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The Oracles. of Zeus The Oracles. of Zeus DODONA · OLYMPIA · AMMON By H. W. PARKE Professor of Ancient History T rini!J College, Dublin HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 1967 © BASIL BLACKWELL 1967 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN To my Wife IYN TE flY• EPXOMEN£U CONTENTS Chapter Page I Dodona in Homer I II The Oak and the Selloi 20 III The Dove and the Origins of Dodona 34 IV Dodona from Hesiod to Sophocles 46 V Dodona in Later Greek Literature So VI Dodona: The Material Remains 94 VII The Responses of Dodona in Literature I 29 VIII Olympia 164 IX Ammon 194 X Dodona and Ammon in the Roman Poets 242 Conclusion 253 Appendix I. A Selection of Enquiries made at Dodona 259 Appendix II. Greek Dedications at Dodona 274 Appendix III. The Hyperborean Gifts 279 Index 287 LIST OF PLATES Between pages I 68-g nonoNA: entrance to the main sanctuary This view is taken from the S.E. corner of the building looking south westward along its front. The late porch can be seen projecting from the wall of the 3rd century building. In the background is Mount Tomaros. 2a THE MAIN SANCTUARY: from the North The view is t.aken from the hill above the site almost immediately below the circuit wall of the Hellenistic town. The late temple building can be seen projecting into the oblong sacred en­ closure. Also the inner colonnade's foundations can be seen on the west and south sides. The east side was probably left open for the sacred oak. Below the sanctuary lies the marshy valley bottom. 2b THE MAIN SANCTUARY! foundations The view is taken from a point inside the temple building looking eastward. The orthostats in the background are part of the back (north) wall of the 3rd century enclosure. The large foundations in the immediate foreground belong to the earliest (4th century) temple, where the outer wall was met at right angles by the inner wall of the naos. Parallel to this foundation, laid with smaller, flatter stones, is the footing of the wall of the later, larger temple (c. 200 B.c.). Meeting it at right angles beyond are the foundations of the inner colonnade (3rd century). 3a OLYMPIA: stadium and the hill ofCronos This view is taken from the embankment at the starting (west) end of the stadium, looking north at the hill, rising sharply above the Altis. Vlll LIST OF PLATES 3b OLYMPIA: from the temple of Zeus This view is taken from the north east corner of the temple of Zeus, looking north to the temple of Hera whose columns can be seen in the middle distance. This space is now cleared, but in ancient times it held on the left the shrine of Pelops and on the right the great altar of Zeus. 4 HEAD OF AMMON Louvre, No. 4235. Probably from Dodona. For a discussion, see pp. 208 and 238, note 23. This is reproduced by permission of M. Jean Charbonneaux, Conservateur en chef du Musee du Louvre. Plate 4 is from a photograph by M. Chugeville: the others from photo­ graphs by Mrs. Nancy B. Parke. PREFACE This book would not have been written if the author had not been given the opportunity by the Institute for Advanced Study of spending a semester at Princeton in zg6o. There I was able to make a start on this subject, working in association with Professor Meritt and Professor Cherniss, and also in the company of my old teacher, Professor Wade-Gery. To all these and others at Princeton who made my stay there enjoyable and useful I am permanently indebted. Fellow scholars in Dublin have given me ready assistance. My former partner in Delphic researches, Professor Wormell, has read and commented on much of the work. Professor Stanford. has supplied some useful references, and colleagues in more distant fields, such as Dr. Webb, Professor of Systematic Botany, and Dr. Grainger, Professor of Zoology, have guided me at times in the literature of their subjects. Mr. Donald Nicol, now of Edinburgh University, but then of University College, Dublin, was of great help in keeping me in touch with publications on Epirus. An even greater debt is due to Professor Hammond of Bristol who allowed me to see and make use of the manuscript of his own work on Epirus, which is due to be published by the Oxford University Press. My obligations to him are also acknow­ ledged in the appropriate footnotes. When the work was nearing completion, two Oxford scholars, W. G. Forrest and John Boardman, read parts and helped me with their criticisms on the presentation. In Jan nina I was able through the kindness of the Ephor of Epirus, S. I. Dakaris, to examine the lead tablets from Dodona, which were shown me in his absence. In Paris Jean Charbonneaux, Conservateur