DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0426
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CHAPTER XIV.
d0d0na and the oracles.
One of the most interesting spots in Greek legend and
tradition is Dodona, the religious centre of the rudest
and most primitive tribes of Greece; perhaps at one
time the religious centre of the whole Greek race. The
site of the sacred place was discovered and excavated
by M. Carapanos ; and his interesting results are pub-
lished to the world in a monumental book * written in
French.
There are many indications in the customs and ritual
widely prevalent in Greece of the effects produced upon
the Hellenic race by the physical features of Southern
Epirus. Everywhere in Greece the river Achelous was
regarded as the parent and the type of rivers ; and the
Dodonaean oracle constantly bade all who made applica-
tion there to offer a sacrifice to Achelous. Near Dodona
were two other streams also, named Acheron and Cocytus,
which seem to be prototypes of the rivers which flowed,
according to the imagination of the epic poets, through
the fields of the world beyond the grave.
The divine cultus, which had its seat at Dodona,
belongs to the deepest and most fundamental strata of
Hellenic relieion. The deities to whom it attached were
a triad, called by the names of Zeus, Dione and Aphro-
dite. Similar triads, though bearing other names, are to
be found in other places where that proto-Greek set of
* Dodonc et ses Rui?ies.
CHAPTER XIV.
d0d0na and the oracles.
One of the most interesting spots in Greek legend and
tradition is Dodona, the religious centre of the rudest
and most primitive tribes of Greece; perhaps at one
time the religious centre of the whole Greek race. The
site of the sacred place was discovered and excavated
by M. Carapanos ; and his interesting results are pub-
lished to the world in a monumental book * written in
French.
There are many indications in the customs and ritual
widely prevalent in Greece of the effects produced upon
the Hellenic race by the physical features of Southern
Epirus. Everywhere in Greece the river Achelous was
regarded as the parent and the type of rivers ; and the
Dodonaean oracle constantly bade all who made applica-
tion there to offer a sacrifice to Achelous. Near Dodona
were two other streams also, named Acheron and Cocytus,
which seem to be prototypes of the rivers which flowed,
according to the imagination of the epic poets, through
the fields of the world beyond the grave.
The divine cultus, which had its seat at Dodona,
belongs to the deepest and most fundamental strata of
Hellenic relieion. The deities to whom it attached were
a triad, called by the names of Zeus, Dione and Aphro-
dite. Similar triads, though bearing other names, are to
be found in other places where that proto-Greek set of
* Dodonc et ses Rui?ies.