, but by certain signs, as at the oracle of Ammon in Libya. Probably the three doves made some peculiar flight, which, observed by the priestesses, suggested the oracular answer. Some say that, in the language of the Molotti and Thesprote, old women are called peliae, and old men pelii, so that the celebrated doves were probably not birds, but three old women who passed an idle time about the temple. EPIT. 2

Among the Thesprotae and Molotti old women are called peliae, and old men pelii, as among the Macedonians. Persons at least who hold office are called peligones, as among the Laconians and Massilienses they are called ge- rontes. Hence it is asserted that the story of the doves in the oak at Dodona is a fable. E. 3

The proverb, The brazen vessel of Dodona, thus arose. In the temple was a brazen vessel, having over it a statue of a man (an offering of the Corcyraeans) grasping in the hand a brazen scourge of three thongs, woven in chains, from which were suspended small bones. The bones striking continually upon the brazen vessel, whenever they were agitated by the wind, produced a long protracted sound, so that a person from the beginning to the end of the vibrations might proceed to count as far as four hundred. Whence also came the proverb, The Corcyraean scourge. ^note EPIT. 4

Paeonia is to the east of these nations, and to the west of the Thracian mountains; on the north it lies above Macedonia. Through the city Gortynium and Stobi it admits of a passage to * * * (through which the Axius flows, and renders the access difficult from Paeonia into Macedonia, as