en chef of the Louvre, kindly allowed me to examine and publish a remarkable bronze from his collection. On turning from Delphi to Dodona, Olympia and Ammon, I am very conscious of the fact that, while the copious sources on X PREFACE the Pythian Apollo still leave many questions unsolved, the oracles of Zeus frequently su!rcr from a sheer lack of literary evidence. Excavation at Dodona has helped to fill the gap. A few inscriptions from Olympia add slightly to the knowledge of its priesthood. But Ammon has not been excavated and is as yet scarcely explored. To group the three together in a combined study may even seem rash, as they have only a few links apart from their nominal dedication to one deity. But I hope that readers will find that a separate book devoted to the subject can advance to some small extent our understanding of Apollo's chief rivals. H. w. PARKE CHAPTER I DODONA IN HOMER The story of the Iliad has come to a great turning-point in the action. Yielding to the prayers of Patroclus, Achilles has agreed to send out the Myrmidons under his command against Hector. Homer marks the high significance of this step by the elaborate detail of his description.1 The Myrmidons are marshalled by Achilles in five detachments, and Homer gives a brief account of each of the five leaders. Then for a moment Achilles leaves the courtyard where the troops are assembled. He returns to his tent to fetch the special cup which only he might use and out of which he was accustomed to pour libations to no other god but Zeus. He washes the cup and washes his hands and fills it with wine. Then · he stands in the midst of the courtyard again and utters a prayer. It is not surprising that, after all this preparation and all the suspense which he has introduced, Homer puts into Achilles' mouth a very special invocation, unique in Greek literature: 'Lord Zeus, of Dodona, Pelasgian, dwelling afar, ruling over hard­ wintered Dodona-and around dwell the Selloi your interpreters, of unwashen feet, sleeping on the ground.' It is the first appearance of the oracle ofDodona in a Greek author and the dramatic vigour of the presentation is equalled by its obscurity of meaning. Scarcely a word in the passage but received its annotation in ancient scholarship, and this fact clearly indicates that Greek readers in the classical and Hellenistic periods found these sen­ tences almost as strange and puzzling as the modems do. They evidently knew po convenient parallels for some of the words, not even in authors !since lost, nor did they discover such practices in the contemporary oracle as would supply a satisfactory interpreta­ tion. So all they could do in some instances was to work out the probable meaning from the apparent derivations of the words and guess from that to the significance lying behind. Modem scholars are. in much the same position, except in so far as the work of anthropologists has to some extent deepened the 2 THE ORACLES OF ZEUS understanding of primitive cults. Iflike the ancient commentators we take the sentence word by word these are the rather limited results which we get: 'Lord' (ava) is the vocative of the ancient term used in Linear B script for the king, who may in the Myce­ naean period have been divine. In Homer this form itself is like Achilles' cup: it is only used in addressing prayers to Zeus. So it strikes at once the proper note of religious solemnity. Some scholiasts did not recognize the form and tried erroneously to combine it with the next adjective into a single word 'Anadodo­ naean'.2 But this only serves to show how strange the expression sounded to later ears. 'Of Dodona': superficially this raises no difficulties. From classical literature and from excavation we know that Zeus was long worshipped at the site in Epirus which the Greeks called 'Dodona' and which is now Tcharacovitsa, eighteen kilometres south-west of Jannina. The ancient commentators noted a minor point of interest: Homer, when writing in his own person, never uses local epithets of the gods. He only puts them into the mouths. of his characters when praying.3 His practice when explained in this way need not raise any doubts about the form of the word, but the fact that Homer rarely uses such epithets may have been the ground on which Zenodotus, the earliest Alexandrian editor of Homer, wished to substitute 'Phegonaie' meaning 'of the oak tree' (phegos) or perhaps better 'of the place of the oak tree'.4 The im­ portance of the oak at Dodona and in connection with Zeus needs full discussion later, s but it has no business to intrude into this passage in Homer.
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